D e m o c r a c y ! ! ! ! ! !
Practically every day, We the People are being lectured by our governments about the undying and almost sacred value of “democracy”. More in particular, our rulers and governors inform us that they are busy taking drastic steps to protect “democracy” by constraining their peoples’ fundamental freedom of speech and the freedom of the press. So it is, that in the European Union, its unelected Government, to wit, the European Commission impudently declares that it is actively “tackling the spread of online disinformation and misinformation to ensure the protection of European values and democratic systems.” (emphasis added)
European democracy
According to the Commission, “… European elections are a flagship of European democracy”. Without a doubt, the unelected Commissioners are acutely aware of the fact that in EU elections, voters can elect members of the European Parliament but that neither the EU “parliament” nor the voters who elected its members have any decisive influence on who is appointed to take a seat in the European Commission and how the “seating” is arranged. While it is true that the EU Parliament can block (veto) the EU Council’s appointed nominee to the Presidency of the European Commission, [i] European voters don’t play a direct role in the formation and activities of the EU Commission and its vast bureaucratic entourage. [ii] In spite of this, the European Commission boasts about protecting “European values and democratic systems.”
It’s about REALITY
Whatever may be the case, we’re being told that drastic measures must be taken because “disinformation actors from inside and outside the EU seek to undermine the integrity of the electoral process, trust in democratic processes at large and sow division and polarisation in our societies. According to the Eurobarometer, 81% of the EU citizens agree that news or information that misrepresent reality or is even false is a problem for democracy.” (emphases added) When an undemocratically selected group of governors keep on lecturing the governed, in casu the European “demoi” (peoples), about democracy, one wonders why it is that the former show such a great interest in defending a political system ‒ democracy ‒ that doesn’t really affect or hinder them in any way. Is this project really about saving “democratic systems”, or is it something else that the Eurocrats seek to protect. Well, the answer to this question is actually provided by the Commission in its very own statement. You see, solving this “problem for democracy” requires the censoring of “news or information” that “misrepresents reality” or is “even false”. Apparently, it’s reality, not democracy, that seems to be in need of rescue.
False Reality = Second Reality
Of course, it is not your or my, but EU’s officialdom’s version of “reality” that serves as the touchstone of what is “false” and what is “real” reality. As explained in my book Liberating liberty, “misrepresented” or False Reality is also known as “Second Reality”. Second Realities are self-created dreams, whereby the dreamer not only seeks to replace real or First Reality, but wherein he or she becomes meaningful and finds him- or herself at ease, worthy of respect and in constant contact with his or her will to exercise the coercive powers required to install ‒ immanentize ‒ the dream in order to realize whatever Utopia it is that the dreamer conjured.
Inaugurators and masters of 2nd Reality
In an essay (“On Hegel”) written by Eric Voegelin (1901 – 1985), the eminent political philosopher revealed how all such dreamers and imaginators shift “the meaning of existence from life in the presence under God, with its personal and social duties of the day, to the role of a functionary of history; the reality of existence will be eclipsed and replaced by the Second Reality of the imaginative project. In order to fulfill this purpose, the project must first of all eclipse the unknown future by the image of the known future; it must further endow the construction of the ages with the certainty of a science – of a Wissenschaftslehre, a ‘system of science’, a philospophie positive, a Wissenschaftlicher Sozialismus; and it must, finally, conceive the future age in such a manner that the present imaginator becomes its inaugurator and master. The purpose of securing a meaning of existence, with certainty, in a masterly role betrays the motives of the construction in the imaginator’s existential insecurity, anxiety and libido dominandi.” [iii]
The European “Green Deal”
In light of the foregoing, one might suppose that the EU Government’s determination to defend “democracy” by safeguarding “reality” from misrepresentation and falsification concerns the validation of First Reality in conjunction with the dismantling of all sorts of utopian Second Realities. So, let’s see what kind of reality the EU Commission might have in mind when it speaks of “reality” as the touchstone that shall be applied in distinguishing First from Second ‒ misrepresented or falsified ‒ Reality. In a speech given on the 15th of May 2023, the President of the European Commission, the recently re-apppointed Mrs Ursula von der Leyen, proudly unpacked her “European Green Deal” as the instrument that was designed to usher in the reality of “a 21st century clean-energy circular economy”. This Deal, so von der Leyen, is also “our plan to fight climate change and become the first climate-neutral continent.” And, what’s more, “[i]t is also our new European growth model for a prosperous, responsible and resilient economy” as well as “our blueprint for a systematic modernisation of Europeʼs industry.” On Thursday the 18th of July 2024, during the successful effort to secure her re-appointment to the Presidency of the Commission, von der Leyen again vowed “to not weaken Europe’s efforts to tackle climate change, […]. In a document setting out her plans for a another term, […], von der Leyen committed to propose new climate policies, including a legally-binding European Union target to cut emissions 90% by 2040.” [iv]
The European Union as “social market economy”
This European Deal is Green because, so von der Leyen in her March 2023 speech, “in the long run, only a sustainable economy can be a strong economy.” In a non-sequitur, she continued that this must be so because “[o]nly a sustainable economy has the resources to invest in a healthier and in a fairer tomorrow.” With “sustainable economy”, von der Leyen means that we have to say bye-bye to a “growth model centred on fossil fuels”. In the world view of the EU’s Politburo’s governors and administrators, that model is “simply obsolete” and therefore, so von der Leyen, “we need to decarbonise our economies as quickly as possible.” We must shift to a “sustainable economy” which she described as a “social market economy”. “This is”, so stressed von der Leyen, “the mission that drives us today. This is the spirit of the European Green Deal.” She then revealed that “[w]e do not have to start from scratch.” In case it had escaped anyone’s attention, the EU’s “social market economy” has been around for some time as the compass that directs the minds of the Brussels’ “green & social gnostics”. In von der Leyen’s own words: “[o]ur compass in this endeavour are the longstanding values – the true values, if you get it right – of the European social market economy.” (emphases added).
“Green” in reality means socialism
Juggling with future, past and present tenses, von der Leyen avowed how the Commission’s Green Deal, that she constantly referred to as “our” social market economy, isn’t just some futuristic utopian dream, but that it was ‒ in the past ‒ and is ‒ in the present ‒ an actual reality. In her own words, with past and present tenses underlined by yours truly, the social market economy “was never exclusively about economic growth”. The Green Reality, “was always about human development. It never had the sole goal of market efficiency and liberalisation.” To the contrary: “The social market economy functions in the interest of the worker and the community. It opens opportunities, also to set very clear limits. It rewards performance but also guarantees protection for the big risks in life. Beyond growth, it focuses on public goods such as healthcare, education and skills, workersʼ rights, personal security, civic engagement and governance – good governance. Our social market economy, if you get it right, encourages everyone to excel, but it also takes care of our fragility as human beings.” It would have been easier for European citizens to understand von der Leyen’s true intentions, if she would have described the Green Deal as a “socialist market economy”. If she had deleted the word “market”, she would have been even somewhat clearer. Had she also deleted the word economy, she would have made herself perfectly clear. The Green Deal is all about socialism. No wonder that, on the 18th of July 2024, the “Green” and socialist fractions in the EU parliament joyfully welcomed von der Leyen’s re-appointment to the Presidency of the Commission.
Saving the Green Deal from democracy
This is how, fully in line with what Eric Voegelin wrote in “On Hegel”, the President of the European Commission and the Green and socialist cohorts that obediently support her eclipse of the reality of existence try to substitute the Second Reality of the imaginative ‒ Green Deal ‒ project for the “eclipsed” reality of existence that most of us still experience and know as real. The future is no longer “unknown”, since we know it as the “longstanding values” of the “social market economy”. The Green Deal, the “construction of the ages”, is endowed with the certainty of a science, of a Wissenschaftslehre, a ‘system of science’, a philospophie positive, a Wissenschaftlicher Sozialismus. This is the Wissenschaftslehre, the practice of magically conjuring “scientific consensus”, on which the idea of climate change and the concomitant decarbonization and “greening” of our economies is based. And, finally, the Project must conceive the future age in such a manner that its present imaginator becomes its inaugurator and master. Most certainly, as the inaugurator of the Green Deal, Mrs von der Leyen is doing a matchless and more than perfect job. Whether she will remain this Grand Project’s master, well, we’ll see what happens when the Deal implodes when it meets First Reality. In any case, the current “masters” of the utopian Universe that listens to the name “Green Deal” are still doing their very best to shield it from being exposed to a realistic and democratic assessment of its dream-like character. They are doing all they can to preserve their eclipse of “life in the presence under God, with its personal and social duties of the day” and avoid a confrontation with the fullnes of reality.
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[i] The EU Council is composed of the heads of state or of government of the EU member states, the President of the European Council, and the President of the European Commission.
[ii] The Council of the European Union, in agreement with the Commission’s President-elect, adopts a list of Commissioners-designate based on suggestions from European Union Member States. The President, the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and the other members of the Commission are then subject, as a body, to a vote of consent by the Parliament. On the basis of this consent, the Commission is then appointed by the European Council, acting by a qualified majority.
[iii] On Hegel, Published Essays 1966-1985; Eric Voegelin; Louisiane State University Press; 1990
[iv] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/eus-von-der-leyen-vows-not-weaken-green-policies-bid-new-term-2024-07-18/
