Comment by general1465
Comment by general1465 a day ago
It is logical development. During our history we went from tribes, to villages, to city states, all the way to national states. Merging several smaller states into one block to counter influence of other large blocks follows all the past trends and it is inevitable to happen.
Only thing which stands in the way is jingoistic nationalism, luckily thanks to internet and social networks kids does not really develop sense of nationalism to their country as they can tell no difference between somebody from Albania, France or Niger. And they can see that all the people have more less the same problems and more less the same desires and only thing which separates them is language and few obscure traditions of their ancestors.
This also runs contrary to dismantling EU - European states weren't merged from outside by some Godlike power, but from inside by European themselves. It was a logical thing to do, to increase trade and to make Europe more competitive. If you would erase EU today with a magic rubber, something like EU would exist again within 30 years.
Wait until jingoistic EU nationalism emerges... we're there.
> luckily thanks to internet and social networks kids does not really develop sense of nationalism to their country as they can tell no difference between somebody from Albania, France or Niger...
That's both incorrect, younger generations do develop a strong sense of patriotism, it is even actually on the rise in Europe, and a ludicrous and very sinister rejection of culture ("few obscure traditions of their ancestors"... sounds like New China or the USSR...)
In fact, in the current international context what the article describes is the rise of a pan-European nationalism.