Not that I don't agree with things you said, but I thought I should clarify...
Recently a EU commision was not voted in because the parliament... objected to the bloke who was to be in charge of justice when he said that he thought homosexuality was a sin.
Intolerance always creeps in, using the disguise of some value which needs protecting. If it comes in as unexposed intolerance then it usually does get beat down.
For instance in the US if Bush said he hated gays and didn't think they should be equals, he probably would have lost. There are enough conservatives which would have said that was not allowed. However, he is just fine saying that it is important that we protect the definition of marriage because of our shared values surrounding it.
This is truly the modern face of oppression. I don't hate you, and I am not an ignorant bigot, I am only doing this to protect this thing we all care about due to our shared value system.
And its amazing how often it coincides with religious values.
I would say that the emergence of values as a political tool is not a new thing, and not always a bad aspect of politics. It's when the (easy to articulate) values of nationalism and intolerance start to creep into politics that problems start
I agree that it is not a new thing in general, but it is a relatively new thing specifically in modern European politics. References to personal faith and values have been notably absent from government affairs since WW2. That is what separated European from US politics. Less than three years ago it was a talking point in Europe about how Bush's personal belief references were embarrassing to hear and would not be tolerated in a government official.
But of course now it is. This is the foot in the door. This is where we are made to feel comfortable hearing the kind of dreck falling from Bush's lips, but now with a European accent.
I don't think the problem is just values of nationalism and intolerance. I mean those are problems as well, but the real problem is allowing values to have a connection to politics in the first place. When deciding a piece of legislation, it should not have to pass a "European values" test. It should be tested on whether it is a practical solution for a government to apply to a problem.
The idea that a nation, or a collection of nations, must have some collective identity or it will become a "spiritless machine", is what moves through stages to eventually drive nationalism and intolerance, though by then the intolerance won't be noticed as that. It will be protecting our
necessary identity. Otherwise without it, we will become a spiritless machine and we can't have that!
In this case Balkie is hoping that the Europeans will end up settling on Xian values, even if (to him) they don't realize that they are actually Xian values. Then he smiles patronizingly for he has won. Just like Bush claiming that freedom and democracy are originally Xian values given by God.
This is after all what he won an award for in the US... merging faith with government. It was funny when the papers here hailed the award as some sort of honor, thinking it was for some scientific achievement. I kept telling dutch people I knew it was for religion and they didn't seem to believe me. Then the papers did some research and found out it was actually for advancing religion into politics, and they all boo hooed. I told 'em so.
I suspect this is what you percieve as the 'dumbing down' effect.
To me the dumbing down effect is being created in a couple ways.
The first is the increased use of major media as not only the primary, but only newssource by most people, combined with the major media's falling into a small group of wealthy people's hands looking for money over quality (news). News programs are now infotainment at best, with opinion thrown around as if fact.
This creates a base stupidity, which is bad when many people start off not that bright.
The next is the loss of pragmatic, solution driven thinking. Instead everyone is more concerned with how they and others should "feel" about something... anything. And it is the feelings and values that drive the agendas. And of course if facts get in the way, people do not want their personal beliefs crushed and so the facts are discounted. This is how legislation gets started an passed without much critical evaluation. This is a law which we just feel is right, it is in line with our values, and protects what is valuable to us.
Bush calls this technique following his gut. It is in fact, willful ignorance.
This is how theocracies, or other value-cracies get hold of power. Everyone decides that there is a common value system, and then allow those in charge to be arbitrators and protectors of that value system.
To me it does not matter if it is Xian theocacy explicit, or the kinder gentler Xian derived value-cracy. The end is the same.
holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)
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