Will empire return?

[Rival]

You are correct on Turkey not being part of the EU, however I think the EU is a sign of the weakening of Christianity, not because of it.
There is simply not enough co-operation between competing churches.

In my opinion.

The EU was spearheaded by Catholics in the aftermath of WWII.

 

[danieldemol]

@Rival

The EU was spearheaded by Catholics in the aftermath of WWII.

I'm not sure what you mean by that, but the damage WW2 did to the reputation of Christianity would undoubtedly have motivated them to do something to repair it.
If it took bloodthirsty war to get Christians to co-operate with each other, with conservative Christians and other conservatives being behind brexit showing that conservative Christianity is still causing a weakening of the bonds of the EU then asserting it is all because of Christianity seems a bit much.

In my opinion.

 

[Rival]

@Rival

I'm not sure what you mean by that, but the damage WW2 did to the reputation of Christianity would undoubtedly have motivated them to do something to repair it.
If it took bloodthirsty war to get Christians to co-operate with each other, with conservative Christians and other conservatives being behind brexit showing that conservative Christianity is still causing a weakening of the bonds of the EU then asserting it is all because of Christianity seems a bit much.

In my opinion.

What are you talking about?

Christianity is a minority religion in the UK, it doesn't drive conservatism in this country at all. Brexit has hardly weakened the EU, nor was it anything to do with religion.

I am sorry but there is an ignorance of European politics here that makes it difficult to communicate. Religion has not been a driving force for ordinary Europeans for decades now except in places like Poland and Hungary, and even then this isn't as clear cut as it's made out. Christianity as default has been gone for at least a decade or two in Europe.

 

[danieldemol]

What are you talking about?

Christianity is a minority religion in the UK, it doesn't drive conservatism in this country at all. Brexit has hardly weakened the EU, nor was it anything to do with religion.

I am sorry but there is an ignorance of European politics here that makes it difficult to communicate. Religion has not been a driving force for ordinary Europeans for decades now except in places like Poland and Hungary, and even then this isn't as clear cut as it's made out. Christianity as default has been gone for at least a decade or two in Europe.

Well I found this blog which may not be accurate, but it says;

'Two-thirds of Anglicans voted for Brexit, a much higher proportion than in the country as a whole. Greg Smith (William Temple Foundation) and Linda Woodhead (Lancaster University) look at the reasons for the disparity and note the divergence between the beliefs of UK evangelicals – including the Archbishop of Canterbury – and ‘normal’ Anglicans.'

'Anglicans are more enthusiastically pro-Brexit than affiliates of other major religions. In England, 55% of Catholics voted Leave, 45% Remain. Amongst other non-Christian faiths – though sample sizes are small – the tendency was to favour Remain over Leave. The increasingly large group who report ‘no religion’ also favoured Remain: 53% Remain, 47% Leave.'

Source: How Anglicans tipped the Brexit vote

So if those figures are correct then Christians (including English Catholics) appear to have supported Brexit.

At any rate whether religion was a driver in the Brexit vote or not, are we able to agree that Christianity and disunity existed for long before WW2 in Europe, and therefore it is the horrors of WW2 that were the driving factor in the formation of the EU?

And would it logically follow from that that empire building which seems to have inherently involved war of expansion is a bad idea?

In my opinion.

 

[Rival]

At any rate whether religion was a driver in the Brexit vote or not, are we able to agree that Christianity and disunity existed for long before WW2 in Europe, and therefore it is the horrors of WW2 that were the driving factor in the formation of the EU?

Of course Christianity and disunity can exist, I never claimed it as a panacea (nor was I talking ever specifically about religion, but you brought that into it), but I think you're missing a chunk of the history here. Christianity invented Europe - Europe is not a physical continent it is a conceptual continent that aligns with historical Christendom. It was these newly created Christian kingdoms that brought the Europeans together and gave them a shared culture, a shared language (liturgical Latin, Greek), a shared legal system (broadly), a shared sense of self and mission. Christianity created the idea of a European identity at all, before which there were merely disjointed tribes. Usually when we see battles they are political, even the 1054 schism was a political event. Christianity has created a shared sense of commonwealth with its international Communion/s since its inception. With it came culture and learning to European indigenous people from the Mediterranean, North Africa and Middle East. It led to the Gregorian Revolution and the beginnings of differentiation between religious and saecular.

Christianity not only unified Europe it invented it. To say otherwise would be simply wrong. No, it didn't stop wars and other nonsenses, but it led Europeans from being tribal people to kingdoms and to the Holy Roman Empire in the West and the continuation of the Eastern Roman Empire.

And again you have misunderstood the word 'empire' here, of which the EU is one.

 

[danieldemol]

And again you have misunderstood the word 'empire' here, of which the EU is one.

Perhaps you are not using this definition of empire;
'an extensive group of states or countries ruled over by a single monarch, an oligarchy, or a sovereign state.
"the Roman Empire"'
Source: define empire - Google Search

In my opinion

 

[Rival]

Perhaps you are not using this definition of empire;
'an extensive group of states or countries ruled over by a single monarch, an oligarchy, or a sovereign state.
"the Roman Empire"'
Source: define empire - Google Search

In my opinion

The EU can be considered a liberal empire that does have some measure of, as the OP said, imperialism lite. It has a President of the European Commission and one can appeal to the EU for legal rulings. It behaves very much in an empiric fashion without many negatives often assumed to come with empire, i.e., colonisation.

Today, this position is exercised by the United States through NATO, NAFTA and trade hegemony, China via its Belt and Road Initiative and the European Union (through the "Brussels Effect"). Is this not 'imperialism lite'? When the EU sets rules, these regulatory standards impact global economic activity and lead to a tangible impact on the lives of citizens far from its borders, which has been described by scholars as: "a form of unilateral regulatory globalization where a single state is able to externalize its laws and regulations outside its borders through market mechanisms, resulting in globalization of standards."

 

[danieldemol]

The EU can be considered a liberal empire that does have some measure of, as the OP said, imperialism lite. It has a President of the European Commission and one can appeal to the EU for legal rulings. It behaves very much in an empiric fashion without many negatives often assumed to come with empire, i.e., colonisation.

where are you getting your definition of "liberal empire" from?

In my opinion

 

[Rival]

where are you getting your definition of "liberal empire" from?

In my opinion

I'm not, it's just, as far as I know, a common epithet given to the EU.

I think to people outside of it it's hard to understand.

 

[danieldemol]

I'm not, it's just, as far as I know, a common epithet given to the EU.

I think to people outside of it it's hard to understand.

If it is common can you give one example from say a news source or something academic describing it as such?
I haven't heard of the EU described as an empire in other than apologetics sources which are filled with semantics, so I'm wondering whether this would be commonly used in anything other than a semantic sense, but I'm not European so I don't know.

In my opinion

 

[Rival]

If it is common can you give one example from say a news source or something academic describing it as such?
I haven't heard of the EU described as an empire in other than apologetics sources which are filled with semantics, so I'm wondering whether this would be commonly used in anything other than a semantic sense, but I'm not European so I don't know.

In my opinion

It is a term come up with to try to explain what the EU 'is', because the answer is not straightforward.

Liberal Empire, Geopolitics and EU Strategy: Norms and Interests in European Foreign Policy Making: Geopolitics:
Vol 24, No 1 (tandfonline.com)
Long read | The European Union is a liberal empire, and it is about to fall | LSE BREXIT
– The European Union The Liberal Empire? by HF Cottam (shieldcrest.co.uk)

"The article argues that it is impossible to explain the series of existential crises confronting present-day Europe without reference to the changing nature of borders. Unbounding and rebounding prompted by transnational and technological pressures reconfigures the relationship between territory, authority, and rights in Europe. It produces new winners and losers. It changes the geography of power and makes European institutions look inadequate if not obsolete. The article tries to utilize recent studies in the field of geography, economics, and communication to understand the evolution of European integration. Four spatial models or architectural designs are envisaged: variable geometry, ordo-liberal empire, functional networks, and cascading pluralism"

 

[danieldemol]

@Rival it occurs to me that if all you are asking for is a voluntary union of states similar to the EU it is far less confusing to simply ask for that as opposed to asking for empire which includes so much baggage of millitary subjugation such as practiced by the Romans. I can't see why you brought up the Romans at all if what you want is what the EU has.

The creation of a Roman style empire as opposed to an EU style "liberal empire" would generate much more bloodshed these days than it did in the days of the Romans who weren't faced with issues such as mutually assured destruction etc in my opinion.

So I don't think we have the option on going on a conquest to form another empire. If a Roman style empire is not what you want then dropping reference to Rome and instead either referring solely to the EU or to "liberal empire" along with defining liberal empire in such a way as to make it clear you are not referring to what you don't want seems far more likely to win assent in my opinon.

Otherwise it looks a bit like you are trying to sell us a Roman style empire on the basis of how good the EU is which looks to me like a kind of marketing switch promising something many people do want and then delivering something many people don't want.

In my opinion

 

[LuisDantas]

I'm not, it's just, as far as I know, a common epithet given to the EU.

I think to people outside of it it's hard to understand.

It sure sounds like a gratuitous insult, though.

I can't help but wonder how many Leavers exist that call the EU by that name while also pushing for "rescuing their sovereignity" and the rise of CANZUK.

"Irony" does not even begin to describe it.

 

[Rival]

What is the EU?

 

[JIMMY12345]

The historian John Darwin claims that empire is the default mode of politics in the history of the world.

China, for example, was ruled by various imperial dynasties (after coming together as a polity in the aftermarth of the Warring States period in 221 BCE) for over 2,000 years, before it became a republic in 1912. The Roman Empire founded by Caesar Augustus in 27 BC, after the fall of the Roman Republic, lasted for 1,500 years with its eastern Byzantine half falling to the Ottomans during the conquest of Constantinople in 1453. By contrast, the ancient Athenian direct democracy lasted a mere 186 years by comparison.

Throughout most of our species' history over the past four thousand years, the majority of human beings have likewise lived in these vast, multi-lingual and multi-ethnic, transcultural political units called 'empires' with a centre (usually a city or country) exercising control over subordinate peripheries.

From the realms of the Achaemenids and Ashoka to the empires of Mali and Songhay, and from ancient Rome and China, the caliphates of Islam to the Mughals, American settler colonialism, and the Soviet Union (which the historian Serhii Plokhy calls "the Last Empire", as he explains: "I call the Soviet Union the last empire not because I believe that there will be no empires in the future but because it was the last state that carried on the legacies of the “classical” European and Eurasian empires of the modern era.")

With the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, the western world began a slow march away from imperialism towards nationalism, which culminated in the First World War in the twentieth century and saw the beginning of the collapse of the world’s major empires, including the Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, British, French and Portuguese. This process of decolonization accelerated in the 1950s-60s after the defeat of the Third Reich in the Second World War and was completed by the 1990s, when the Soviet Union broke up in 1991 and the United Kingdom handed Hong Kong back to mainland PRC China in 1997.

Will empires make a comeback in future centuries, however?

It has been said that capitalist society is likely to work best when it is organized and led by a single great power that can provide a top currency, insist on free trade, protects its allies, and provide capital and its own market for developing countries.

Today, this position is exercised by the United States through NATO, NAFTA and trade hegemony, China via its Belt and Road Initiative and the European Union (through the "Brussels Effect"). Is this not 'imperialism lite'? When the EU sets rules, these regulatory standards impact global economic activity and lead to a tangible impact on the lives of citizens far from its borders, which has been described by scholars as: "a form of unilateral regulatory globalization where a single state is able to externalize its laws and regulations outside its borders through market mechanisms, resulting in globalization of standards."

(continued...)

Wow some post very academic I will retire for a glass of water.We do need comments on Space.Earth has a long but still limited future.If our species does survive what happens on earth Russia China etc is irrelevant.
He who controls space in the future controls the world.This is where all the wars will be.There are specific sites in space to launch from that will take advantage of gravity on the moon and earth.