More politics (unstructured thoughts)

Three interesting Op/Ed pieces from the Dutch press:

Martin Sommer in De Volkskrant continues the Irish EU referendum theme. Kees Aerts in Trouw discusses the apparent demise of social-democracy in Europe. And Hans Goslinga, also in Trouw talks about difference between old and new people's parties, and why it's important to stick to politics rather than settle on a cross-party business cabinet.

Points that they (more or less) make that I agree with:

• As there is very little that can be done against whatever comes from Brussels, opposition politicians that run on an anti-Europe ticket are misleading the electorate. European integration is at a point where opting in or out of individual treaties and rules and regulations makes very little difference indeed. Empty words, then, all of it.


• One of the old values of social-democracy was cultural enlightenment. Aerts is right that this was probably a top-down process. The idea is levelling upwards, raising the level of the masses, rather than levelling downwards, lowering the level of the elite down to the gross common denominator. Of course you can ask whether this is actually true, seeing as even news and discussion programmes on tv have been turned into "infotainment".


• The masses see Europe as a case of "their rights versus our interests", and are no longer interested in the left-wing intellectual elite's messages about how cool international cooperation is. They feel threatened by globalisation, sometimes rightly so, and put more faith in messages about cultural conservatism, regardless of whether these messages come from traditionally right-wing or traditionally left-wing parties.


• It's probably better to keep talking rather than sidelining politics and give power to a cross-party cabinet of successful academics and businessmen. That idea is probably not even that bad in theory, but in practice, it won't be accepted by the masses who have lost their faith in people with a different outlook in life. Recall the PVV's hate speech against intellectuals with university degrees and designer glasses.

Final question: is this really a question of a change from politics of left versus right to politics of intellectuals versus non-intellectuals? Are they all that different? And should we care?