It may stop us from getting carried away with ourselves, but most of all it gives us roots, enriches us and enlarges our vision.Even the English have a version of MacDiarmid's vision:"He knows not England, who only England knows".The vision that looks beyond the horizon of me and mine, of us and wha's like us, and even of the next election, will fuel our future: without it, the people will indeed perish, as the writer of Proverbs says.