Violence exists not out of necessity, but basically because we like it. It is a harsh way to put it, but true. Dat power trip. Well sourced material: http://www.warandgender.com/wgmaleag.htm
Essentially, when a king wanted to conquer a province, he largely did it for the power trip feeling. Also called “glory”.
From a European angle, the ceding power is unlikely because nationalism. It is different from American patriotism where principles matter more than borders and the government is not conflated with society. Here, the territory, territorial integrity, and governmental structure of France matters so much in the group identity of French people that ceding power lower sounds unlikely. Ceding up (EU) is more likely because countries can still members of this higher unit as a whole. So they keep their integrity and identity. Ceding low means fracturing a country, and people will not like that, because they reify and essentialize their country/government (nationalism).
Unless a clever person can figure out a way to keep current governments as romantic emotional symbolical figureheads and cede power down in a hidden, no-fanfare way.
Violence exists not out of necessity, but basically because we like it.
This is similar to sex and reproduction. Animals reproduce not because they consciously want offspring, but because they enjoy the process itself. Likewise, violence is often enjoyed for its own sake, rather than for its material rewards.
However, for humans the invention of contraceptives made it possible to decouple reproduction from sex. Similarly, once violence becomes unnecessary people will still find it enjoyable, but it may be possible to replace the actual violence with surrogates (e.g., sport contests or computer games).
Ceding low means fracturing a country, and people will not like that, because they reify and essentialize their country/government (nationalism).
This is certainly a problem, but are you convinced that it is unsolvable? In Europe, many countries already have strong separatist movements (for instance, Lega Nord in Italy). I am not aware of any popular political movements with the opposite goal (making their countries more centralized).
Violence exists not out of necessity, but basically because we like it. It is a harsh way to put it, but true. Dat power trip. Well sourced material: http://www.warandgender.com/wgmaleag.htm
Essentially, when a king wanted to conquer a province, he largely did it for the power trip feeling. Also called “glory”.
A good example today is how this spirit lives on in sports, see: http://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/spirit/english/e_spirit
From a European angle, the ceding power is unlikely because nationalism. It is different from American patriotism where principles matter more than borders and the government is not conflated with society. Here, the territory, territorial integrity, and governmental structure of France matters so much in the group identity of French people that ceding power lower sounds unlikely. Ceding up (EU) is more likely because countries can still members of this higher unit as a whole. So they keep their integrity and identity. Ceding low means fracturing a country, and people will not like that, because they reify and essentialize their country/government (nationalism).
Unless a clever person can figure out a way to keep current governments as romantic emotional symbolical figureheads and cede power down in a hidden, no-fanfare way.
This is similar to sex and reproduction. Animals reproduce not because they consciously want offspring, but because they enjoy the process itself. Likewise, violence is often enjoyed for its own sake, rather than for its material rewards. However, for humans the invention of contraceptives made it possible to decouple reproduction from sex. Similarly, once violence becomes unnecessary people will still find it enjoyable, but it may be possible to replace the actual violence with surrogates (e.g., sport contests or computer games).
This is certainly a problem, but are you convinced that it is unsolvable? In Europe, many countries already have strong separatist movements (for instance, Lega Nord in Italy). I am not aware of any popular political movements with the opposite goal (making their countries more centralized).