Reminiscent of Louis Sébastien Mercier’s description of the social divisions in pre-revolutionary France: “Hatred grows more bitter and the state is divided into two classes: the greedy and insensitive, and murmuring malcontents.”
Observing this all from a distance, it looks a lot like the tea party in the US. It's distributed not centralized making it much harder to control. It was dulled by a concerted effort by big media to brand all supporters racist and mean spirited. The force of the movement gave the republicans control of the house in 2010, and after that it dissipated for a variety of reasons, although the ideas and positions of the movement were reasserted in 2015 as populism. And then we got Trump. The rally of September 13 will be a turning point. If the government doesn't send in agents to turn it into a huge riot to discredit it (I think it's very likely), it may force a general election and turn Tommy Robinson into a hero (arch your eye brow and repeat after me "How distasteful"). I'm pretty far removed so I may be way off about events in the UK, but as an American I've ordered "An Appeal to Heaven" flag and I'm on the way to the gun shop.
Yeah, my general view of US culture is that I don't want to coast on expectation of excellence that was in the past, but also that I do not know that we have lost whatever combination of factors that let us do what we did.
I absolutely do not want to borrow unearned rewards of others and the past where my own emotional well being is concerned. The color of my skin means nothing where my ability to inherit some of the ideas of white 19th century scholars is concerned. I need not feel that my choices are such a disgrace that the color of my skin is the only reason to say positive things about me. (It is no reason at all, and tricking myself that way would be a bit of a waste.)
My grandfather, and maybe some of my great-grandfathers and great-great grandfathers, was an American fighting man. That is not what I am. Yet, there are many hard fighting men among Americans of my cohort, and some of the younger cohorts.
(The EUcrats screwed up with the nitrogen ban. It was also a concession that they did not think through the carbon stuffs, and did not really believe in the AGW forecasting that they bought. So remain was a losing prospect, exiting meant that UK academics had a chance of escaping being lynched as the common enemies of all mankind. Starmer seems to be a bitter remainer, destructively lashing out in passive aggressive ways, and is not terribly good for the survival prospects of UK academics in meteorology, anthropology, etc.)
The WWII cohorts in America generally had a mirroring hypothesis about the quality and determination of the Axis fighting man, and did not have tons of enthusiasm for that last bit of prospective fighting on Japanese soil.
Late eighties cohorts of American men, largely grew up around those WWII cohorts. They largely also projected the mirroring hypothesis to the soviet fighting man. They were at least happy not to have to scrum after all.
In 2000, I may have not been an adult. There was then the hypothesis that in the last ten years we had lost the recipe, and were entirely uninfluenced by the cold war men, and were thus soft, and no longer capable. Well, I had grown up with almost every adult man quietly aware of how good a thing the collapse of the soviet union was.
Our politicians proved awful, but those cohorts of fighting men were all right, in hindsight.
Anyway, with international students in America, a lot of them are here because they do not love the security situations in the location that they were born in. One thing I am wanting to talk with some of them about, is US academic screw ups when it comes to the US internal stability and peace consensus. Of course, it is unfair to just walk up to people, especially if they have no reason to trust me in such circumstances.
I think that if the quality of the UK fighting man has held, those sorts will have the strength of position, and strength of character, to afford the enemy an appropriate measure of mercy.
Along a similar path, I do think American academics will have lower budgets and fewer positions, but I think that the mainstream of America has won enough to let it settle at that, and will not be loaning shovels to academics.
In the US, and in the UK, I think there is a pretty strong reason to truly doubt that the ordinary man has lost the recipe. IE, crime, and the bottom up peace consensus. If the man who speaks English had truly grown weak and pacifistic, then we would see an increase in crimes against persons that were not merely the professionals screwing everyone by being obviously corrupt. I do not know the UK, as I know the US. But the reports from the UK are maybe not extreme enough for a true state change in the UK's internal stability and peace prospects. Among other things, the King is an old man, and the prime minister looks like a young man could jump him, so the fact that neither has been stabbed or beaten means that the young white hooligans are not able to run amok with no one able to stop them.
It is a choice to let the police be politically weaponized, and to let immigrant hooligans run amok.
The delimiting of conflicts (Never bring a gun to a knife fight nor a knife to fisticuffs.) and the have a pint when it's past reminds me of a probably false probably exaggerated Oscar Wilde story.
According to purely anecdotal sources when he was a Oxford 3 rugby played decided to go and beat a bit on the guy they considered a flamboyant puff. They stomping talking loudly going up the stairs to his rooms, meeting him there on the landing, Oscar picks up one, tosses him at the other two. He then walks down to the pile of them at the next landing, assures none are too badly broken and invites them up to his rooms for tea.
I know, I know Oscar was Anglo-Irish but such just adds some support to your friend's contention regarding the Celtic influence. ;-)
It's no coincidence that the majority of American Medal of Honor winners are of Scots-Irish descent. The conclusion that I came to was simply, 'they like to fight'. Perhaps it's in their DNA.
Reminiscent of Louis Sébastien Mercier’s description of the social divisions in pre-revolutionary France: “Hatred grows more bitter and the state is divided into two classes: the greedy and insensitive, and murmuring malcontents.”
Observing this all from a distance, it looks a lot like the tea party in the US. It's distributed not centralized making it much harder to control. It was dulled by a concerted effort by big media to brand all supporters racist and mean spirited. The force of the movement gave the republicans control of the house in 2010, and after that it dissipated for a variety of reasons, although the ideas and positions of the movement were reasserted in 2015 as populism. And then we got Trump. The rally of September 13 will be a turning point. If the government doesn't send in agents to turn it into a huge riot to discredit it (I think it's very likely), it may force a general election and turn Tommy Robinson into a hero (arch your eye brow and repeat after me "How distasteful"). I'm pretty far removed so I may be way off about events in the UK, but as an American I've ordered "An Appeal to Heaven" flag and I'm on the way to the gun shop.
Yeah, my general view of US culture is that I don't want to coast on expectation of excellence that was in the past, but also that I do not know that we have lost whatever combination of factors that let us do what we did.
I absolutely do not want to borrow unearned rewards of others and the past where my own emotional well being is concerned. The color of my skin means nothing where my ability to inherit some of the ideas of white 19th century scholars is concerned. I need not feel that my choices are such a disgrace that the color of my skin is the only reason to say positive things about me. (It is no reason at all, and tricking myself that way would be a bit of a waste.)
My grandfather, and maybe some of my great-grandfathers and great-great grandfathers, was an American fighting man. That is not what I am. Yet, there are many hard fighting men among Americans of my cohort, and some of the younger cohorts.
(The EUcrats screwed up with the nitrogen ban. It was also a concession that they did not think through the carbon stuffs, and did not really believe in the AGW forecasting that they bought. So remain was a losing prospect, exiting meant that UK academics had a chance of escaping being lynched as the common enemies of all mankind. Starmer seems to be a bitter remainer, destructively lashing out in passive aggressive ways, and is not terribly good for the survival prospects of UK academics in meteorology, anthropology, etc.)
The WWII cohorts in America generally had a mirroring hypothesis about the quality and determination of the Axis fighting man, and did not have tons of enthusiasm for that last bit of prospective fighting on Japanese soil.
Late eighties cohorts of American men, largely grew up around those WWII cohorts. They largely also projected the mirroring hypothesis to the soviet fighting man. They were at least happy not to have to scrum after all.
In 2000, I may have not been an adult. There was then the hypothesis that in the last ten years we had lost the recipe, and were entirely uninfluenced by the cold war men, and were thus soft, and no longer capable. Well, I had grown up with almost every adult man quietly aware of how good a thing the collapse of the soviet union was.
Our politicians proved awful, but those cohorts of fighting men were all right, in hindsight.
Anyway, with international students in America, a lot of them are here because they do not love the security situations in the location that they were born in. One thing I am wanting to talk with some of them about, is US academic screw ups when it comes to the US internal stability and peace consensus. Of course, it is unfair to just walk up to people, especially if they have no reason to trust me in such circumstances.
I think that if the quality of the UK fighting man has held, those sorts will have the strength of position, and strength of character, to afford the enemy an appropriate measure of mercy.
Along a similar path, I do think American academics will have lower budgets and fewer positions, but I think that the mainstream of America has won enough to let it settle at that, and will not be loaning shovels to academics.
In the US, and in the UK, I think there is a pretty strong reason to truly doubt that the ordinary man has lost the recipe. IE, crime, and the bottom up peace consensus. If the man who speaks English had truly grown weak and pacifistic, then we would see an increase in crimes against persons that were not merely the professionals screwing everyone by being obviously corrupt. I do not know the UK, as I know the US. But the reports from the UK are maybe not extreme enough for a true state change in the UK's internal stability and peace prospects. Among other things, the King is an old man, and the prime minister looks like a young man could jump him, so the fact that neither has been stabbed or beaten means that the young white hooligans are not able to run amok with no one able to stop them.
It is a choice to let the police be politically weaponized, and to let immigrant hooligans run amok.
The delimiting of conflicts (Never bring a gun to a knife fight nor a knife to fisticuffs.) and the have a pint when it's past reminds me of a probably false probably exaggerated Oscar Wilde story.
According to purely anecdotal sources when he was a Oxford 3 rugby played decided to go and beat a bit on the guy they considered a flamboyant puff. They stomping talking loudly going up the stairs to his rooms, meeting him there on the landing, Oscar picks up one, tosses him at the other two. He then walks down to the pile of them at the next landing, assures none are too badly broken and invites them up to his rooms for tea.
I know, I know Oscar was Anglo-Irish but such just adds some support to your friend's contention regarding the Celtic influence. ;-)
Excellent post. Very informative especially as regards to the dole class.
It's no coincidence that the majority of American Medal of Honor winners are of Scots-Irish descent. The conclusion that I came to was simply, 'they like to fight'. Perhaps it's in their DNA.
Which is why they won't lose if (when) they have to fight the migrants