The internet gives us unprecedented freedom
The Guardian’s Martin Kettle has an interesting article suggesting that the internet is having a profound cultural impact on the UK, leading to a “national mental disengagement with Europe”.
With the whole planet just a few clicks away, “it is hard to recall a time” he laments” when the national .... mind was less informed about or engaged with Europe than it is today. .... Being in Europe has never impinged less.”
Boo hoo. How tragic.
Perhaps the left is about to discover a broader truth; the internet makes it impossible for elites to try to shape the planet, and the people on it, according to their own preconceived notions of how the world should be. The dispersed, democratic medium that is the internet doesn’t produce a shiny new Euro-identity because that shiny new Euro-identity is the bogus product of remote elite. And it’s not only top down Euro elitism that is threatened by the web.
The internet frees us as citizens from politicians, as communities from the centralised state, as producers and consumers from mega corporations, and as people from our geography. That's pretty catastrophic if you happen to be a Fabian supporter of centralised public service provision, who wants a regulated economy and see yourself as a Euro citizen.
Bad news for Guardianistas. Good news for the rest of the planet.