I was as surprised as anyone by the decision of the UK electorate to leave the European Union. I've long been a "Eurosceptic," for lack of a better term, but was sure that the uncertainty created by leaving the European political and economic community would turn the tide for the remain camp. I'm not skeptical of the EU because I don't like the idea of it, or can't see the benefits of it. I've been a skeptic from the beginning of the long term viability of the EU for the same reason I don't believe in socialism: it's a political, economic and social construct that goes contrary to human nature.
I'm using "human nature" here in a very broad sense. I'm not suggesting the the EU is an abomination crying to Heaven for vengeance, or somehow runs afoul of the Divine will. What I am saying is that there is a part of us, ingrained, that has a love of country, be that territory large or small, formally constituted and recognized by the UN, or is simply a geographical expression, that is not easily extinguished. Along with a sense of nationhood comes a cultural identity, that involves varied aspects of a people's communal life, from the food we prefer to the form of government we adopt. Any attempt to pave over national loyalties or flatten out cultural differences will never succeed indefinitely, unless you go the Assyria route; that is disperse the vanquished, assimilating them among the nations. So, short of forced inter-ethnic breeding, eventually a people's natural sense of being a part of something larger than themselves as individuals, yet distinct from their global neighbors, will break through.
As I wrote, this is not to say that the European Union is an unreasonable proposition. The main justification for the EU's existence is that it supplies a common transcontinental economic market that benefits all Europeans, and with it the free transport of people and goods over international boarders, which have essentially been erased. This may be true, but what the European Union is really about, on one level, is avoiding World War III, or at least another large scale European land war. The operative theory here being that countries with interdependent economies are less likely to wage war on one another. On another level (and this is where the skepticism come in) I'd argue that it's about France and Germany exercising political and economic hegemony over the continent. I liken it to a reestablishing of the Holy Roman Empire, secular-technocrat style. I think the first reason is understandable considering Europe's history of destructive intra-continental wars over the past five hundred years (the last century in particular). The other is just an elitist power grab under a noble pretext. I'm certainly right about the first motive (the official EU website says as much). You might take issue with me on the EU's second raison d'être - but I'll stand by it.
All this is predicated on the idea that the diverse ethnic and national groups of Europe will be able to find common cause with each other. But what do people in Ireland and Poland have in common? They once shared a common religion, Catholicism, which is still relatively strong in Poland but has been all but abandoned by the Irish. Otherwise they are different ethnically, culturally and linguistically. The same can be said of Portugal and Greece or Finland and Cyprus, and any number of other random pairings of European nations. Europe possesses a great diversity of cultures and language groups with very little in common other than an accident of geography - yet they are expected to join together in, not just an economic partnership, but a political union as well.
This is a difficult proposition. The (unholy) Romans were able to keep a far flung, multicultural, polyglot empire together for quite a long time by force of arms (the Pax Romana wasn't always so peaceful). They also had the wisdom to allow the conquered to maintain as much of their national autonomy as possible (as long as they paid their taxes to the Caesar of course and, with the notable exception of the Jews, offered his image a sacrifice of incense once in a while). They also built roads and water systems that benefited the entire Mediterranean Basin and beyond. The EU isn't content to collect taxes and build aqueducts, but looks to form a superstate which passes and enforces rules and regulations, binding on all the peoples of Europe no matter their culture or local traditions. They don't enforce their rule by military might (as of now), but by economic sanction and PC shamming.
To reiterate, there are good reasons for the EU. Since we are so far removed from World War II it's lost on many of us just how destructive that conflict and World War I were to European society. We may not be aware, as well, of the fact that there were four major wars in Europe between 1853 and 1945 that cost hundreds of millions of lives. Add to that the continent has a long history of wars of religion, wars of conquest, civil wars, dynastic wars and, revolutions. The desire to join together in common economic and political cause so as to avoid future calamity makes sense.
There is one problem. It is a myth to think that people will be and stay united for purely economic motives. This is one of the great contemporary heresies that has taken root; the primacy of the economic in human affairs. Economics is important, but eventually all economics, like all politics, is local. People in Germany don't want to continually bail out Greece and Greece will tire of having to accept debt relief conditions from Brussels, no matter how just they may be in the eyes of the other member states. I've read that some EU officials envision a federal system similar to the United States that would make regulatory enforcement possible, but the US and EU are different realities. In spite of the call for states rights from time to time in the US, Wisconsin really doesn't see itself as a different nation from Arizona. Even a possible Texit, the often rumored secession of Texas from the Union, is unlikely - though not completely unimaginable. This is because we have a common history, a common language, a diverse but still mostly common culture. The US doesn't stay together because its economically expedient. We stay together because of a common history forged through common struggle. Europe has the struggle, but none of the cohesion.
There is an irony in all this. Some of the regional independence movements, like in Catalonia and Scotland, want to break from Spain and the UK, respectively, while staying in the EU. They are too weak not to be vassals of somebody, but think it's better to be under a distant, faceless lord than the one locally they know too well and never liked much anyway. It's to the EU's advantage for the nation states to break down into their regions, gaining independence of a sort, while remaining linked to the union because of their inability to be truly independent, autonomous states. The whole menagerie of nation-less ethic enclaves then become easier for a centralized federal European government to control.
But how long will their fealty last before these small groups feel somehow neglected and discriminated against by the powers that be? How long before nationalist movements arise - not calling for the same borders as before, necessarily - to assert their local autonomy against the entrenched, centralized bureaucracy?
The great over reach of the EU is that they are not content with an economic alliance, but are seeking to build an empire. Unlike Napoleon or Hitler, they're doing it without firing a shot, and I give these imperial architects the benefit of humanitarian good will. But like both men, the masters of the EU, even if they differ from those despots in their intentions and methods, will find it difficult to hold their conquests together. With no common cultural thread to bind them, the economic one will prove insufficient over the not so long term.
Europe had a binding force at one time - Christianity. When Christendom was in bloom Europe was far from idyllic (there was the Hundred Years War, among other conflicts). But there was also great movements people, commerce and ideas across a continent united by a common faith with a common language, Latin. Religion and culture go hand in hand, shaping and influencing each other (I've heard it argued that there is no lasting culture without religion). Religion, the Christian religion, proved to be the binding cultural force that helped a united Europe, in spite of it's ethnic, linguistic and cultural diversity, to resist invasions from the East on several occasions. It was Catholic thinkers like Augustine and Aquinas who brought Platonic and Aristotelian reasoning into the Western mainstream. Contrary to what many atheists and agnostics would like you to believe, it was Christian Europe that developed the university system and scientific method, and many priests have been at the forefront of scientific research.
Without Christianity, and the Catholic Church, Europe as it is today wouldn't exist, yet contemporary Europe has rejected it's Christian roots. It began jettisoning Christianity intellectually with the Enlightenment and legally with the French Revolution. The wars Europe has suffered since then, each one more destructive than the one before it, had nothing to do with religion, but were fueled by secular humanist ideologies with the goals of political and economic domination. It now is relying on economic interests, guided by secular humanist principles, to fill the role religion once had - with the same goals in mind. It reminds me of a popular definition insanity: doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.
I hope Europe can avoid war in the future, and I don't believe that another large scale continental conflict is inevitable, but Europe will never find lasting peace and unity apart from its Christian identity. I certainly don't believe that they will be able to resist the clear and present danger presented by radical Islamists without the spiritual roots Christianity provided them in the past.
The EU has imperial goals, lets not fool ourselves, but they don't have the intestinal fortitude to accomplish it - because they really don't believe in anything. They don't believe in their own heritage, anyway, or in the values that brought them this far. They have sown in the flesh since 1789, abandoning their vital spiritual roots, and are, and have been, reaping corruption, but seem to be in denial about it. They are so invested in a Christendom without Christ that many of the intellectual and political class are too blind to stop, look and reexamine their secular methods which have failed them over and over again.
In the wake of the Brexit, my guess is that the EU, feeling wounded, will double down on trying to solidify their transcontinental experiment. I didn't think that it had a future in the early '90's, and I see nothing now to dissuade me from that opinion. The EU has no future because it has no spiritual roots. It had one cultural dynamic that could have given it a chance at uniting the continent's diverse groups - the Christian faith, and it rejected it. The only hope Europe has at gaining economic stability and political security is to rediscover their Christian roots, while allowing a decentralized governing structure that recognizes local differences in culture.
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