In focusing on Brexit (and possible secession of Northern Ireland and Scotland from the UK), the author seems to equate "society" with a political entity. The a

In focusing on Brexit (and possible secession of Northern Ireland and Scotland from the UK), the author seems to equate "society" with a political entity. The author never defines what he means by society, but it seems like perfectly good definitions ("the aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community" is the definition Google gives) mean that society is something not just political. Other definitions ("a community, nation, or broad grouping of people having common traditions, institutions, and collective activities and interests" is the definition given by https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/society https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/society) make the concept of a "Universal Society" an oxymoron - we cannot have a universal society until we have, among other things, universal traditions. > "But what might happen if people could forgo those traits that “mark” their identities or somehow put aside the drive to categorize each other by means of such labels—to separate us from them based on language, clothing, gestures, or religious beliefs?" This line of questioning trivializes what religious belief means for many of us. I don't know much about the author, but there is an idea among many who are not religious that religion is an arbitrary "mark." While it certainly can be that and has often played that role in history, this oversimplifies differences in world view. I belong to a Catholic parish not out of accident but because of choice, and I seek friendship within my Catholic parish because our shared world view gives us a basis for understanding that I don't share with my non-Catholic and non-Christian coworkers. ------ > "its [the EU's] members have a history of conflict dating from the Middle Ages" Perhaps this is a nit-pick, but sentences like this seem to reinforce that the Middle Ages was when conflict began in Europe. Europe had lots of conflict before the Middle Ages. Further, what fighting happened in Europe during the Middle Ages usually happened despite a stronger sense of a universal community (membership in the Christian church) then existed for hundreds of years later, demonstrating a counterexample of the author's hypothesis about some general trend toward universalization of society.