Europe wasn't created to give people an identitty but it needs an identity to to support solidarity among its members (and thus prevent war). Between Germans and Greeks, for example. Not everyone accepts such an identity: the majority of the English do not, and others are likely to join them as the rulers of Europe, who are in no sense democratic, become more and more intrusive in their demands. The one definition of Europe -- God's Continent as Phillip Jenkins called it -- has been treated with scorn by the people on this site. It is not a matter of belief, necessarily: people are sometimes united by the religion in which they do not believe. As witness the Irish joke, "Are you a Catholic or a Protestant atheist?

What Christianity used to do for Europe was to provide it with an understanding of what it meant to be European. Personal belief is another matter: many atheists and agnostics have acknowledged the cultural value of religion, And quite intelligent people believe in "fairy tales" (and for that matter fairy tales like Snow White may encode significant truths). So far as I can see all the EU has to offer is the rule of bureaucrats on behalf of bankers.

So what are you going ro replace it with? If you didn't know, the stock of the Enlightenment is very low, especially in Europe (the collapse of Marxism is part of the story). And there are still lots of Christians in Europe, if only you would stop dumping on them. Pope Francis, for one.

The fact remains. The EU is fundamentally unsound. The only basis for union I know of -- Europe's shared Christian heritage -- the Eurosecularists scornfully reject. And the European Union was as much a defeat for democracy as the fall of Communism was its triumph. (As a philosopher, I had better not advise the Brits on how to handle their economic problems.)

Human beings are tribal creatures. I, We, and Them are the categories of social life, like space, time and causality in the natuof ral order. Where the lines are is a matter of sentiment (as Mill saw). Very many Brits think of thems as Brits rather than Europeans, and I suspect the same is true of many people elswhere in Europe (Greece for example). Lovers of democracy should not lament the decline of the
EU, in which bureaucrats ruled on behalf of bankers.

We know what we value most highly only by testing. At a time when the bishops (or many of them) have shut the Church down, some Catholics have discovered that they value the Sacrament so highly that they are prepared to brave the civil authority's snitches and attend clandestine masses. (Don' even think of asking me for details.)

I care not a whit whether the Spectator is right wiing, left wing, or something else. Its analysis of the contemporary Left is sadly true.

Only brainwashing or the grace of God can change a core belief. Ormaybe what Kuhn calls anomolies can build up to the point where they compel a paradigm shift. But ideologues are resourceful: there are still people who think that they can predict history,

Both W and A said things like this, but the meaning is different. W is mainly concerned (and is right to be concerned) to deny the need for an ideal language.

Men and women are both human beings. But they are different kinds of human beings. Otherwise you would have to say that sex and reproduction are unimportant. Women have been frequently treated unjustly. So have men. Violence against men is considered far more acceptable than violence against women. If Trump had nominated a woman as Supreme Court Justice, and some man had come forward and claimed that she had sexually assaulted him, when the Senators had stopped laughing they would have looked for some other ground to attack her. As for thinking like a woman or a man, the difference between the sexes is a matter of degree. A purely masculine mind or a purely feminine mind would be the mind of a monster. And lots of women opposed Hillary Clinton (I know at least three).

The key idea in the later Wittgenstein is that our language is all right as it is; we do not need an ideal language. Careful attention to real world language will dissolve (not solve) philosophical problems; the fly will be out of the fly bottle and we will see the world rightly. PROBLEM: Deep controversy is already present in discourse before the philosopher arrives on the scene. Religion makes metaphysiical claims, and political discourse involves contested concepts, such as 'person' and 'marriage,'

The small communities that Anarchism supports are a good thing. (I agree that the nuclear family is not ideal, thoiugh not I think for feminist reasons; I benefitted greatly from grandparents and aunts in my upbringing.) But they split when they cannot agree. And without a state, their fights can get bloody; there are disputes about church property, which the legal system-- though chary about taking sides on theological issues -- must somehow resolve. But anything but a liberal state wll squash religious minorities. We have seen how quick even a nominally liberal state is to declare churches, but not liquor stores and gun shops, 'inessential.' Hence we return to the liberalism from which we began, and in fact require a more robust form than we now have.

I had a bit of trouble following this, but [/i]our[[/i] two party system is toxic. Pro-life Democrats, New Deal Republicans, Socialists, Greens, Libertarians, and many other groups are shut out of the discussion, while Democrats and Republicans go after each other with a fury disproportionate to their differences. I favor proportional representation in the House (and maybe in the Senate). Since only one person can be President, I favor proportional representation in the Electoral College or a popular vote with 51 % needed to win (which won't happen often). In the resulting run-off, it should be possible to elect a dark horse candiate who got few votes (or didn't even run). -- in the last election, someone other than Clinton or Trump._ There are people who specialize in constructing this sort of thing, when the principle is accepted.

I am more and more puzzled about what anarchism is supposed to be. That majorities can be gravely wrong is standard constitutional (aka liberal) democratic doctrine. The issue is how are we adjudicate tje claim of a minority that the majority is oppressive. The Supreme Court can be gravely wrong too (starting with Dred Scott). If all minorities are allowed a veto we have chaos. Incidentally, I would oppose a plurality vote for President to replace the Electoral College: in a polarized society, this would give an unnatural advantage to extremists. Our system of selecting Presidents needs to be reformed from ground up, starting with the primaries. And Abraham Lincoln, like Trump, was elected by an Electoral rather than a popular vote majority (and in both cases no one else had a popular vote majority either).