European Unrest
This is an interest report on some of the nascent labor unrest in Europe. I think the way the debates within the story are framed suggest that until the issue of individualism, specifically the individual's right to his own life, comes to the fore, no meaningful change will be possible. (Don't ask me what the odds are that egoism could ever be seriously considered on the continent, I sense they'd rather go back to the Dark Ages.)
posted by Amit Ghate at 9:02 AM
2 Comments:
As a casual but persistent reader of news about Western Europe, what I have read makes me wonder if the trends there can be summed up as disintegration.
An example is frequency of "labor" strikes here and there and often on short notice. What is missing is any ideological, long-term commitment to broad socialist principles. Rather the strikes seem to be an isolated action by this group, at this time, and in this place -- and then next week it is a different group, time, and place.
Disintegration was the centuries-long symptom of the slide into the Dark Ages: economic, political, general social, and intellectual life broke into smaller and smaller pieces until finally a local chieftain here and there ruthlessly imposed control in his neighborhood. Europe was then left with a checkerboard of fragments.
Thanks Burgess, that's an interesting perspective. I've have to keep it in mind as I watch events unfold.
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