The Psychology which drives the EU’s control-freakery

The Balance of Power tipped disastrously on two occasions in the twentieth century and the big boys dominating the playground came to blows. In both cases one of the chief belligerents was Germany who, as a result, and after severe punishment and deserved demonization, is now afraid of its own shadow. To solve this problem and the wider problem of the propensity of European nations to go to war with each other much of national identity, especially Germany’s, has been subsumed in the kind of pressure cooker which is the EU. In it you get to put your snout in the trough of trade provided that you subsume identity, a process that is supposed to guard against the terrifying spectre of further wars. This is the most pragmatic of bargains.

The problem with this is that to subsume identity and autonomy goes against everything that people and nations are and, specifically, what “liberal” nations are supposed to be. Sure it’s a risk to have a lot of autonomous nations rubbing shoulders with one another but the powder keg the alternative might engender is perhaps worse. To say that having these autonomous nations co-habiting and competing is desirable is simply to say that we have to allow the human, political and national condition to obtain and then to take it as it comes. No one can neurotically control history, as the EU, perhaps, has tried to do, for very long. Ultimately what will be will be. You have to go into the future with best intentions and hopefulness.