I’ve been told by several people who possess more knowledge about these things than I do that students of architecture from all over the world visit Glasgow to study its gorgeous Georgian and Edwardian buildings.

Before many more years have elapsed, I am confident that they will be joined by students of politics from Harvard, the Sorbonne and Oxford, all eager to visit this, the most political country on the planet. Henceforth, all degrees and doctorates in politics will be considered not quite tickety unless the graduate has actually visited Scotland for a spell during his studies.

Since 1999, when the second referendum on devolution took place, Scotland has been in a constant state of febrile political activity that renders Washington an unsophisticated backwater by comparison.

In the 16 years since then, we have had four Holyrood elections, three Westminster ones and a referendum on Scottish independence that, for two years and more, turned the population into a nation of political analysts. Professional politicians and their customs and practices have never been as closely scrutinised as they are now, and a caravan of savants and soothsayers now follows them from town to town and from village to village.

Within the next 14 months or so, two more elections will take place which may yet complete what the independence referendum started. But even if they don’t, a sort of corduroy revolution will still have occurred in Scotland. Its tribunes and standard-bearers believe that something radical has taken place in the country and that they are its proclaimers.

Many of us deployed the word “engaged” regularly. Isn’t it great that the country was “engaged” during the referendum? Wasn’t it brilliant to see so many previously disengaged people now become “engaged”? Behold all these people reaching out and “engaging” . If the revolution does happen, a lot of us in Scotland are going to miss it, because we’ll all be engaging with each other in yurts and pods.

In Ullapool this week, something called Changin’ Scotland will take place. The organisers promise a weekend of politics, culture, ideas and fun. I was seriously tempted to pop up myself because it will be hoaching with people like me: middle-class, politically “engaged” people with good hearts and a bit of time on their hands.

It is organised by the respected writer, commentator and “thinker” Gerry Hassan, in collaboration with National Collective, a vibrant group of artists and writers who came together during the independence referendum to pool their visions and their dreams of a better Scotland.

The National Collective was one of the groups that helped make it seem that something very special occurred in Scotland during the long referendum debate. They enhanced the entire experience and ought to be proud of their contribution.

Somewhere else in Scotland, there will be a meeting to discuss the Nordic model of political “engagement”, wherein Scandinavia will be held up as the Nirvana, a state of higher social consciousness to which we must all aspire before we can be truly politically sanctified.

And then there are the books. Dear Lord in heaven, the books. During the referendum campaign, I counted about 30-odd books either directly or loosely associated with the debate or with Scottish politics in general. Some, such as those by Iain MacWhirter, David Torrance and Lesley Riddoch were very good. Others were, ahem … less so. In my own small way, I’ve even breenged in on the act myself by agreeing to write a foreword for an upcoming publication.

There must have been a danger that some of those who threw themselves fully into the independence debate might have been at risk of suffering withdrawal symptoms or mild depression when the circus left town. We needn’t have worried though, because the fracking debate has come along at just the right time.

And while a lot of this “engagement” is profound and important and well-intentioned, there is very little that is radical about it. For this has been largely a middle-class and intellectual movement, reinforced by seminars and festivals and meetings. It is fuelled by tea and biscuits and home-baking and rarely includes any of those whose daily challenges are the subject of these earnest symposiums. Not that they are deliberately excluded – it’s just that many of those for whom every day is a long social challenge are often too engaged in the business of surviving.

When the speeches are all done and the well-behaved rallies are finished and we all gather for the picnics and the concerts by bands wearing tartan and desert boots and shouting “Freedom!”, the horses will all still be sleeping peacefully in their stables. We will still have a single, increasingly unaccountable police force and half of the country will still be owned by a handful of families.

Our judiciary and our senior civil servants will still be chosen only from among those deemed to be the right sort. We will still be jailing too many people and treating them like animals. A thousand Scottish babies will be born this week into need on a scale that none of the well-meaning, well-behaved and well-heeled rest of us will ever experience or comprehend.

We will buy the chancellor’s big lie about new jobs, even when those jobs don’t pay enough to sustain a family and buy a home. And many of us in Scotland, as a recent social attitudes survey revealed, will still be blaming it all on immigrants.

The rest of us put up – or at least come to an arrangement – with it that doesn’t actually cause us any discomfort or cost us anything.

Many of our poorest neighbours are indifferent to talk of austerity and impervious to its effects: a manageable level of austerity is what they aspire to every day. Homelessness, penury and starvation are their main concerns.

In Ullapool and in Tomintoul and in a church hall in Shettleston this week, many eyes will shine with the dream of an independent Scotland. But all the talk will be meaningless unless it is accompanied by action to turn this society upside down and start again from the bottom up.