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Orlanth wrote: It is interesting that this thread has revealed a lot of pointers to a problem with the social engineering of British identity for party political gain. I will make some comments on what I see here then return later to handle replies and expound more on the subject later.
This is, I think, quite true. English people use the term British quite interchangeable with their own culture of 'Englishness' usually.
This is the main issue, and one that really needs to be confronted.
It only needs to be 'confronted', if you think of the English as the enemy beyond the southern border. If/as you do, that is your problem and not really anyone elses.
What are you warbling about. Confronted by the English, as in, it is something they have to face up to and reconcile for their own peace of mind.
Scots and, to an extent, the Welsh tended to see "British" as being something above individual national identity, which for a long time we were trained to view as backwards, parochial, and crass(or at least, see our own national identities that way), but the thing is that's never really been how the English and the English establishment especially looked at things. Britishness was simply Greater Englishness, Englishness Plus, a kind of Englishness that the non-English were permitted, with appropriate deference, to aspire to, in the same way that Britain itself was always in truth the English Empire and the rest of us were merely supposed to be glad to be ruled by it and to be permitted to contribute to it and conform to its norms and values.
This isn't really the case. The UK has been very harmonious, the raise of Scottish and Welsh nationalism is a very recent occurance and has much to do with the divide an rule policy of the Blair years. Prior to Blair Plaid Cymru and the SNP were fringe joke parties with very little support.
However now we have the myth of England vs everyone else, engineered for party benefit that has largely backfired.
Britishness invoked the ideal of the United Kingdom, which while England was the economic and geographical central component it based on a unified identity to which the Scottish and Welsh identity was a protected part and no less than the whole.
This is evidenced by the fact that the relationships of the UK have been long established but the specific rhetoric in critique of it is a recent phenomena, were the problem real it would have surfaced as a large scale unrest a lot earlier.
I always wonder - when someone spouts off with this kind of stuff, is it trolling, selective memory, or genuine ignorance?
The rise of the SNP and Plaid as actual political prospects in their respective countries is relatively recent, the idea that Scottish & Welsh nationalism just sprouted out of the ground in 2007 is a complete farce. The idea that there was no criticism of the UK from that perspective beforehand is likewise sheer farce, as is this fiction that criticism of that sort only came from the SNP and hardline "separatists". Blair thought devolution was a terrible idea, it was his Scottish MPs who convinced him they had no choice but to go forward, and the reason Labour in Scotland got to that stage over 20 years ago in the mid 90's is the result of a chain of events that started back in the bloody 40's with the Scottish Covenant, leading eventually to the first devolution referendum in '79, all the way through the creation of the Scottish Constitutional Convention comprised of just about everybody from Labour & LibDem MPs to church leaders, and their publishing of the Claim of Right in 1989. The sentiment that Scotland as a polity was not being well represented by the UK has been gaining ground for fifty years, the only difference between then and now is that back then people up here largely trusted Labour and believed devolution would be sufficient to address their complaints, and for a lot of folk neither of those things is true any longer.
And that's just the recent bout - shall we go back and discuss the founder of the Labour Party supporting Home Rule for Scotland in sodding 1900? Or the post-Jacobite push by union-supporting Scots that led to the creation of the Scotland Office in the late 1800's?
Harmonious my hairy haggis
EDIT:
*reads slavery stuff*
Oh, so just sheer wilful denial of reality then, gotcha.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/06/05 19:49:31
"Your society's broken, so who should we blame? Should we blame the rich, powerful people who caused it? No, lets blame the people with no power and no money and those immigrants who don't even have the vote. Yea, it must be their fething fault." - Iain M Banks
-----
"The language of modern British politics is meant to sound benign. But words do not mean what they seem to mean. 'Reform' actually means 'cut' or 'end'. 'Flexibility' really means 'exploit'. 'Prudence' really means 'don't invest'. And 'efficient'? That means whatever you want it to mean, usually 'cut'. All really mean 'keep wages low for the masses, taxes low for the rich, profits high for the corporations, and accept the decline in public services and amenities this will cause'." - Robin McAlpine from Common Weal
The above said there were difference s North and South. Like what? For instance North Texas actually gets cold. South Texas doesn't know what cold is and the language is Spanish.
Crudely put it's more or less the inverse of the situation in the USA :
here it's the south which is full of snobby, effete metropolitan types with their odd views.
Whilst the north is , of course, full of inbred country bumpkin types who cling to their old fashioned ways and sneer contemptuously at their southern neighbours for their decadent ways.
...
The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all
We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be.
"the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king,
Kilkrazy wrote: I think there's a lot in the theory around education. For example during WW2 there was more or less complete acceptance that the British (i.e. English) Empire was a good thing, and nowadays there is a lot more critical appraisal, for example of Britain's role in the slace trade.
Britain's role in the slave trade was largely to end it. However it is yet another example of modern revisionism.
That's complete crap.
Britain traded massively in slaves from the 16th to the early 19th century. Just look at the National Archives for accounting records of it.
The slave trade was abolished in 1807, and slavery itself in 1833.
The British were the first major abolitionists and also actively policed the Atlantic whenever possible. Note that at the time the abolitionist movement in the UK, slavery was acceptable in most of the developed world.
To highlight the British as responsible for the slave trade is dishonest, back when the British were shipping slaves anyone else with the capability was also doing same, but the British were the first to reform stop and bring an end to it.
Orlanth wrote:Britain's role in the slave trade was largely to end it.
The above said there were difference s North and South. Like what? For instance North Texas actually gets cold. South Texas doesn't know what cold is and the language is Spanish.
Crudely put it's more or less the inverse of the situation in the USA :
here it's the south which is full of snobby, effete metropolitan types with their odd views.
Whilst the north is , of course, full of inbred country bumpkin types who cling to their old fashioned ways and sneer contemptuously at their southern neighbours for their decadent ways.
Hey, I'll admit to clinging to my old fashioned values and sneering contemptuously at the more modernized Southerners but inbreeding is East Anglia territory, don't lump us in with them!
I remember seeing a map based on a poll that asked people whether they thought named towns and cities were in the north or south.
The final line on the map ran almost straight from Lincoln to Bristol, a north to south drop of roughly 130 miles. We're a bit funny in where we think one begins and the other ends.
Edit: Ah, here it is I think
What poll is this in which Welsh people claimed to be Northerners? Also, I tend to find those from Lincolnshire wish to be lumped in with the North rather than the South.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/06/05 20:07:15
Ghorros wrote: The moral of the story: Don't park your Imperial Knight in a field of Gretchin carrying power tools.
Marmatag wrote: All the while, my opponent is furious, throwing his codex on the floor, trying to slash his wrists with safety scissors.
If you go by that map then I’m 50/50 southener and northerner.
In all honesty I think England on a whole would benefit from walling up London and using it as a giant fish tank, while moving the capital back up north.
All joking aside, had a family holiday at Easter up Nottingham and yes they were a lot more friendly and welcoming than most people in the south, but we aren’t all that bad down here.
Brummies aren't fething Northern or Southern you gits! Someone said it earlier for you nincompoops - we're Midlanders. We don't associate ourselves with the lax, unemployed North full of farmers, nor the money-grabbing life of the Southerns types living in the big smog.
Believe it or not there might be another completely different identity that you have no idea even exists, likely because you spend your entire time arguing over which of your own identities is best.
An Actual Englishman wrote: Brummies aren't fething Northern or Southern you gits! Someone said it earlier for you nincompoops - we're Midlanders. We don't associate ourselves with the lax, unemployed North full of farmers, nor the money-grabbing life of the Southerns types living in the big smog.
Believe it or not there might be another completely different identity that you have no idea even exists, likely because you spend your entire time arguing over which of your own identities is best.
Perhaps, but both Southerners and Northerners will unite in their detest of the inbred, animal shagging lands of the midlands. The only reason that there is a midlands is that neither the South, nor the North wishes to be associated with ya.
Now 'xcuse me while I get back to Whippets and I'll let ya get back to your Cousin.
Ghorros wrote: The moral of the story: Don't park your Imperial Knight in a field of Gretchin carrying power tools.
Marmatag wrote: All the while, my opponent is furious, throwing his codex on the floor, trying to slash his wrists with safety scissors.
mrhappyface wrote: Perhaps, but both Southerners and Northerners will unite in their detest of the inbred, animal shagging lands of the midlands. The only reason that there is a midlands is that neither the South, nor the North wishes to be associated with ya.
Now 'xcuse me while I get back to Whippets and I'll let ya get back to your Cousin.
A....
Bu.....
Touche.
Mercia was legit the gak back in the day though, till those damn Wessex lot connived us from our territories.
Perhaps, but both Southerners and Northerners will unite in their detest of the inbred, animal shagging lands of the midlands. The only reason that there is a midlands is that neither the South, nor the North wishes to be associated with ya.
Now 'xcuse me while I get back to Whippets and I'll let ya get back to your Cousin.
See, when we started this you didn't even know we existed.
And now you already know us as intimately as I know my aunt.
Perhaps, but both Southerners and Northerners will unite in their detest of the inbred, animal shagging lands of the midlands. The only reason that there is a midlands is that neither the South, nor the North wishes to be associated with ya.
Now 'xcuse me while I get back to Whippets and I'll let ya get back to your Cousin.
See, when we started this you didn't even know we existed.
And now you already know us as intimately as I know my aunt.
I hope I don't know you that intimately...
Ghorros wrote: The moral of the story: Don't park your Imperial Knight in a field of Gretchin carrying power tools.
Marmatag wrote: All the while, my opponent is furious, throwing his codex on the floor, trying to slash his wrists with safety scissors.
Just something completely unrelated I have been always wondering about the Welsh:
Why the hell do they write Cymru but pronounce it something like Cumry? That does not make sense!
Iron_Captain wrote: Just something completely unrelated I have been always wondering about the Welsh:
Why the hell do they write Cymru but pronounce it something like Cumry? That does not make sense!
Orlanth wrote: It is interesting that this thread has revealed a lot of pointers to a problem with the social engineering of British identity for party political gain. I will make some comments on what I see here then return later to handle replies and expound more on the subject later.
This is, I think, quite true. English people use the term British quite interchangeable with their own culture of 'Englishness' usually.
This is the main issue, and one that really needs to be confronted.
It only needs to be 'confronted', if you think of the English as the enemy beyond the southern border. If/as you do, that is your problem and not really anyone elses.
What are you warbling about. Confronted by the English, as in, it is something they have to face up to and reconcile for their own peace of mind.
Scots and, to an extent, the Welsh tended to see "British" as being something above individual national identity, which for a long time we were trained to view as backwards, parochial, and crass(or at least, see our own national identities that way), but the thing is that's never really been how the English and the English establishment especially looked at things. Britishness was simply Greater Englishness, Englishness Plus, a kind of Englishness that the non-English were permitted, with appropriate deference, to aspire to, in the same way that Britain itself was always in truth the English Empire and the rest of us were merely supposed to be glad to be ruled by it and to be permitted to contribute to it and conform to its norms and values.
This isn't really the case. The UK has been very harmonious, the raise of Scottish and Welsh nationalism is a very recent occurance and has much to do with the divide an rule policy of the Blair years. Prior to Blair Plaid Cymru and the SNP were fringe joke parties with very little support.
However now we have the myth of England vs everyone else, engineered for party benefit that has largely backfired.
Britishness invoked the ideal of the United Kingdom, which while England was the economic and geographical central component it based on a unified identity to which the Scottish and Welsh identity was a protected part and no less than the whole.
This is evidenced by the fact that the relationships of the UK have been long established but the specific rhetoric in critique of it is a recent phenomena, were the problem real it would have surfaced as a large scale unrest a lot earlier.
I always wonder - when someone spouts off with this kind of stuff, is it trolling, selective memory, or genuine ignorance?
The rise of the SNP and Plaid as actual political prospects in their respective countries is relatively recent, the idea that Scottish & Welsh nationalism just sprouted out of the ground in 2007 is a complete farce. The idea that there was no criticism of the UK from that perspective beforehand is likewise sheer farce, as is this fiction that criticism of that sort only came from the SNP and hardline "separatists". Blair thought devolution was a terrible idea, it was his Scottish MPs who convinced him they had no choice but to go forward, and the reason Labour in Scotland got to that stage over 20 years ago in the mid 90's is the result of a chain of events that started back in the bloody 40's with the Scottish Covenant, leading eventually to the first devolution referendum in '79, all the way through the creation of the Scottish Constitutional Convention comprised of just about everybody from Labour & LibDem MPs to church leaders, and their publishing of the Claim of Right in 1989. The sentiment that Scotland as a polity was not being well represented by the UK has been gaining ground for fifty years, the only difference between then and now is that back then people up here largely trusted Labour and believed devolution would be sufficient to address their complaints, and for a lot of folk neither of those things is true any longer.
And that's just the recent bout - shall we go back and discuss the founder of the Labour Party supporting Home Rule for Scotland in sodding 1900? Or the post-Jacobite push by union-supporting Scots that led to the creation of the Scotland Office in the late 1800's?
Harmonious my hairy haggis
EDIT:
*reads slavery stuff*
Oh, so just sheer wilful denial of reality then, gotcha.
I honestly thought he was trolling or having a laugh too, reading his entire post I thought he must be trying to parody the exact kind of daily mail reading nutjobs I was referring to... I really hope he was
The rise of the SNP and Plaid as actual political prospects in their respective countries is relatively recent, the idea that Scottish & Welsh nationalism just sprouted out of the ground in 2007 is a complete farce.
You will always get seperatism where you have two or more cultures. There are for instance Cornish nationalists, and have been for a long time. They are not active or in any numbers.
The idea that there was no criticism of the UK from that perspective beforehand is likewise sheer farce,
Criticism, from the fringe. Nowadays you have a hardcore Scottish government that even goes as far as to ban the flying of the Union flag on all but a very limited number of occasions.
Not farce, reality.
I honestly thought he was trolling or having a laugh too, reading his entire post I thought he must be trying to parody the exact kind of daily mail reading nutjobs I was referring to... I really hope he was
I can think your myself, thankyou.
Try it, it will do you good.
I am not lying. You even mentioned the facts yourself. The UK banned slavery in the very early 19th century, and were early adopters of abolitionism.
Morality is a progression. Back the idea of modern democracy was proposed it was acceptable to keep blacks as slaves. Back when abolitionism was proposed it was unthinkable to give women the vote, back when female suffrage was acceptable, it was also acceptable to have open discriminatory hiring practices, and so on and so forth.
Bottom line is that the UK track record is acceptable, and the modern UK has been early adopters of rights.
The trouble is there is a lot of brainwashing, the UK is seen as a racist slaver culture due to extreme bias and revisionism in our education system. If you looked at the UK with said skewed vision you would indeed see a lot of evils. Welcome to the human race. Yes the British did bad things under the empire, so did everyone else. We even have for instance a de-colonialisation movement expecting the UK to get out of the Falklands, even though it never had an indigenous population, and the people we would hand the lands over to have never legally held it and are themselves of a Spanish colonial culture which is at least as bad and in many cases a whole lot worse than what the British were ever up to.
The Falklands is a good case study for understanding historical revisionism for this reason. I can understand the Argentine population howling for the islands, they have been spoonfed nationalist propaganda and it has not been countered to any degree, which the Foreign Office must share blame for, however that hogwash is now being spouted by a sizable portion of our own people.
I am under no illusions that our historical record is perfect, however it is all too common for the UK and the UK alone to be judged for the actions of previous centuries according to the moralities of the present. Were you aware of it, this higher bar is in many ways an unintended complement.
Iron_Captain wrote: Just something completely unrelated I have been always wondering about the Welsh:
Why the hell do they write Cymru but pronounce it something like Cumry? That does not make sense!
Welsh pronunciation can get a whole lot more involved than that.
This message was edited 7 times. Last update was at 2018/06/06 18:03:32
n'oublie jamais - It appears I now have to highlight this again.
It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. By the juice of the brew my thoughts aquire speed, my mind becomes strained, the strain becomes a warning. It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion.
I am not lying. You even mentioned the facts yourself. The UK banned slavery in the very early 19th century, and were early adopters of abolitionism.
You are a liar. You said Britain's main role in the slave trade was to ban it. That is a lie and you know it..
Read the history on the link you posted.
We took slaves when slavery was a commonplace ideology, became early adopters of abolitionism and then work very hard to remove the slave trade.
Let me explain it another way.
Were the early Victorians sexist? You might think an immediate 'yes' and with good reason at face value because womens rights were not in evidence.
However at the time it was acceptable to consider women inferior, and unthinkable to give them the vote.
We think the opposite today but there has to be a time for a change of ideology, live prior to those times and you live in a different world.
You could conclude that the Uk is 99.99% sexist because in all our history we only introduced full equality in female voting in 1970. However that would be a skewed perspective as people groups change over time.
Yes the British trafficked slaves, they got those slaves from African tribes who sold other captured tribes into captivity, and sometimes from other Europeans, or sometimes captured slaves themselves. The thing is, everyone was up to it, including the African tribes who sold the slaves. Abolition had to be born as a modern concept before slavery was dealt with. By being early adopters the UK traveled a different path.
Americans can be justly proud of Thomas Jefferson, a humanist and polymath. He wrote treatises on democracy equality and human decency from his home in Montiocello house. Which is also where he kept his black slaves. He saw little contradiction in proposing open democracy and rights of citizens while enslaving Africans, because that was not the thinking of the time. It would be wrong to paint Jefferson as a barbarian. He lived prior to the abolitionist movements full call.
What matters is what one does after ones eyes are opened. The British track record is that once slavery was seen as a social wrong the British government expended a lot of resources to end it. That is the true legacy. Colonialism itself however was not at that time seen as a wrong.....
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/06/06 18:50:49
n'oublie jamais - It appears I now have to highlight this again.
It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. By the juice of the brew my thoughts aquire speed, my mind becomes strained, the strain becomes a warning. It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion.
Formosa wrote: Is it me or did Orlanth go back and edit out all the crazy nonsense he posted previously ?
It is you. Though i did have to relabel a reply that was to Yodhrin that appeared to be to you because you didn't use the quote feature properly and Yodhrin's post was posted as your own. Don't blame me for that.
More importantly, it isn't crazy nonsense if I explain myself properly, which I do; it's content that you don't like, which is a different category.
Just handwaving way opinions you dislike as 'crazy' is neither rational nor enlightened, it is merely unthinking.
If you think my opinions crazy challenge them, say why, and give reasons. If you cant rationalise a reply then at least don't troll.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/06/06 19:47:09
n'oublie jamais - It appears I now have to highlight this again.
It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. By the juice of the brew my thoughts aquire speed, my mind becomes strained, the strain becomes a warning. It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion.
Wow this thread has become almost American in it's hostility.
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
I am confused with my identity which may be "typical" Canadian:
- I am adopted and found out I am (somewhat) pure Scottish of Marr and Murray.
- I was born and raised in Southern Ontario but my area regularly holds highland games.
- We are a commonwealth member so... you-know.
- My favorite alcohol has always been Scotch.
- I am typically polite but tend to get into "backhanded compliments".
- My mother-in-law is Northern Ontario french so the abiding hatred is there.
To be English is to be secure in your ability to handle most circumstances and to be arrogant enough to believe people should receive your help unbidden.
A revolution is an idea which has found its bayonets.
Napoleon Bonaparte
Formosa wrote: Is it me or did Orlanth go back and edit out all the crazy nonsense he posted previously ?
It is you. Though i did have to relabel a reply that was to Yodhrin that appeared to be to you because you didn't use the quote feature properly and Yodhrin's post was posted as your own. Don't blame me for that.
More importantly, it isn't crazy nonsense if I explain myself properly, which I do; it's content that you don't like, which is a different category.
Just handwaving way opinions you dislike as 'crazy' is neither rational nor enlightened, it is merely unthinking.
If you think my opinions crazy challenge them, say why, and give reasons. If you cant rationalise a reply then at least don't troll.
“ It is intended that youn think that way. Here we see the 'brainwashing' of the last two decades at work from this observation. Flag flying in the UK is an interesting case study and a litmus test for the indoctrination from the New Labour era and its lasting damage. Fly the Welsh or Scottish national flags and that is cultural heritage under mutli-culturalism, flag the St George flag and its seen as far right. The same is also claimed of the Union flag. More on this later. “
Nope your right, it was further down, you use fancy words to basically say “you have been brainwashed idiot, Labour is evil herpa derp”
That’s why I called you a daily mail reading nutjob, as it’s this kind of crap that tabloid usually spouts and I’m making fun of you for it... because thats the British way !
