Like the STATES which comprise it, the EU is deeply rooted in man's Darwinian nature

LINK to Guardian article by Timothy Garton Ash on the state of the EU.

The EU, understandably enough, reflects the nature of the STATES that comprise it, which is deeply Darwinian, notwithstanding our complete denial (refusal even to contemplate) this profoundly important fact - which itself is a consequence of our Darwinian nature, our advanced prime-ape brain having evolved to interpret reality, i.e. its environment, to its own perceived (perverted Darwinian) advantage, thereby blinding us to reality (like a form of collective posthypnotic suggestion).

Anyone who belongs to our political, media, business, religious, or academic elites, has a massive personal interest (which, they would have the rest of us believe, and no doubt believe themselves, is in everyone's best interest) in maintaining the politico-socioeconomic status quo, despite its misplaced and perverted Darwinian nature and inherent inhumanity and non-sustainability.

Unless we recognise this pretty soon and develop an understanding of it, so that we can put it right, the EU and our civilization as a whole are doomed.

TGA, for all his academic qualifications, obviously doesn't have a clue - because subconsciously his brain doesn't want to question, fundamentally, the SYSTEM in which he has found such personal and professional success.

The Darwinian nature of global politics

LINK to Guardian article, Obama's Beijing balancing act points to the new challenge for the west, by Timothy Garton Ash

How this relationship plays out over the next 20 years will, of course, depend mainly on the realities of economic, military and political power.

Yet beyond the hard power relations, there is an almost philosophical question about how we in the west engage with China

"I'm going to make the strongest possible reasoned case for the universal values of the Enlightenment being the best for you as well as for us, but I'm also all ears for your response."

In these quotes, TGA gives clear expression to the dilemma at the heart of the matter, between man's rational nature and his blind, power-obsessed, Darwinian nature; but he obviously fails to understand its true significance himself, leading him to accept as inevitable that the "relationship [between China and America] will . . depend mainly on the realities of economic, military and political power", i.e. be determined not by man's rational nature, but by his blind Darwinian nature and its obsession with POWER.

Why doesn't TGA recognise this?

It is, I suggest, because he too, like everyone else, is dominated by his own Darwinian nature (misplaced and perverted in the artificial environment of human civilization, where it has been reduced to the pursuit and exercise of POWER in its multifarious forms) far more than by his rational nature, which the need to preserve his own self-image as a "man of reason", prevents him (and the rest of us) from recognising.

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dirkbruere:

"Never mind the philosophical crap - China is almost a textbook Fascist state now . . "

While China is an authoritarian fascist state, America and Britain are "liberal fascist" states (see Jonah Goldberg). So I guess we have a lot more in common than generally supposed.

As population pressure and competition for deteriorating and diminishing natural resources increases, the struggle for individual survival and advantage will intensify and the authoritarian fascist state, I suspect, will become more and more attractive to those in wealth, power and privilege.

We in the west have a brief window of opportunity - still wide open, but not for long - in which to recognise the Darwinian nature of our civilisation and take conscious, grassroots-democratic control of its radical transformation. Otherwise, it will be a long (possibly terminal) night of fascism, i.e. statism, at the heart of which lies our unrecognized, and thus misplaced and perverted, Darwinian nature .

LINK to Guardian article, 1989 changed the world. But where now for Europe? by Timothy Garton Ash

The one thing it [the 1989 revolution] did not change was human nature.

True enough. Neither did it do much to improve our understanding of human nature itself, or of the civilization it has given rise to (i.e. the power structures of state and economy) - all of which is essentially Darwinian. Only we are forbidden from recognizing or acknowledging it as such. Instead we force ourselves to continue the pretence of being rational, rather than Darwinian, animals, with academics like TGA providing us here with their professionally "rationalized" view of our situation.

But like the rest of us - and, if anything, being an academic, even less inclined to admit it - TGA is far more Darwinian than rational. His professionally "rationalized" view of our situation is really a load of bollocks (no matter how eruditely and academically he may package it), that serves his own - misplaced, perverted and unrecognized (because largely subconscious) - Darwinian purpose of exploiting his environment (our globalized civilization) to his personal (and immediate family's) advantage.

In the past, when only small (state/national) elites were in a position to freely exploit both their natural and human environment, using modest technical means which barely impacted global resources and carrying capacity, the situation, notwithstanding its gross injustices and inhumanity, was essentially sustainable, with some civilizations lasting 100s or even 1000s of years.

But now, with EVERYONE - in "progressive" ideological theory, at least - free to exploit both the natural and human environment for what they can get out of them (and in denial of its perverted Darwinian nature), the situation is very different indeed, and wholly unsustainable.