exo : blah

I'll not be voting for Scottish independence come September because I think the entire thing is predicated on a notion that's on the wrong side of history.

Nationalism has to be about making people think their country is different than others and with that comes the notion of others; them and us. We will be better off without them. And really, that just makes me despair.

Others is such an awful way to look at people. It's about pride and difference and exclusion and fear. By defining people as other you make it easier to dismiss them; they would say that, think that, do that; to not engage with them, empathise with them, see the commonality or learn from them.

This isn't about pretending people aren't different, it's about how you treat the differences; the level at which you look at the differences. I am different from everyone else, I cannot help but be. Above that level and the strokes you draw to distinguish have to become increasingly broad and resultingly increasingly inaccurate. The map increasingly is not the territory if you like. At a country level there is as much difference within the country as there is outwith it so to say we should be independent because we are we and they are they sits ill with me.

I say the wrong side of history because great things are, on the whole, done by people coming together, taking advantage of their diversity of skills, ideas, experiences and knowledge, to do more than they can manage on their own. By standing up and saying we are apart, in however small a way, you make that harder, you make it easier to say we will solve problems in our way, we will solve our problems. It reduces us.

So, no.