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Xenomancers wrote: Since this is a what it is to be English thread I figure this is an okay place to ask.
A friend of mine (a fellow American) told me that Britts take much offense to the phrase "Mother gaker" than they do to the C word which describes female anatomy. It's almost the exact opposite here so it's pretty funny if that is true.
To be honest, it's just that 'mother gaker' isn't really used that much here; it's more cumbersome to say than 'cant' or one of our many other insults.
swearwords here are basically punctuation. "The fething fether's fething fethed" is a fine exemplar of a sentence, using "feth" as pretty much every part of speech in one sentence.
How similar are Israeli-Jews and English- (or British-) Jews, with regards to multi-culturalism? I hardly know any Jews (or know that I know are Jewish), so am curious.
When I'm asked about Englishness, I always stray towards the stereotypical Bowler hat, brolly and newspaper image.
Thinking a bit harder, it is the grasping at perceived heritage, and long and varied history. Being able to tie ourselves into almost every other country, there is a lot to talk about. Lots of it is bad though, and we have a fair amount to learn from.
We have been conquered so often, and our original identity has been smeared about so much, hanging onto semi-historical histories like Robin Hood and King Arthur goes a long way. Morris Dancing, Welly Wanging and such probably only happened for the Victorians, but we'll stick them in with what we think we know about Stonehenge, Vikings, and the Romans. English Pride is a funny thing.
We'll take any four-letter word and throw it all over the place, though.
This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2018/06/08 15:08:52
Skinnereal wrote: How similar are Israeli-Jews and English- (or British-) Jews, with regards to multi-culturalism? I hardly know any Jews (or know that I know are Jewish), so am curious.
I don't know many British Jews to be honest. 6 or 7 probably. None of them are married to Jews, though. I know a lot of Israeli Jews, and most that are married are married to other Jews, but of course the majority of their population is Jewish. Still, I know a considerable number that are married to non-Jewish Israelis, and, for some reason, lots of German Christians. I am happy to concede that very few of my Israeli friends are particularly religious, and none are Haredi (though a few used to be) so my experience is of a subset of the Jewish Israeli community, albeit a pretty big one (something like 65% of Israeli Jews are secular).
To pull that back to the topic, I'm always curious about how ethnic minorities define their national identity - not simply how they identify themselves, but how their understand it. Englishness will be defined in a variety of ways even within a narrow demographic, but there are presumably patterns within distinct communities. Dianne Abbot, David Miliband, Chuka Amunna and Sadiq Khan all probably understand what it is to be English in different ways, for instance.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/06/08 15:21:43
nfe wrote: This link makes a point of the genetic diversity of Jewry right at the top. In any case, marrying outside the Jewish community is relatively common. Marrying outside the Jewish sub-community is very common.
Couldn't be more wrong.
Do you know any Jews? In real life?
I work in Israel.
Also how have you got the time to write these essay length troll posts?
PhD life, innit. I keep funny hours and am well-practiced at reading and writing arguments fast. There has been no trolling.
Either way, your response is irrelevant. The last few pages have been completely off topic, the English, believe it or not, are not defined by their relationship with the Scottish.
I have at no point argued that they are. I've discussed two issues that pertain directly to 'what it is to be English': the degree to which English pride overlaps with racism, and the degree to which English people conflate English and British identities. You and Orlanth brought up Scotland and Wales. I responded to your comparisons.
You live in Israel then? So you have little direct contact with Jewish groups in other countries where they are the minority and may act entirely different?
Perhaps you should slow down and read the arguments a little more closely before you respond, you've made a number of assumptions of my posts that were wrong. Congrats on the PhD though!
Your first post to me was to claim that the media have no agenda in terms of pushing English pride = racism. Your argument was that the most popular newspapers (in terms of readership) argue the same position I share which may be true but ignores a massive swathe of what I'd consider to be "the media". Why did you do this? To assert that the "loudest people" in terms of English pride are also idiotic racists. You've yet to prove this by the way. A twitter bio stating "I'm proud to be English" for a particular person is not really evidence.
This is the exact issue we are discussing. You're cultivating the bs argument that those who are proud to be English are racist bigots.
you wrote:‘The loudest people’ is very nuch the case. Because normal people who are proud of where they come from don’t spend half their life screaming about it.
It depends how you define "screaming" about it I suppose. Would you consider someone who flew their Nation's flag outside their home to be "screaming"? How about those who have a tattoo of their flag, or a registration plate for their car that states their nationality?
AndrewGPaul wrote: swearwords here are basically punctuation. "The fething fether's fething fethed" is a fine exemplar of a sentence, using "feth" as pretty much every part of speech in one sentence.
Come along now, it's not quite Australia here. yet...
I hate this topic. Any time the subject of English identity comes up the left start talking about the far right, racism, colonialism etc. It's to belittle anybody with a shred of pride in their cultural identity (the small minded bigots that we are) because what we should be feeling is shame, every second of every day, and awe at foreign, non-white cultures- the less progressive the culture the more they should be respected.
In my area for example the C-Bomb is considered the worst word bar none and generally swearwords are considered very poor taste.
Whereas in the wastelands of Essex I find that many people feel a sentence isn’t complete without a c*** in there somewhere
To me, to be English is to be a stubborn, sarcastic, self-loathing bastard who holds a grudge for a lifetime and is loyal to a fault. We hate complainers almost as much as the French and will tough out a situation ourselves rather than ask for help. We like our rivalries, be they international or domestic, but will be your bff if you buy us a drink. That won’t stop us calling you a c*** though
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/06/08 15:46:49
nfe wrote: This link makes a point of the genetic diversity of Jewry right at the top. In any case, marrying outside the Jewish community is relatively common. Marrying outside the Jewish sub-community is very common.
Couldn't be more wrong.
Do you know any Jews? In real life?
I work in Israel.
Also how have you got the time to write these essay length troll posts?
PhD life, innit. I keep funny hours and am well-practiced at reading and writing arguments fast. There has been no trolling.
Either way, your response is irrelevant. The last few pages have been completely off topic, the English, believe it or not, are not defined by their relationship with the Scottish.
I have at no point argued that they are. I've discussed two issues that pertain directly to 'what it is to be English': the degree to which English pride overlaps with racism, and the degree to which English people conflate English and British identities. You and Orlanth brought up Scotland and Wales. I responded to your comparisons.
You live in Israel then? So you have little direct contact with Jewish groups in other countries where they are the minority and may act entirely different?
I live in Glasgow. I spend the bulk of the summer in Israel. I don't have a great deal of interaction with British Jews, though I do have a great many Jewish colleagues from other nations: mostly North Americans.
Perhaps you should slow down and read the arguments a little more closely before you respond, you've made a number of assumptions of my posts that were wrong. Congrats on the PhD though!
Thanks, but I don't believe the first sentence to be true.
Your first post to me was to claim that the media have no agenda in terms of pushing English pride = racism. Your argument was that the most popular newspapers (in terms of readership) argue the same position I share which may be true but ignores a massive swathe of what I'd consider to be "the media".
I didn't claim the media has no agenda to do this, I said the majority of it does not. I'm not going to argue that The Guardian doesn't frequently equate English Pride and racism, only that the bulk of print media does not.
Why did you do this? To assert that the "loudest people" in terms of English pride are also idiotic racists. You've yet to prove this by the way.
I didn't argue this either. I said that there is likely to be more crossover between people who make a particular point of being proud of being English and people who are racist than those who are less forthright about it.
A twitter bio stating "I'm proud to be English" for a particular person is not really evidence.
Evidence of what? I only gave it as an example of the kind of thing that might be thought of as 'loud' in terms of national pride.
This is the exact issue we are discussing. You're cultivating the bs argument that those who are proud to be English are racist bigots.[.quote]
Again, no. I am not making that case. I'm saying that all things being equal, people who wish to make a particular, frequent point of telling people about their English pride are more likely to also be racist than people who may well be proud of being English but are less inclined to talk about that pride often.
you wrote:‘The loudest people’ is very nuch the case. Because normal people who are proud of where they come from don’t spend half their life screaming about it.
It depends how you define "screaming" about it I suppose. Would you consider someone who flew their Nation's flag outside their home to be "screaming"? How about those who have a tattoo of their flag, or a registration plate for their car that states their nationality?
Of course it depends on your definition. I wouldn't consider any of those things screaming about their national pride as such. I'd probably roll my eyes at someone doing all three. Irrespective of the nation in question. If they did all three and also made a point of starting any conversation about politics with 'Listen, I'm proud of [nationality]' then I think we're getting towards shouting. I wouldn't assume they were a bigot, on that basis but, if you took every English person who did all of those things, and every other English person, I'd wager you would find more instances of racism amongst the first group.
Could you stop insisting I'm saying that all people who are proud of the Englishness are racists, now?
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2018/06/08 16:01:28
Snake Tortoise wrote: I hate this topic. Any time the subject of English identity comes up the left start talking about the far right, racism, colonialism etc. It's to belittle anybody with a shred of pride in their cultural identity (the small minded bigots that we are) because what we should be feeling is shame, every second of every day, and awe at foreign, non-white cultures- the less progressive the culture the more they should be respected.
Oh trust me that is going on here too. Nationalism is considered bad now. I always respected the English for having a strong sense of national pride. I'd hate to see that go.
If we fail to anticipate the unforeseen or expect the unexpected in a universe of infinite possibilities, we may find ourselves at the mercy of anyone or anything that cannot be programmed, categorized or easily referenced.
- Fox Mulder
Snake Tortoise wrote: I hate this topic. Any time the subject of English identity comes up the left start talking about the far right, racism, colonialism etc. It's to belittle anybody with a shred of pride in their cultural identity (the small minded bigots that we are) because what we should be feeling is shame, every second of every day, and awe at foreign, non-white cultures- the less progressive the culture the more they should be respected.
Oh trust me that is going on here too. Nationalism is considered bad now. I always respected the English for having a strong sense of national pride. I'd hate to see that go.
I thought we were much further down that road than you. National pride is a dirty concept here
The vast majority of national coverage broadcast or published in Scotland and Wales is devoted to events in England. Now, in many cases this is good, we want coverage of what's going on at Westminster, for instance, as it is relevant to everyone in the UK. What is silly and highlights an Anglo-centric focus, however, is when the bulk of broadcasts in Scotland in the major news hours is dedicated to the London Mayoral race, or a tube strike, or the Northern Rail fiasco. These are things that are important and should be dealt with, but they shouldn't dominate the 6 or 10 o'clock news in Aberdeen or Aberystwyth.
In this you are incorrect, it is national news.
First the fact that the Westminster parliament is a time focus for current affairs, this is only logical, and isn't a London bias as much as national news. The national parliament has to be somewhere. Events in Westminster effect everyone, and the issue at focus could be anywhere. Focus on a national parliament is quite normal for anywhere, and as the UK is relatively small unlike Russia or the US it is hardly a case of some distant unreachable body. Its a natural side effect of the Union, and more recently of its reaffirmation.
Second, if you see a lot of English focused news it is entirely due to stochastic influences. If something big happens in the UK it can happen anywhere to anyone, more or less evenly, so about 80% of random events around individuals and about 60% by geography will involve England due to tnumbers. If a Scottish bank collapses, or a Scottish public service franchise feths up, or there is a celebrity event in Scotland that attracts the media attention it gets the same coverage as a similar event in England.
Probably the most clear Anglo-centric media bias is in sports commentary, punditry, and reporting, where it is so relentless that people don't even complain: it's simply funny. People make bingo cards for Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland football games when they're in the same competitions as England. You've usually hit 1966, England's expected progression, a mention of nearly every England squad member etc by half time. English sports commentators focusing on England when commentating on games England are not part of isn't a major social disaster, obviously, but it does speak to a general undercurrent of England's centrality amongst the home nations.
You see that because you are looking for it, I see the same news and saw Scotland this, Scotland that. So I took a step back. Frankly I think the coverage is pretty damn fair. However when it comes to big sports we still mostly compete as Team GB, in sports where we do compete as separate nations such as the Commonwealth Games and Six Nations. In both of these media coverage is very fair.
However the main issue here is that Scotland doesn't as often qualify for World Cup, I cant remember the last time Wales has, and while England and 1966 and all that has a lot of focus, it is because it happened and the team has been notably lacking since for one reason one other.
English league football at the top end is also a category of its own, has many teams noted amongst the top league football teams internationally and attracts big money and big name players. Other European nations , especially Spain and Italy also has ts big name teams, but it doesn't have the same draw as the English premiership. While Scotland has some premium football teams also Rangers vs Celtic can and does get nastier than most derbys, the Scottish divisions are comperatively small, and while Scottish football teams can hold their own as premium international league football, there aren't enough for the big draw, and arguably lacks the pull of the main English teams, many of which have an international following. When I see reference to giants like Manchester United this or Tottenham Hotspur that I don't see it as English sport, for it isn't except by geography and a handful of token players.
I don't think discarding the Union Flag is anti-English. I think it's anti-Westminster, which you may well see as a problem, and I'm not necessarily in disagreement, but it's a distinct issue. That you do think the removal of the UK flag is anti-English perhaps suggests you are equating the UK with England, the very problem you claim is mythical.
Well lets look at this logically. If the flag remioval of a national flag is an act against what the flag represents. It is unlikely that the Scottish government are doing so out of objection to Scotland, so what part of the UK are they objecting to?
The flag represents the nation not Westminster. There is a logical disconnect to equate one with the other, this is not a colonial situation.
Bad example. Well, for your point. It's an excellent example of the British media misrepresenting Scottish society to attack the independence movement. Two problems for the point you wish to make:
It was an easy find and indicative of a larger whole. The article claimed that race attacks against the English were increasing, there will always be bigots and race violence it is the intensity that was concerning.
Firstly. The numbers do not state that racist incidents against English people in Scotland are up. They state that all racist incidents are up, including against white British people. That all reports of racism are up suggests that attitudes towards tolerating racism have changed and that Police attention and vigilance have changed, not simply that Scotland has started hating everyone more.
You can read what you want into race hate statistics, and they are very often skewed for political ends, however the phenomenon normally involves whitewashing away unwanted race hate statistics rather than making them up. I could accept your point of view that some Scots might have been uncomfortable in England curing the referendum and afterward, but that experience doesn't play out in any numbers.
Race hate against the English however is very strongly evident, I know many English living in Scotland, my sister for one and a close friend who lived in Paisley, amongst others, and the racism is very apparent and comes from the same subset of hardcore nationalists. On the other hand all of them found, as did I, that as a general rule Scottish people were nicer to meet, and far more genuine than what we are used to in South East England, its why they moved there. My friend in Paisley moved back to England after had developed MS, mostly because Renfrewshire council proved to be repeatedly discriminatory against him. Try getting benefits in the wrong part of Scotland with an English accent is not easy, everything goes missing or gets reassessed, or delayed, month on end, and then reassessed again with unexplained delays; and this was well prior to George Osbornes reforms/attacks on the benefit system, and yes the service was atypical of the region (he asked about) and had no firm basis such as missing documentation.
*For what it's worth, I don't think these are racist, but rather ethno-religious hate crimes, but it fits with the conception of race you are using and we'll come back to the fluidity of these concepts below!
Ok. I use race as a term loosely on this thread, the thread is about race (nationalities) not race (colour).
I presume you'll be familiar with the term 'Scottish mafia' that has been thrown around by MPs to describe the perceived excessive number of Scots (such as Blair, Brown, and Campbell) in and around government?
I wouldn't read too much in to that, were Blair, Brown and Campbell all from Yorkshire it would be the Yorkshire Mafia. I do not find that any of the three were notably biased towards Scotland in their policy making. Furthermore if there was discrimination why put them in charge. Campbell was purte appointee so we can exclude him, but Brown and Blair both had to go through parliamentary selection, then go to the people as a PPP and Blair had an English electorate who did not discriminate against Blairs part-Scottish ancestry at the ballot box.
Also for the commentary the idea that Scottish parliamentarians are overrepresented as a portion of the whole was the issue, and there is room for fair comment to be made on Scottish MP's voting down provision to English people while proposing the same for Scottish people. Allowing only English MP's to vote on issues that do not effect Scotland and wales and are fully devolved is a contentious topic, but has a logic to it that cannot be handwaved away as discrimination, not that that hasnt been tried.
How about when Kelvin MacKenzie wrote an entire Sun column about how stupid Scots were, and chortling that at least we were dying faster than the rest of the UK, and made gags about rebuilding Hadrian's wall 'another hundred foot higher and start airlifting in Red Cross parcels of Mars bars' and then Nigel Griffiths, Deputy Leader of the House, when asked about it by a Scottish MP jumping headlong into whataboutery?
We are going to see occasional trash talk in the media, and its the Sun at least it was an opinion piece and not a formal editorial. I see much the same in Scottish press from time to time.
A Scottish MP is accused of not taking the side of three Scottish soldiers who died serving the UK. What point are you making about English hatred? Are you saying they were English soldiers? Or that they were serving England? Are you conflating England and the UK, like you claim no one does?
And, err, again? They're standing in front of a flag representing a group that has a dispute with the UK, not England.
I was expecting this reply, so I just posted the links and waited..... This form of Scots nationalist will publically espouse the Troubles as a specifically English problem, rather than a British one, and thus try and absolve Scotland. Accuracy is not a relevant issue to them, anglophobia is. It is how they manage the disconnect between being a mainland UKMP while being openly in support of the IRA. It has been largely managed by pointing out that Scottish soldiers died in The Troubles also, however that begs the question as to why that needs to be specifically raised as a reply to get them to stop.
While the Troubles was a UK problem not specifically an English one, this particular mentality is all about an a-historical disconnect between Scotland and England to fuel one hate agenda by linking it to another.
Yes, these scum are admittedly extreme examples but the SNP has scrapped the bigot barrel for a number of people who have ended up with public positions.
Several fundamental problems here: You’re conflating ethnicity and race;
We have to as our geneology is a social concept. To say there is no English race is to say there is no other either for logical consistency to be maintained.
They mean distinctly different things. One (almost certainly inaccurately) defines human groups on the basis of perceived biological commonalities whilst the other is an explicitly social construct.
Ok, going to stop you here as this is getting close to a reduction ad absurdem fallacy. So lets cut to the chase, when you get to the root of human culture there is only ONE RACE, because all peoples are ultimately connected, essentially when we are through arguing who is part of what race you will find that there is a bit of African in all of us. All separate definitions of race when relating to categorising one human being as different to another is arbitrary to some extent or other. Race is what it means in the context. Race can mean colour of skin, it can mean nationaility by what passport you hold, nationality by geneology nationality by cultural group, by self identification, so on and so forth.
So the bottom line is that we can talk about race in terms of black/white, or Scottish/English with some logical application to the term. The only rule if you could all it a rule is that there has to be some common denominator, you couldnt try a pedentic approach and 'break' the open definition of race by saying that your 'race' identity is based on the tower block or street or village you live in. If it was an isolated village in the Amazon or Borneo that could be taken at face value, because of isolated genepool and cultural group, primitive tribal villages are sovereign microstates. To a lesser extent maybe for a remote islander, but not for a connected society not so. So you cant really break the system of race, as it requires a consensus for people to adhere to.
So to conclude, it is entirely fair and logical to make the claim that British Scottish English or Welsh, or European, amongst others as your race identity, alongside in separation to each other or your colour of skin or other ancestry. One can put these in an order, a lot of people think of themselves as say British first and the member nation second, or the other way around. It is all a matter of personal identity. For the record I consider myself British and English, and I could not choose one over the other any more than I could favour one of my legs over the other, yet I recognise they are different.
Also legally were one to actively discriminate against say, the Welsh, that would by a fair application of the term 'racist'. If its racist to discriminate, then the subject can be customarily summed up as 'race'.
This link makes a point of the genetic diversity of Jewry right at the top. In any case, marrying outside the Jewish community is relatively common. Marrying outside the Jewish sub-community is very common.
Sure, the point has to be reiterated to prevent trolls from claiming the genetics are a result of 'inbreeding'. Also a religion as long lasting and and as geographically diverse as Judaism will have some interbreeding and leakage. However it is interesting to note that despite the very long time and distance gaps involved there are common features to the genepool of Jewish people. I will go as far as to say it is impressive how the geneology wasn't diluted out.
We know why and Jewish religious law and custom with regards to marriage and identity is the key.
trying to project modern conceptions of race and/or ethnicity into the Roman world is at best a fool’s errand; ‘primitive’ is a severely problematic term when describing humans.
Please stop and think about what you are saying here.
I promise I am. I'm an archaeologist who works on Iron Age Israel and Middle Bronze Anatolia, periods where ethnic definitions are major issues that are taken extremely seriously because of their potential to be exploited in the modern day.
Fools errand? Really. Historical distance is not a factor, we are human so were the Romans.
Historical distance is a massive factor. Ethnicity is unquestionably socially constructed and perceptions of racial markers are understood differently in different cultural contexts. Unsurprisingly, socially constructed things are constructed differently by different societies. They're understood very differently once you start introducing substantial time-depth. This is not controversial. This is mainstream, firmly established in the anthropological, sociological, and ethnographic literature. I am happy to give you a list of key texts if you want to see the groundwork in it.
Gotcha. You are disregarding the event of the Sabine women because you don't want to to be relevant. I can see the cause of your fears, historical evidence in the middle east effects its politics today. However this doesn't disavow the principle I mentioned. The Sabine women as an example as to how an intermarriage has roots on the race definition of the offspring, a topical example with controversy arising from the time not a continuous modern geneology example with current political overtones. Children born to captured Sabine women were Roman children not Sabine children, though they had Sabine ancestry. This had consequences when the Sabine women raised the grandchildren of the Sabine warriors marching to avenge their despoilation. The whole story validates the concept that race is defined culturally, and has been for a very long time.
There are similar Biblical examples. "an Egyptian born amongst you is to be treated as if he were a Jew" . Paraphrased, can't remember the verse accurately enough to google it successfully, one of the laws of Moses.
Spoiler:
An aside: Biblical era archeology is a hot topic. Iit is a mistake to look at the religious history as purely a catalyst for modern political problems. It is equally part of the solution. God claimed in the book of Judges that due to Israel's sin the Philistines would never be fully conquered. Hardline Jews want a greater Israel as promised, and I can see direct parallels between the take the land piece by piece commandment in the book of Joshua with current Israeli military-political policy. However the same hardline Jews who believe in a greater Israel as promised by God, should also accept the same God said that the remaining Canaanite cities would never be truly conquered (Judges 2:20 - 3:4). These territories are classified as ancient Philistia, modern day Gaza strip.
I can think of several Koranic verses which warns against attacking Jews, most notably 'Allah favours the Jews, and 'those who plot against the Jews plot against God, and Allah is the chief of plotters'.
It is a travesty because there is a lot of biblical research going on, findings are taken by hotheads as a catalyst for further rounds of recriminations, and could just as easily be taken the other way.
Xenomancers wrote: Since this is a what it is to be English thread I figure this is an okay place to ask.
A friend of mine (a fellow American) told me that Britts take much offense to the phrase "Mother gaker" than they do to the C word which describes female anatomy. It's almost the exact opposite here so it's pretty funny if that is true.
Yep 'motherf***k*r' is a pretty strong insult. The C-word when applied to a person normally invokes malicious/uncaring self-centeredness/selfishness. The male equivalent is a generic insult. Though being called a 'knob' which is th same as the P-word in some respects is more semi-friendly.
If someone is 'being a knob' they are acting foolishly, if they are 'being a pr**k' it is the same but more malicious/mischievous.
The word to watch out for is fanny. To Americans it means the bottom or arse/ass and is a very tame and casual word.
A friend who works in software development went with his newly weded wife to work in the Us for a couple of years. The company set them up with an apartment etc, one day while furnishing the bed and overenthusiastixc bed salesman asked the couple to try out the beds to see how comfortable they were. One particular prized matress on offer was a contouring softform foam popular at the time, the salesmans words to the wife were "try it, have a lie down, your fanny will soon put a dent in that."
In the UKfanny is exactly the same as the C-word.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2018/06/09 00:16:01
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.
Where I am from in Ireland, the c word (not trying to get around the filter) is no more serious than any other swearword and does not have the heavily gendered associations it carries in the US. I have had to tone down my language generally, but particularly avoid that word as people get super offended. Tempted to accuse them of cultural imperialism, but I like a quiet life.
I don't understand why English cooking is always treated like a standing joke, it's notably superior to Norwegian cooking, and our food isn't that bad.
Snake Tortoise wrote: I hate this topic. Any time the subject of English identity comes up the left start talking about the far right, racism, colonialism etc. It's to belittle anybody with a shred of pride in their cultural identity (the small minded bigots that we are) because what we should be feeling is shame, every second of every day, and awe at foreign, non-white cultures- the less progressive the culture the more they should be respected.
Oh trust me that is going on here too. Nationalism is considered bad now. I always respected the English for having a strong sense of national pride. I'd hate to see that go.
I thought we were much further down that road than you. National pride is a dirty concept here
Snake Tortoise. You are safe. Yes SJW's are rising, people are pulling down historical monuments for the wrong reasons. However the US is safe. You fly your flag, don't let anyone touch it and are immune to the hype to some degree. USA still wallows in its own form of bullcrap but everyone expects that and is used to it, and it will be very hard to force the form of revisionism that tries to make English people live in shame.
Part of the revisionism you are getting is because of the seminal groundwork of modern political spin formulated by and pioneered by the New Labour era. It is a widely copied model of social control. I have watched it for over twenty years, accurately predicting at the time the causes and consequences, many of them put to paper before they occurred in the nation state. The new system has worked so well most people were and still are unaware that we actually had what amounts to a silent revolution in the UK after 1997. The patterns of control used in the UK are now strongly in evidence in a lot of Europe Germany and Sweden in particular. And as with the UK there will be a large surge of public denial.
The rot is depressing and it has hit the UK and England in particular hard, and it was for party political benefit. We are starting to come out the other side as a culture, but sadly the political elite are still heavily entrenched in Blairism, even though Blair himself has long been put into the political dustbin. Equally damaging is that the youth of today are heavily dogmatised, and have been divorced from any form of national cultural upbringing, unless they were Scottish or Welsh. New Labour hoped that selective disempowerment would keep them in power, as Scotland and Wales are Labour heartland right? However when you remove British collective cultural identity, and also marginalise English cultural identity while heavily and selectively promoting ethnic identities, and Scottish and Welsh were considered ethnic from a point of view of power division, you actually ended up with a massive upsurge of Scottish and Welsh nationalism. Division was not a problem, New Labour expected division from the outset, multi-culturalism is and never was never expected to work, contrary to rhetoric, it is supposed to left to its own devices and thus fail However in this New Labour as the self proclaimed champions of multi culturalism becomes the indispensible glue that binds the nation together, through this perpetual power was envisabed as a goal. This ultimate goal didn't work, but came pretty close. Were it not for Blairs game of soldiers in Iraq which had a different dynamic to that expected, New Labour might still be in power today. Blair expected to still be in power in 2012, and his predictions were not unrealistic, he bought the Olympics to showcase New Labour, and Gibraltar was to be betrayed around that time. His failures were outside and beyond the repair by his successes in social engineering.
Allowing the far right to grow is also to plan and was predicted for in the initial study, they become a collective label for anyone who disagrees with New Britain. If you are opposed to New Labour/multi-culturalism/selective empowerment etc you must be hate-filled far right, with emphasis on both. You have the counter movement and the beat stick rolled into one, and you don't even need to the police to police it.
New Labour started the modern no-platform movement (they got that from African politics, but introduced it as a viable policy in western society).
You want to know how a modern democratic enlightened society can have no-platforming by SJW's in a university, the very heart of free thought where discourse without intimidation has long been sacrosanct. Blame New Labour, they made the doctrines work.
While I despise New Labour I have a deep respect for their ability to work social engineering, others respect their achievements too, because they are busy copying the model.
However from America you can be sure to weather the storm, I know this because I also know that New Labour did not originate their own movement. It started in the US under the Clinton administration. However Clinton himself was not behind it, so it lacked the central leadership that New Labour had, and in terms of relative internal power the UK Prime Minister is much stronger than the US President, and the UK cabinet much stronger than the White House administration. We do have the ultimate safeguard that any action has to pass the monarch, Blair's solution to that was to flatly refuse to report to the Queen and isolate her. He would have made a republic if he could, but Her Majesty's popularity far exceeds his own even at the height of his power.
Political correctness as a power form failed in the US because of the nature of US society, in the US you can say what you want under the flag, and while there are limits for public decency it is hard to enforce those limits early on someone who just wants to speak their mind.
It did well in the UK where it became the central beatstick to use to party politicise the civil service, and shut down any effective opposition. Some icons were left alone because good propaganda always leaves a isolatable vent, that is one of Orwell's lessons, and are sourced int turn from the Soviet Unions policy of 'dialectic'.
Back in the New Labour years there was a repeated term which was oft used but rarely understood, and now not really used anymore 'political correctness gone mad', and while some of the stories are what would now be called fake news, others were not. Grognard's of this system often with a worms eye view of political life started gravitating to pressure groups. One of those was the EDL. The EDL was not actually founded as a hate group, but as an anti-political correctness pressure group. They went out of their way to try and recruit blacks and made statements supporting Israel, mostly on the hope that anyone who is vocally pro-Israeli cannot easily be tarnished as a Nazi, they also went out of their way to disavow racism, and ask instead for genuine equality without 'positive discrimination'. It did not work, few blacks found the EDL, though black underclass have mostly the same questions and complaints as the white underclass, but skinheads and far right hatemongers rushed to it, they may have been bussed in, no way to tell for sure, and after one or two press stories they were the next BNP (the current at the time far right movement). EDL then went off the deep end and became an object lesson on social engineering as and of itself.
In the post New Labour years Cameron tried so limit the damage, however some of the control structures are rooted into Westminster politics, and found to be too useful to remove, they are also adopted with little change in the Scottish and Welsh parliamentary politics. May, being a pure opportunist has in turn reversed back some of the damage control Cameron government performed. In this era we see the second wave movement hit the US. As with political culture as it reaches the US it grows its own dynamic and its own jargon.
SJW and 'triggered' both come from the US adoption of the social engineering model from Europe. It is effective and is damaging, but ultimately it will fail. The US is too big to dogmatise, and Americans are flag flying to a fault, but this will actually help them here. I pity the man to try and maneuver American politics to make Americans feel shamed to be American. It could work, as in its a realistic threat, and has been tried, but ultimately it will fail utterly, I don't think I need to explain why.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/06/08 21:23:46
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.
It’s moving to live in another country and refusing to learn the language,refusing to eat the foreign food and drinking Guinness in a bar and finally flying a Union Jack in your garden so I’m told by my English mates. I’m Welsh so I have my own problems.
Galas wrote: Well... until this thread I didn't even know english and british weren't the same thing.
EDIT: And as formosa said, galician, catalan and vasque "nationalism" is in general seen as a good thing, but "spanish" nationalism is normally the umbrella for fascist and post-franquists, and many people believes they have basically kidnaped (Myself included) the "spanish" identity for their own political agenda, for the detriment of all of the country. Is actually funny how similar the situations are.
Of course, the catalonian crisis hasn't helped with this.
Ha, you tell me. I've been called out a "nazi" for wearing a spanish flag. A country is not "what it means to be", but what it is to you. For me, my country is my city, my family (from all around the country), and what not; food is my country. Anyway, in the 41st Millenium there are no countries, JUST THE EMPEROR
Galas wrote: Well... until this thread I didn't even know english and british weren't the same thing.
EDIT: And as formosa said, galician, catalan and vasque "nationalism" is in general seen as a good thing, but "spanish" nationalism is normally the umbrella for fascist and post-franquists, and many people believes they have basically kidnaped (Myself included) the "spanish" identity for their own political agenda, for the detriment of all of the country. Is actually funny how similar the situations are.
Of course, the catalonian crisis hasn't helped with this.
Ha, you tell me. I've been called out a "nazi" for wearing a spanish flag. A country is not "what it means to be", but what it is to you. For me, my country is my city, my family (from all around the country), and what not; food is my country. Anyway, in the 41st Millenium there are no countries, JUST THE EMPEROR
Galas, you do know better regarding Britishness, you were quite vocal on the Scottish independence thread and witnessed the Scottish/English divide as well as Britishness there. In fact I remember your content where you supported claims by myself and other pro Ujnion commentators that if Scotland chose independence the Spanish would likely EU veto membership because the Catalan problem. This was way back in 2014.
I have heard a lot of different individual Spaniards saying that there is a move to apply far right overtones to the Spanish flag. I have not studied how the dogma has effected Spain and I am interested in any recent national social engineering technique changes and broadly when they started to appear.
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.
Zingraff wrote: I don't understand why English cooking is always treated like a standing joke, it's notably superior to Norwegian cooking, and our food isn't that bad.
its a very old 'factoid' most likely based on post-war scarcity and a typically bloody minded resistance to change, and whilst 'English' food hasn't really changed we have embraced a wide range of other places foodstuffs, admittedly tweaked for English preferences, such that I'd wager most of our bigger towns and cities have a wider range of restaurants / takeaways than their EU counterparts, likewise our Supermarkets have fairly extensive choices (Curry, Chinese and Italian being the most popular)
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/06/08 22:08:09
"AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED."
One of those was the EDL. The EDL was not actually founded as a hate group, but as an anti-political correctness pressure group. They went out of their way to try and recruit blacks and made statements supporting Israel, mostly on the hope that anyone who is vocally pro-Israeli cannot easily be tarnished as a Nazi, they also went out of their way to disavow racism, and ask instead for genuine equality without 'positive discrimination'. It did not work, few blacks found the EDL
I’ll make a point of returning to respond to your reply to me. In the meantime I just want to highlight this in case it gets edited away if you spot that the irony of you, as an avowedly proud Englishman, using racist language somewhat undercuts your insistence that the suggestion that English pride and racism may overlap is a contrived smear.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2018/06/10 09:25:36
Zingraff wrote: I don't understand why English cooking is always treated like a standing joke, it's notably superior to Norwegian cooking, and our food isn't that bad.
its a very old 'factoid' most likely based on post-war scarcity and a typically bloody minded resistance to change, and whilst 'English' food hasn't really changed we have embraced a wide range of other places foodstuffs, admittedly tweaked for English preferences, such that I'd wager most of our bigger towns and cities have a wider range of restaurants / takeaways than their EU counterparts, likewise our Supermarkets have fairly extensive choices (Curry, Chinese and Italian being the most popular)
Well, traditional English cuisine is still superior to ours, with the exception of scouse, but only because it's exactly the same as the Norwegian labskaus.
In traditional English cooking you get stuff like pies, rich sauces, sausages, marmalades, blue cheeses and excellent ales. We have none of those things.
One of those was the EDL. The EDL was not actually founded as a hate group, but as an anti-political correctness pressure group. They went out of their way to try and recruit blacks and made statements supporting Israel, mostly on the hope that anyone who is vocally pro-Israeli cannot easily be tarnished as a Nazi, they also went out of their way to disavow racism, and ask instead for genuine equality without 'positive discrimination'. It did not work, few blacks found the EDL
I’ll make a point of responding to your reply to me tomorrow. In the meantime I just want to highlight this in case it gets edited away if you spot that the irony of you, as an avowedly proud Englishman, using racist language somewhat undercuts your insistence that the suggestion that English pride and racism may overlap is a contrived smear.
You highlighted the word blacks? Is that your controversy.
Save yourself some effort then. The word 'blacks' is not racist. now some triggered progressives can find just about anything as a racist term, however I am not standing for that bullcrap. Black people refer to themselves as blacks, and not with the same dynamic as the N-word, as in 'we can use it but you cannot'. Black people are identified as black in census forms, it is used in national media, and in politics both of which are more than a little cautious over potentially offensive language. Black is a word used to define people of negroid (scientific term) origin harmlessly just about anywhere.
Now if some idiot tries to tell me that black people now like to be called x or y, I will laugh it off until the black community overwhelming backs it. This is unlikely as the black community are identified under that name for the most part, and I have ever met a black guy who was triggered as being identified as black unless they thought they were something else, as opposed to disliked the term. Furthermore I cant call blacks 'Africans' because many don't come from Africa, or don't identify themselves as African, and Africans can also be non-black.
What we will see are SJW's trying to impose ever changing standards in dialectic, ostensibly to protect minorities but actually as a power play of their own, as well as to root out supposed traitors to civil society who fail to conform to their demands. Yes I can believe that SJW's might try to extend that powertrip by trying to excise commonly used and harmless words like 'black' as a race group on some perceived slight. Frankly I think its a step too far, as it will label too many people at once as the new racists and the bullcrap will lose its power if misused that way. However SJW's are third party utilisers of the social engineering dogma toolkit that is political correctness and too many of them lack the insidious intelligence of those who created the system to begin with. A little bit of overstretch is to be expected, but a self professed scholar like yourself should not be falling for this one.
So.... "black" is now a racist term, ridiculous overstretch!
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/06/08 23:46:34
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.
Well, negro and black are essentially the same word, so I can see why dark-skinned people would find it offensive. It reduces people to nothing more than a colour.
It's interesting how many different viewpoints there are - I suppose it goes to show that "national identity" is a bit of a funny concept, seeing as there are a lot of different people with different ideas about what that identity is.
Although, as one-sentence summaries go, there's always good old "Two world wars and one world cup!"
What I like is that culture and traditions are continually evolving; but some people hold on to them, as if the exact state of cultural being they experienced as a child is a sort of sacrosanct immutable fact of existence that has to be protected against the outsider.
I don't know what it is to be English, but it's not the same thing as it was 30 years ago, and it's certainly not the same thing as it was 60 years ago.
Damn those New Labour liberal claws in my brain.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/06/09 22:37:47
“Good people are quick to help others in need, without hesitation or requiring proof the need is genuine. The wicked will believe they are fighting for good, but when others are in need they’ll be reluctant to help, withholding compassion until they see proof of that need. And yet Evil is quick to condemn, vilify and attack. For Evil, proof isn’t needed to bring harm, only hatred and a belief in the cause.”
Iron_Captain wrote: Well, negro and black are essentially the same word, so I can see why dark-skinned people would find it offensive. It reduces people to nothing more than a colour.
Necro is latin for black, or close enough.
However blacks call themselves blacks, and it thus has a different dynamic to negro due to self identification.
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.
Xenomancers wrote: Since this is a what it is to be English thread I figure this is an okay place to ask.
A friend of mine (a fellow American) told me that Britts take much offense to the phrase "Mother gaker" than they do to the C word which describes female anatomy. It's almost the exact opposite here so it's pretty funny if that is true.
To be honest, it's just that 'mother gaker' isn't really used that much here; it's more cumbersome to say than 'cant' or one of our many other insults.
Really? So British cursing is about quantity over quality? That is interesting.
I don't really give my cursing much thought really. Usually whatever comes out, comes out. Most of them have become a lot like the f bomb to me, interchangeable in almost every aspect of a sentence. This applies double if I have hurt myself or people with poor constitutions are around. Mainly the elderly or religious.
One of those was the EDL. The EDL was not actually founded as a hate group, but as an anti-political correctness pressure group. They went out of their way to try and recruit blacks and made statements supporting Israel, mostly on the hope that anyone who is vocally pro-Israeli cannot easily be tarnished as a Nazi, they also went out of their way to disavow racism, and ask instead for genuine equality without 'positive discrimination'. It did not work, few blacks found the EDL
I’ll make a point of responding to your reply to me tomorrow. In the meantime I just want to highlight this in case it gets edited away if you spot that the irony of you, as an avowedly proud Englishman, using racist language somewhat undercuts your insistence that the suggestion that English pride and racism may overlap is a contrived smear.
You highlighted the word blacks? Is that your controversy.
Save yourself some effort then. The word 'blacks' is not racist. now some triggered progressives can find just about anything as a racist term, however I am not standing for that bullcrap. Black people refer to themselves as blacks, and not with the same dynamic as the N-word, as in 'we can use it but you cannot'. Black people are identified as black in census forms, it is used in national media, and in politics both of which are more than a little cautious over potentially offensive language. Black is a word used to define people of negroid (scientific term) origin harmlessly just about anywhere.
Now if some idiot tries to tell me that black people now like to be called x or y, I will laugh it off until the black community overwhelming backs it. This is unlikely as the black community are identified under that name for the most part, and I have ever met a black guy who was triggered as being identified as black unless they thought they were something else, as opposed to disliked the term. Furthermore I cant call blacks 'Africans' because many don't come from Africa, or don't identify themselves as African, and Africans can also be non-black.
What we will see are SJW's trying to impose ever changing standards in dialectic, ostensibly to protect minorities but actually as a power play of their own, as well as to root out supposed traitors to civil society who fail to conform to their demands. Yes I can believe that SJW's might try to extend that powertrip by trying to excise commonly used and harmless words like 'black' as a race group on some perceived slight. Frankly I think its a step too far, as it will label too many people at once as the new racists and the bullcrap will lose its power if misused that way. However SJW's are third party utilisers of the social engineering dogma toolkit that is political correctness and too many of them lack the insidious intelligence of those who created the system to begin with. A little bit of overstretch is to be expected, but a self professed scholar like yourself should not be falling for this one.
So.... "black" is now a racist term, ridiculous overstretch!
Black is not a racially charged term (at least in the UK). Blacks is. It has connotations of apartheid and racial segregation.
A rant about “SJWs” just comes across poorly. If you can’t articulate why it is an issue without insulting people who disagree with you I would suggest that you probably need to very carefully check your arguments. Especially when you clearly don’t understand what the issue is.
insaniak wrote: Sometimes, Exterminatus is the only option.
And sometimes, it's just a case of too much scotch combined with too many buttons...
"The fething fether's fething fethed" is a fine exemplar of a sentence, using "feth" as pretty much every part of speech in one sentence.
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