tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post7947004338430695469..comments2024-03-27T09:14:27.496+00:00Comments on All That Is Solid ...: The Double Edge of British ValuesPhilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-75918978220233021552014-06-13T07:37:49.624+01:002014-06-13T07:37:49.624+01:00Re America. If you want to see the legacy of ENGLI...Re America. If you want to see the legacy of ENGLISH values - the birth of that nation was driven by English radicalism and conceptions of liberty - not Indian, German or Nigerian - born of culture and traditions stretching back 1000 years. <br /><br />Sure, it then went off in its own direction, but it is very much an "Anglo Saxon" culture. Ask the French. Speedynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-78210188657840013852014-06-12T18:47:35.020+01:002014-06-12T18:47:35.020+01:00There is, imho, such a thing, as British values. A...There is, imho, such a thing, as British values. And it is often recent imigrants, particularly asylum seekers, who really get this because they feel they can breathe freely at last. Many of these here extremists will have been born and bred in this country, for all the good it's done them...<br /><br />... and it won't be taught in a class, as much as there might be a case for citizenship classes. You just feel it. And I remember, on a trip to the Wrekin a while back, several Eastern European and Asian imigrants who had come out of Telford were there, and someone made a derogatory coment about them. I decided to respond and to say I for one am glad that people who don't come here are making themselves part of this country and coming to love its landscape and views and that as I do. (He harrumphed and moved away). That's what it comes down to, that you might not be in your "homeland" (which might have violently rejected you) but you can build new home.<br /><br />What the government really can do to bolster "British values" is to support ESOL more fully. Who would slag people off for not speaking English, then deny them the means of learning, which most of them are desperate to do? Do they think people can just randomly learn, if only they could be arsed? (The way they think poor people should simply stop being poor, and then they won't have a problem.<br /><br />I am not a republican because I consider that the constitutional monrchy serves a good purpose of providing an above-the-fray had of state. And it's not right to say that the monarchy legitimises inequality per se, it depends far more on other things, which is why the USA is worse on just about every indicator than European monarchies.<br /><br />That said, most of your ideas are of course old enough to be considered "traditional" (As are mine). And I certainly sugest a reading of "A Radical History of Britain" by Edward Vallance. It is quite amusing to see how dated his introduction has become, despit the fact that it was only written in 2009. But it is my view that this bookk can profitably be read by all and sundry.asquithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14246701347539264295noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-50092605432265609102014-06-12T08:00:41.199+01:002014-06-12T08:00:41.199+01:00"entirely unhelpful and downright opportunist..."entirely unhelpful and downright opportunist for various papers"<br /><br />but very "British" hey, Grub Street and all that. <br /><br />The misapplication of techniques like immanent critique, drummed in to humanities students over the past decades who then become flag wavers for cultural deconstruction, is surely at the heart of the matter? <br /><br />The multiculturalism ruthlessly and successfully pursued by said graduates having seized "the means of public policy and implementation" in their cultural revolution is another - those that might have spoken out against such practices have been cowed in to silence ever since Ray Honeyford predicted what has come to pass back in the Eighties.<br /><br />But it is all based on error - what is good for the cultural studies lab does not apply to the real world. And of course the irony about multiculturalism is that the culture of every one exists except that of the host nation - we are apparently all so guilty of our imperial crimes it would be better if we did not exist. Inverse racism has become the coda among our smug, indoctrinated ruling class.<br /><br />Of course there is British identity - one based on a complex set of interdependent and constantly shifting factors, but rooted in shared history, culture and tradition. <br /><br />That one can be a Briton of Pakistani descent, say, is neither here nor there - it is not the problem of the British, which is what, thanks to the cultural revolutionaries, it has all too often become - to the extent that now, in a UK school in 2014, it is seen as acceptable to describe the indigenous women as "white prostitutes". And the likes of Seamus Milne - eminence grise of this brand of intellectual dilettantism - can claim it has nothing to do with extremism. <br /><br />I'm not sure what Gramsci had in mind exactly - but I'm pretty sure it wasn't this. <br /><br /><br /><br /> Speedynoreply@blogger.com