Big is Generally Ugly

Having analysed the political flyers for the EU elections and seeing we now have two BNP representatives I have reached a conclusion as to how I feel about the EU. In theory it looked quite a good idea back in the sixties when Gen DeGaulle didn’t want us in. When the UK went in without a vote it seemed worth a punt. When we voted to stay in without really knowing what we were voting for, some thought, well were in, it looks a bit early to get out. Some 25 years later we are still in, but we are now part of an unsustainable structure which like the universe is constantly expanding from the big bang that set it in motion, World War II. I now fear we are the human debris settling to the ground in the dust of ignorance. Judging by the EU election leaflets, and the results, I think that is the condition which many politicians and bureaucrats prefer. Or, it could be, that being a bit stupid themselves, they have no idea how to reverse that state of ignorance. Since rulers prefer ignorance I doubt this latter point.

I have always suspected big organisations. They usually seem to concentrate rather too many unpleasant people at the point of the pyramid. This might be sour grapes on my part, having never been invited to rise to such lofty heights. On the other hand I am sufficiently arrogant to think that I could hardly do a worse job, and I could do with the money. Many years ago I was at a meeting when one of the lightweights who was busily floating skyward to the summit of the pyramid, pointed out with all the gravitas he could muster, which wasn’t a lot at the best of times, ‘Ya know, some of you had better realise that small is no longer beautiful’. At the time I suspected he was getting at some of us greener types, thinking we were green behind the ears rather than in our life style expectations. Alternatively he could have been reading ‘Readers Digest’.

Coming from such a person this shallow prose has been enduring proof for the last thirty years that I was right to suspect big cars, building projects and super constitutional arrangements, and even big ideas, as something which for the most part can have ugly, not beautiful outcomes. I am glad to say that Mr Gravitas minor rose to the top of a rather small pyramid in a rather small pond, so perhaps he now realises that small is rather beautiful after all.

And that is how I think about the EU as presently constructed and operated. Since the political parties can’t present specific arguments for or against I shall take refuge in the following small but not beautiful thought. In the short term the EU might be able to better regulate the environmental disaster we have created for ourselves, it might be able to improve the welfare of the masses, but in the long term I fear it’s massive superstructure will drift away from them, taking democratic principles with it before crashing down in a pile of expensive political masonry. This is not to say the European idea should be abandoned. It is more a case of recognising the dangers of high rise living and seeking a return to more humane, co-operative living. Now that would be beautiful.
Dacier