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Original post by Wōden
We acquire consciousness and a sense of connection to these things not because we happen to occupy the same geographic location, but because it was OUR ancestors who experienced them.
How far back do you think the average Briton knows what their ancestors experienced? My guess is that most people haven't spent hours in archives and records (and even those have their limits), and would be dependent upon what their grandparents told them, old photos, and other mementoes and heirlooms - which will likely leave them struggling to go back more than a few generations.
Of course, they can make educated guesses as to the likelihoods of their ancestors being in X place and being involved in Y event, but by that point it's no longer really personal (and still not conclusively proved, by definition).
Indeed, I'd go as far as to say in many cases the opposite of what you are saying is closer to the truth - because of the national consciousness instilled in them, people perceive earlier celebrated national heroes as their ancestors, both in a literal sense but also in a more abstract one.
For example, it seems a bit absurd to argue that the Holocaust does not play a significant role in the identity of the many Jews who don't have ancestors who died in or otherwise experienced it (i.e. the vast majority of Jews of non-European descent, any Jews whose ancestors spent the war in non-Axis-occupied countries, etc). Similarly, the ancient Siege of Masada plays a significant role in Jewish national consciousness - even though there were only seven survivors and the average Jew's chance of descent from one is not that high (especially if they come from a diaspora community which predated the Roman conquest, like the Iraqi or Persian Jews).
Alternatively, you could look at the case of the Byzantine Empire, whose citizens considered themselves "Romans" right up to 1453 and even beyond that (we have evidence of some Greek islanders identifying as "Roman" rather than "Greek" as recently as 1912), and who considered the Romans of antiquity to be their precursors and "ancestors" in a spiritual sense despite the knowledge that they were likely not their literal ancestors.
Original post by anarchism101
How far back do you think the average Briton knows what their ancestors experienced? My guess is that most people haven't spent hours in archives and records (and even those have their limits), and would be dependent upon what their grandparents told them, old photos, and other mementoes and heirlooms - which will likely leave them struggling to go back more than a few generations.
Of course, they can make educated guesses as to the likelihoods of their ancestors being in X place and being involved in Y event, but by that point it's no longer really personal (and still not conclusively proved, by definition).
Indeed, I'd go as far as to say in many cases the opposite of what you are saying is closer to the truth - because of the national consciousness instilled in them, people perceive earlier celebrated national heroes as their ancestors, both in a literal sense but also in a more abstract one.
For example, it seems a bit absurd to argue that the Holocaust does not play a significant role in the identity of the many Jews who don't have ancestors who died in or otherwise experienced it (i.e. the vast majority of Jews of non-European descent, any Jews whose ancestors spent the war in non-Axis-occupied countries, etc). Similarly, the ancient Siege of Masada plays a significant role in Jewish national consciousness - even though there were only seven survivors and the average Jew's chance of descent from one is not that high (especially if they come from a diaspora community which predated the Roman conquest, like the Iraqi or Persian Jews).
Alternatively, you could look at the case of the Byzantine Empire, whose citizens considered themselves "Romans" right up to 1453 and even beyond that (we have evidence of some Greek islanders identifying as "Roman" rather than "Greek" as recently as 1912), and who considered the Romans of antiquity to be their precursors and "ancestors" in a spiritual sense despite the knowledge that they were likely not their literal ancestors.
Of course, they can make educated guesses as to the likelihoods of their ancestors being in X place and being involved in Y event, but by that point it's no longer really personal (and still not conclusively proved, by definition).
Indeed, I'd go as far as to say in many cases the opposite of what you are saying is closer to the truth - because of the national consciousness instilled in them, people perceive earlier celebrated national heroes as their ancestors, both in a literal sense but also in a more abstract one.
For example, it seems a bit absurd to argue that the Holocaust does not play a significant role in the identity of the many Jews who don't have ancestors who died in or otherwise experienced it (i.e. the vast majority of Jews of non-European descent, any Jews whose ancestors spent the war in non-Axis-occupied countries, etc). Similarly, the ancient Siege of Masada plays a significant role in Jewish national consciousness - even though there were only seven survivors and the average Jew's chance of descent from one is not that high (especially if they come from a diaspora community which predated the Roman conquest, like the Iraqi or Persian Jews).
Alternatively, you could look at the case of the Byzantine Empire, whose citizens considered themselves "Romans" right up to 1453 and even beyond that (we have evidence of some Greek islanders identifying as "Roman" rather than "Greek" as recently as 1912), and who considered the Romans of antiquity to be their precursors and "ancestors" in a spiritual sense despite the knowledge that they were likely not their literal ancestors.
I am reading Ivanhoe at the moment. Probably the only person on this website who ever has or ever will,, but I am on a bit of a Walter Scott kick at the moment and have got round to that one. Sue me.
And the myth of an English identity is there, dripping off the pages, it is amazing how it resonates. As a novelist Scott is peerless.. You all know the story of course, but when the Normans luxuriate in villainy enslaving and raping honest Anglo Saxon yeomen, and damsels I am right there relishing their comeuppance.
I guess my ancestors were Anglo Saxon (they certainly weren't Norman) but even if they weren't it would resonate. I can't think of a greater contributor to the national myth of Englishness than Ivanhoe, except Henry V.
But it is a coincidence that it languishes unread and unreferred to nowadays? Just as we have this conversation about the lack of a shared consciousness?
For what could be more politically incorrect nowadays than a Crusader, as hero? Could he be more Islamophobic?
!
Original post by astutehirstute
You mention the American Civil War, and that provides a really interesting example of shared history, shared consciousness, strangely enough. Not in the North, where it is taught in pretty vanilla, good versus evil terms, Lincoln the greatest President, the final unification of the nation, the Emancipation Proclamation, ya de ya.
No, the nuanced, some might say tortured viewpoint has been inculcated in the South.
No, the nuanced, some might say tortured viewpoint has been inculcated in the South.
The Southern narrative is not so much nuanced as "second-option bias". Kids are taught the simpler basics of history on the assumption that they won't go on to study it further - those who do will learn the nuances when they get there.
The antebellum South is ridiculously romanticised, and there is a collective memory, a shared consciousness of Sherman's brutal campaign just before victory, as well of course as the humiliation of Reconstruction.
You will see monuments to Confederate War heroes, the Confederate battle flag is still iconic with huge resonance, High Schools, parks are named after Robert E Lee and JEB Stuart. Not Bedford Forrest one hopes!
Or at least that was the case when the population remained relatively homogenised compared to the northern and western states.
You will see monuments to Confederate War heroes, the Confederate battle flag is still iconic with huge resonance, High Schools, parks are named after Robert E Lee and JEB Stuart. Not Bedford Forrest one hopes!
Or at least that was the case when the population remained relatively homogenised compared to the northern and western states.
Which was never - the South was usually more racially heterogenous, given its large black population. The only period where the South was actually becoming more homogenous was the first half of the 20th Century, due to the Great Migration of African Americans.
What did change was the level of political homogeneity in the South. From the end of Reconstruction through to the 1950s and 1960s, Southern politics was effectively White Democrats only, and they invariably pushed Dunning School and Lost Cause Myth narratives of history. Anyone who might challenge that narrative, most notably African-Americans, were kept out of the discourse. And this was not just a cultural memory which organically developed independent of politics - it was developed and pushed to justify the existing political arrangements, namely Jim Crow. What's changed since Civil Rights is that politically challenging (academically it has long been rejected) that narrative in the South has become more and more possible.
And in that the UK may resemble it? We may be losing our shared consciousness too? I mean we don't teach it do we? How many people on here know anything of Magna Carta, the Norman Conquest, the English Revolution?
I can say I learnt about all of these at school in Years 7-9. I'm in my mid-20s, so that's not so long ago.
The only history anyone is taught IS. WW2, WW1, and Nazi Germany.
There does seem to be a bias towards more modern (i.e. post-1789) history at GCSE and A Level. Whether this reflects greater academic focus, perceived greater relevance, the wider source base, or something else, I can't say. That said, it does seem to have weakened somewhat in the last few years, and earlier periods like the Tudors and the Reformation have become a bit more prominent.
We have a rich, remarkable history. For it to be shared it needs to be known. And I would argue it isn't. History isn't seriously taught in schools and is a reviled subject at university.
Speaking as a History PhD student, I'd love more people to choose history at university, and I certainly think there needs to be better communication of historical research and developments to the public at large. But a prevalence of nationalist mytho-histories would be a significant symptom of that problem, not a consequence of its solution.
Original post by queen-bee
What's wrong with with being foreign kid? Or born to foreign parents? I'm doing just fine....
I'm pretty sure some time ago you confirmed that your loyalty is to Syria before the UK and that you would seek a foreign partner (thus not strengthening the native genepool).
Your not a bad person of course, but it suggests that at some level people like you don't see yourselves as one of us. If indeed you even wish to be so fully.
Original post by astutehirstute
I am reading Ivanhoe at the moment. Probably the only person on this website who ever has or ever will,, but I am on a bit of a Walter Scott kick at the moment and have got round to that one. Sue me.
And the myth of an English identity is there, dripping off the pages, it is amazing how it resonates. As a novelist Scott is peerless.. You all know the story of course, but when the Normans luxuriate in villainy enslaving and raping honest Anglo Saxon yeomen, and damsels I am right there relishing their comeuppance.
I guess my ancestors were Anglo Saxon (they certainly weren't Norman) but even if they weren't it would resonate. I can't think of a greater contributor to the national myth of Englishness than Ivanhoe, except Henry V.
And the myth of an English identity is there, dripping off the pages, it is amazing how it resonates. As a novelist Scott is peerless.. You all know the story of course, but when the Normans luxuriate in villainy enslaving and raping honest Anglo Saxon yeomen, and damsels I am right there relishing their comeuppance.
I guess my ancestors were Anglo Saxon (they certainly weren't Norman) but even if they weren't it would resonate. I can't think of a greater contributor to the national myth of Englishness than Ivanhoe, except Henry V.
Quite an ironic perspective, given that Scott himself was not English, don't you think? And given that Ivanhoe is, in comparison to Scott's other books (in comparison to historical fiction in general it's not bad), not particularly historically accurate?
This doesn't mean that the English national consciousness of the books readers is insincere or "not real", but it does demonstrate how malleable and non-innate it is.
But it is a coincidence that it languishes unread and unreferred to nowadays? Just as we have this conversation about the lack of a shared consciousness?
For what could be more politically incorrect nowadays than a Crusader, as hero? Could he be more Islamophobic?
!
For what could be more politically incorrect nowadays than a Crusader, as hero? Could he be more Islamophobic?
!
I would point out that one of the crusading heroes of Ivanhoe has not particularly lacked for media portrayals recently.
Original post by anarchism101
Quite an ironic perspective, given that Scott himself was not English, don't you think? And given that Ivanhoe is, in comparison to Scott's other books (in comparison to historical fiction in general it's not bad), not particularly historically accurate?
This doesn't mean that the English national consciousness of the books readers is insincere or "not real", but it does demonstrate how malleable and non-innate it is.
I would point out that one of the crusading heroes of Ivanhoe has not particularly lacked for media portrayals recently.
This doesn't mean that the English national consciousness of the books readers is insincere or "not real", but it does demonstrate how malleable and non-innate it is.
I would point out that one of the crusading heroes of Ivanhoe has not particularly lacked for media portrayals recently.
Ivanhoe isn't in the least historically accurate, in fact it is laughably not so. So what? Neither is Richard III. Its history is ridiculous too. Does that prevent the play being one of the greatest ever penned by any playright, anywhere, at any time?
As for Scott's lack of Englishness I would say only this. Having single handedly created the myth of Scotland, kilts, tartan, Bonny Prince Charlie on every shortbread tin ya de ya, he asked himself where do most of my readers live?
So he created a national myth for England too. That is what geniuses do.
Original post by astutehirstute
I can't think of a greater contributor to the national myth of Englishness than Ivanhoe, except Henry V.
But what about Arthur and Guinivere, Lancelot, Percival, Gallahad and the Grail?
Yet the English are the enemy, come to destroy this sparkling world.
And yet again the myth of Englishness embraces the Cnut and his orders to the tide.
And who is the noblest figure in Ivanhoe? It isn't the enonymous hero. It is Rebecca the Jewess and where does she go to flee persecution; Islamic Grenada.
Our Island Story is a complex one; the Protestant nation whose greatest Reformation martyr is More; whose Parliament cannot decide whether Cromwell is hero or villian; which erects a statue to an English war crime (The Burghers of Calais) in 1915. Flora Macdonald was imprisoned for her devotion to the Jacobite cause but then later for her loyality to George III and that is matched by George III's payment for the Monument to the Royal Stuarts in St Peter's.
We are both Cavalier and Roundhead; Catholic and Protestant, Jacobite and Hanovarian, not Cavalier or Roundhead, Catholic or Protestant, Jacobite or Hanovarian.
That is immensely important to out national myth and it is something other countries struggle with. Americans are still contesting the legacy of the Civil War, yet most Britons draw immense pride from the Brtish Empire and if asked to name someone of heroic pacifism would probably say Ghandi. When France was defeated in 1940, Petain, who was not a fascist, changed the national motto. Just think how revolutionary that is; the extent to which that represents a rejection of all that has gone before,
It is why Brexit seems so out of keeping. The Brexit vote wasn't about leaving a fairly creaky international organisation; it was a rejection of that inclusive national myth. It was portraying immigrants, remainers, Londoners as outsiders to that national story. Yet at the same time Britons not only embraced gay marriage but rallied round in the way one would always have expected on the murder of a socialit politician. To some extent what Brexit did was to allow the lunatics to take over the asylum, to concede power to the sort of revolutionaries who would change a national motto and the ordinary, decent people have not recovered it yet.
Original post by anarchism101
not particularly historically accurate?
Scott wrote the account of the Lionheart back in England incognito as fiction. It was only about 40 years afterwards that it was discovered that this actually occurred.
Original post by anarchism101
I would point out that one of the crusading heroes of Ivanhoe has not particularly lacked for media portrayals recently.
I would point out that one of the crusading heroes of Ivanhoe has not particularly lacked for media portrayals recently.
Robin Hood didn't participate in the Third Crusade in Ivanhoe. I mean I am only three quarters of the way through, but that seems pretty definite, by now. He stayed in Sherwood Forest, well away from Muslims, except when they are slaves of the Normans,
The Crusaders (apart from Richard, obviously) are Ivanhoe and the Templar in the novel. I don't see either of them getting much traction in popular culture nowadays, frankly, but tell me where you see them being so, and I'll reconsider my contention.
(edited 6 years ago)
Original post by nulli tertius
That is immensely important to out national myth and it is something other countries struggle with. Americans are still contesting the legacy of the Civil War, yet most Britons draw immense pride from the Brtish Empire and if asked to name someone of heroic pacifism would probably say Ghandi. When France was defeated in 1940, Petain, who was not a fascist, changed the national motto. Just think how revolutionary that is; the extent to which that represents a rejection of all that has gone before,
It is why Brexit seems so out of keeping. The Brexit vote wasn't about leaving a fairly creaky international organisation; it was a rejection of that inclusive national myth. It was portraying immigrants, remainers, Londoners as outsiders to that national story. Yet at the same time Britons not only embraced gay marriage but rallied round in the way one would always have expected on the murder of a socialit politician. To some extent what Brexit did was to allow the lunatics to take over the asylum, to concede power to the sort of revolutionaries who would change a national motto and the ordinary, decent people have not recovered it yet.
That is immensely important to out national myth and it is something other countries struggle with. Americans are still contesting the legacy of the Civil War, yet most Britons draw immense pride from the Brtish Empire and if asked to name someone of heroic pacifism would probably say Ghandi. When France was defeated in 1940, Petain, who was not a fascist, changed the national motto. Just think how revolutionary that is; the extent to which that represents a rejection of all that has gone before,
It is why Brexit seems so out of keeping. The Brexit vote wasn't about leaving a fairly creaky international organisation; it was a rejection of that inclusive national myth. It was portraying immigrants, remainers, Londoners as outsiders to that national story. Yet at the same time Britons not only embraced gay marriage but rallied round in the way one would always have expected on the murder of a socialit politician. To some extent what Brexit did was to allow the lunatics to take over the asylum, to concede power to the sort of revolutionaries who would change a national motto and the ordinary, decent people have not recovered it yet.
The two points here are related i think. People draw pride from the empire because for ~500 years we were the apex predator that shaped the world in our image. For many people, the thought of being subject to foreign law could not be a greater symbol of our fall from grace.
I also think on the immigration point behind Brexit that there is a larger anti-Islam sentiment than most admit publicly (certain outside London). Perhaps this is again because having spent half a millenia shaping the world in our image we have now stopped and are allowing in people who are not christian, not white (though i think most people have gotten past that one) and even after spawning a child here are taught a foreign language.
It's not xenophobia in the sense of wanting to close the borders but it's a kind of immigrant classism in that if you are not white, English speaking and christian/atheist you are seen as different.
Original post by applesforme
The mothers/parents might be foreign but the babies will grow up to think of themsleves as british...just like me and lots of other people I know.
Exactly.
The only problems are those that do not integrate and where 2nd and 3rd generations do not identify with their country and those that while feeling British, stick to their own culture (e.g. South Asians), although that of course is a much lesser problem, but in terms of social cohesion, it isn't really good either (e.g. who here doesn't look down on the stereotypical group of Chinese students that just stick to themselves).
Original post by astutehirstute
You did try, and thanks for that.
But where is the shared history, the shared consciousness as you put it? That is the bit I don't get?
What connection do the children of parents who come from outside the UK have to the the British experience of the Second World War, for example? Let alone Morris Dancing??
My parents, grandparents lived through it. They fought for this country, were bombed by the Luftwaffe, lived under food rationing. So the whole Churchill, Spitfire, DDay stuff has a bit of resonance to me, although not that much if I am honest. It is history.
What possible relevance has it to a second generation immigrant? There is no shared history, no shared consciousness.
What am I missing here?
But where is the shared history, the shared consciousness as you put it? That is the bit I don't get?
What connection do the children of parents who come from outside the UK have to the the British experience of the Second World War, for example? Let alone Morris Dancing??
My parents, grandparents lived through it. They fought for this country, were bombed by the Luftwaffe, lived under food rationing. So the whole Churchill, Spitfire, DDay stuff has a bit of resonance to me, although not that much if I am honest. It is history.
What possible relevance has it to a second generation immigrant? There is no shared history, no shared consciousness.
What am I missing here?
As for where is the shared history and consciousness it's a metaphysical thing, I can't just point it out and tell you "where" it is. A shared consciousness emerges from any group of people whether it's a group of friends, a family or a whole society or community.
I think it's all as relevant to me as much as it is to most white english people. The fact that I'm not the same race doesn't make me feel less english. What else would I even call myself?? And as for your parents and grandparents living through ww2 (on one side, so did mine)...that is a meaningful connection but is family the only thing that connects us to the past? what if someone hates their family, does that mean suddenly they have no connection with the recent history of their country? I was born here, I grew up here, I've only ever lived here, it's my home and I don't see why you think having some racial differences is such a big factor in how someone feels culturally. I am not different culturally to your average liberal minded white english person, I just don't have any tanning needs and buy more anti-frizz hair products - really I don't see what else is the difference. I have never particualry felt that my race or the culture of some of my relatives, which I barely even know about, has much to do with who I am.
Original post by astutehirstute
Robin Hood didn't participate in the Third Crusade in Ivanhoe. I mean I am only three quarters of the way through, but that seems pretty definite, by now. He stayed in Sherwood Forest, well away from Muslims, except when they are slaves of the Normans,
The Crusaders (apart from Richard, obviously) are Ivanhoe and the Templar in the novel. I don't see either of them getting much traction in popular culture nowadays, frankly, but tell me where you see them being so, and I'll reconsider my contention.
The Crusaders (apart from Richard, obviously) are Ivanhoe and the Templar in the novel. I don't see either of them getting much traction in popular culture nowadays, frankly, but tell me where you see them being so, and I'll reconsider my contention.
So you want history to be taught more rigorously in schools, but also believe we should glorify the crusades? I get the feeling it isn't really 'history' you want taught, but a sort of creepy nationalist mythology. The crusading ideal introduced genocide to Europe. Why should that be venerated?
Original post by Captain Haddock
So you want history to be taught more rigorously in schools, but also believe we should glorify the crusades? I get the feeling it isn't really 'history' you want taught, but a sort of creepy nationalist mythology. The crusading ideal introduced genocide to Europe. Why should that be venerated?
I don't think Ivanhoe does glorify the Crusades. That the Third Crusade was a failure is frankly admitted, and many of the worst villains of the book are Crusaders apart from Richard and the eponymous hero.
The description of the Knight's Templars couldn't be worse. They are represented as brutal, hypocritical, murderous sexual predators, looters and crazed religious bigots. Burning Muslims at the stake and trying beautiful Jewesses for witchcraft for the crime of having bewitched one of their number who had whisked her away on horseback with a plan of debauching her in a Templar monastery.
Brian de Bois Gilbert is treated as having lapsed from his religious obligation for trying to ravish her, he gets a slap on the wrist because having slain three hundred Saracens with his own hands he is useful. She is the one who gets to burn for sorcery. (Except I have a hunch Ivanhoe is about to rescue her, haven't got to that part yet).
Original post by astutehirstute
I don't think Ivanhoe does glorify the Crusades. That the Third Crusade was a failure is frankly admitted, and many of the worst villains of the book are Crusaders apart from Richard and the eponymous hero.
The description of the Knight's Templars couldn't be worse. They are represented as brutal, hypocritical, murderous sexual predators, looters and crazed religious bigots. Burning Muslims at the stake and trying beautiful Jewesses for witchcraft for the crime of having bewitched one of their number who had whisked her away on horseback with a plan of debauching her in a Templar monastery.
Brian de Bois Gilbert is treated as having lapsed from his religious obligation for trying to ravish her, he gets a slap on the wrist because having slain three hundred Saracens with his own hands he is useful. She is the one who gets to burn for sorcery. (Except I have a hunch Ivanhoe is about to rescue her, haven't got to that part yet).
The description of the Knight's Templars couldn't be worse. They are represented as brutal, hypocritical, murderous sexual predators, looters and crazed religious bigots. Burning Muslims at the stake and trying beautiful Jewesses for witchcraft for the crime of having bewitched one of their number who had whisked her away on horseback with a plan of debauching her in a Templar monastery.
Brian de Bois Gilbert is treated as having lapsed from his religious obligation for trying to ravish her, he gets a slap on the wrist because having slain three hundred Saracens with his own hands he is useful. She is the one who gets to burn for sorcery. (Except I have a hunch Ivanhoe is about to rescue her, haven't got to that part yet).
Well, I haven't read the book, but your complaint seems to be that there's a lack of crusader heroes in modern popular culture. Am I misreading you? I just don't see how encouraging historical myth-making can be compatible with a desire to encourage good history. Just read up on Margaret Murray to see the sort of nonsense that leads to.
Original post by Captain Haddock
Well, I haven't read the book, but your complaint seems to be that there's a lack of crusader heroes in modern popular culture. Am I misreading you? I just don't see how encouraging historical myth-making can be compatible with a desire to encourage good history. Just read up on Margaret Murray to see the sort of nonsense that leads to.
Yes you are misreading me.
Ivanhoe is a wonderful story, wriien by a novelist of true greatness, and played a significant part in creating a national myth of Englishness, back in the day. Who doesn't know of Robin Hood? Of wicked Normans, and plucky Anglo Saxons fighting back rather than succumbing to a Conqueror's yoke?
But you can't read it seriously now. It won't do as national myth, I was jesting there. I am sure in the nineteenth century a Norman baron turning a Jewish moneylender over burning coals, and basting him with oil in the dungeon of his castle, to extort his ill gotten gains of usury caused outrage and horror. I almost laughed, I mean it is so over the top!
So whilst I do rather regret that he is such a forgotten author nowadays, I also kinda understand why. Plus he has such huge narrative sweep it is very time consuming. The nineteenth century was a more leisured age. What else was there to do in your free time but read? We have other distractions.
I understand his power, I get him, but think I am part of a very small band who read him with pleasure in 2017.
And I do think that is a shame, I guess.
Original post by astutehirstute
Robin Hood didn't participate in the Third Crusade in Ivanhoe.
My mistaken assumption if not, though he is portrayed as a returning crusader in both the previously mentioned media.
Original post by astutehirstute
Ivanhoe isn't in the least historically accurate, in fact it is laughably not so. So what? Neither is Richard III. Its history is ridiculous too. Does that prevent the play being one of the greatest ever penned by any playright, anywhere, at any time?
As for Scott's lack of Englishness I would say only this. Having single handedly created the myth of Scotland, kilts, tartan, Bonny Prince Charlie on every shortbread tin ya de ya, he asked himself where do most of my readers live?
So he created a national myth for England too. That is what geniuses do.
As for Scott's lack of Englishness I would say only this. Having single handedly created the myth of Scotland, kilts, tartan, Bonny Prince Charlie on every shortbread tin ya de ya, he asked himself where do most of my readers live?
So he created a national myth for England too. That is what geniuses do.
OK, but in this case I'm not really seeing how this relates to the thread topic in general. If you want to bemoan the decline in attention given to older literary classics, fair enough, but if you're not giving it as an example as some sort of lost English/British essence, then it seems to be a very tenuous jump in the thread.
My mother is foreign born but my father is English. I consider myself English and you couldn't tell from looking at me whether I am 100% English or not. Would I be counted in these statistics? Because I'm hardly a poster child for diversity.
Original post by Rakas21
People draw pride from the empire because for ~500 years we were the apex predator that shaped the world in our image.
I don't think that could be further from the truth.
Betjeman (a decendant of immigrants who added a second "n" to the name to make it appear less Dutch and then dropped it again to make it appear less German) had it right; the Empire brought "democracy and proper drains". Most people see the Empire as an ineluctible force for good in the world.
You can see it again with Kipling's tutorial to the Americans:
"Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought"
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Research Rankings of universities if you add Research Quality & Intensity percentagesLast reply 1 month ago
Is University of Birmingham prestigious and respected well enough in UK ?Trending
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Why is the political left now censorious and authoritarian??Last reply 2 days ago
Is it true that British unis are prejudiced towards degrees from Scottish unis?Last reply 2 days ago
If the Russell Group was now a fair representation of what it still claims to beLast reply 2 weeks ago
TSR Goes Green: How important will the environment be in this year's election?Last reply 2 weeks ago
Research Rankings of universities if you add Research Quality & Intensity percentagesLast reply 1 month ago
Is University of Birmingham prestigious and respected well enough in UK ?
