«Where all is but dream, reasoning and arguments are of no use, truth and knowledge nothing». John Locke
Britain, the EU and the current election
Looming over the current British election is the fact that a significant proportion of the electorate say they would vote to leave the EU.
The British view the EU in a totally different way to those on the Continent. The British still view the EU as a group of sovereign nations that have transferred important sovereign rights to Brussels in order to create a single market for economic purposes. Some British people think the process has gone too far.
On the Continent, however, nearly everyone, except the Hungarians, is in favor of central control by the EU over economic policy, accompanied by direct democratic control over the process. The EU elections led to the democratic choice of Jean-Claude Juncker by a 26-2 majority, an election that was respected by everyone except the British.
The Euro is a mess, needs reform, but is still overwhelmingly supported on the Continent, and, even if there is another crisis, its membership might be reduced, but it will survive. European integration is not going away. New countries – Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic want to join the Euro, and those in waiting, such as Romania and Croatia want to as well. This leaves the UK out on a limb, without allies, except for the proto-fascist, Victor Orban. At the moment Britain has an effective veto on the banking matters so important to it. But as new countries join the Euro British ability to get its way on financial matters will shrink. All the British will be able to do is to ask for opt-outs that will make them very much the odd-ball, misaligned member.
No European nation wants Britain to leave, but the current situation is unsustainable. The only hope is a deal where the British don’t actually leave the EU, but become “associates”. This leaves them with little influence, sitting on the periphery of Europe, at the mercy of decisions they have had no hand in.
Why bring this up on the Epicurus blog? Because life in Britain would be, in these circumstances, diminished and much less pleasant, and the instigators of the Brexit would live to bitterly regret being reduced to a powerless, poor, offshore island.
Google: benefactor or potential menace?
Google has almost 90% of the global search engine market. Gmail is the second most used email service after Hotmail. Google’s mobile software, Android, has 76% of the smartphone market. Google-owned YouTube is the overwhemingly the worlds largest online video company. Google itself is by far and away the biggest online avertising company in the world, with revenue of over $45 billion last year. It is working on driverless cars and has the money to make them when they are ready to do so.
The EU is now challenging this monopolistic situation. Only the EU and the US have the clout to do so. The founders of Google make big play about doing good in the world and doing no harm, but arguably, while they supply us with valuable technology they are, nonetheless, monopolists. Do we support the power it gives to a single company or do we rein it in (is that actually feasible?) and forego the undoubted intriguing technologies Google has up its sleeve?
Gender roles
Given the option, the majority of young men and women say they would prefer to share both work and domestic duties equally with their spouses, according to a study published in the February issue of the American Sociological Review. “Our work shows that most people want to have more egalitarian relationships, says Sarah Thébaud, a sociologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who co-authored the study. “But they may fall back on to traditional gender roles when they realize that egalitarianism is hard to achieve in the current workplace environment.”
Sixty-two percent of higher-educated women and 59.3 percent of women without a college education said they preferred an egalitarian relationship. Among men, 63 percent of those with some college education, 82.5 percent with less education responded in the same way. And when the researchers asked the third group to imagine a world in which all workers had access to paid family leave, subsidized childcare and flexible work schedules, even more men and women said they wanted egalitarian relationships. (Copyright 2015 NPR)
All this is fine and proper. Epicurus himself would have approved. But bringing up children when both spouses have full-time jobs is extremely difficult. We know people with demanding jobs and very well brought up and adjusted children. But they have involved and hands-on grandparents as back-ups, school collectors, informal educators and gentle enforcers of manners and behaviour. Not many people are as lucky. What worries me are the children who slip between the cracks of part-absent, exhausted parents, and what can happen to them, especially in adolescence. I personally think children need full-time attention from someone. Does anyone have any views on this?
Thought for the day
The total amount of money devoted by the US Federal government to cultural activity and the arts is approximately the same as the budget for opera at La Scala, Milan.