0 comment Wednesday, September 10, 2014 | admin
Is conservatism worth conserving?
A recurring subject on this blog has been the state of conservatism, and what conservatism actually means these days. It's a commonplace observation now that there are many conflicting and contradictory viewpoints which are included under the label 'conservative'. The contradictions have become ever more glaringly obvious during the present Presidential campaign, in which the term 'conservative' is used to describe a gamut of views from those of John McCain to Tom Tancredo to Ron Paul. How can such a disparate group of people be described as conservative while still preserving any kind of fixed definition of conservatism?
There is quite a spectrum of viewpoints there.
Now we have the various shades of 'conservatism': neoconservatism (whose advocates often vociferously deny, first, that there is such a thing as neoconservatism, and second, that they themselves are neoconservatives), paleoconservatives (many of whom also reject that label) and 'traditionalists'.
Lately it has seemed to me that 'traditionalists' are also an ill-defined group, being divided among the more mainstream Republicans (who may oppose illegal immigration and multiculturalism as well as the Iraq war), and those who are closer to the paleoconservative viewpoint, but who may dissent from the paleos on issues like the Middle East or social issues.
The last few years for me have been a journey away from the Republican mainstream. This shifting of opinions on my part had mostly to do with the immigration issue and the national question, and later, with the Iraq war and interventionism in general.
One conclusion that was inescapable for me is that conservatism as it stands today is in the business of conserving yesterday's liberalism. That observation is not original with me; others have noted it, including R.L. Dabney in the 19th century. It is even more true today than it was in his day.
American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. This pretended salt hath utterly lost its savor: wherewith shall it be salted? Its impotency is not hard, indeed, to explain. It is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It intends to risk nothing serious for the sake of the truth, and has no idea of being guilty of the folly of martyrdom.'' - Robert L. Dabney, Discussions, Vol. 4 [1897].
So how can we respond to this 'loss of savor' within conservatism? Can we rediscover the Original Scriptures of conservatism like Hilkiah the high priest finding the forgotten book of the Law in II Kings ? That would make it easy; if only we had a Bible of conservatism to keep us on the straight and narrow, to keep us true and on target. But the problem is, 'conservatism' is not an ideology and it is not a set of dogmas or a rigid group of precepts. Conservatism is always particular to a time and place and people. It's about conserving the true and the classical and the traditional, the time-honored, within a particular civilization and its heritage.
As I observe life, I notice that more and more, it seems we really did begin anew in the post-counterculture era, after the late 60s and 70s. True, we didn't suddenly throw out the calendar and decree a new beginning officially as did the revolutionaries in 18th century France. But our world did change then, and it was done rather suddenly in many cases but very gradually in others, so that we've scarcely noticed how very different our world is from what it was before the 60s Revolution. And we as a people and as a culture have changed considerably. We have all become, to some degree or another, accepting of the post-60s liberal and radical innovations in our way of life and our behavior.
I am a keen watcher of people, and what I see around me, even among 'conservatives', is a country of people who are children of the counterculture in many respects. A lot of the old traditions which lent some gentility to daily life: social niceties, etiquette, chivalry (which means far more than opening doors for ladies) decorum, restraint. All these things are conspicuously missing in our society.
The old America had certain ways of doing things, and certain rules, often unspoken, that acted as a social lubricant, minimizing friction between people. There was a hierarchy in society, and our liberal egalitarian age rebels against any hint of hierarchies. But it used to be that one's elders were respected, as were authority figures in general. Differences between the sexes were acknowledged and adjusted for accordingly. Children were taught to honor their parents and elders.
Now we are all rank egalitarians; women and men are expected to behave the same, and we indulge in this pretense that women are the equals of men in all respects, including bodily strength and size. Gone are most of the displays of courtesy like titles before names: Mr. or Mrs. or Miss. College students and even high school students call their teachers by their first names; the teachers seem mostly flattered by this display of familiarity; I think it helps them maintain an illusion that they are still young, and that their students are their peers and friends.
Back in the 1970s, after Nixon made his famous trip to China and normalized relations with the Communist regime there, we were deluged with images of life in Communist China. One of the striking things to a Westerner, at least to me, was the fact that the Chinese people we saw in the pictures of the teeming cities of China was their uniformity. The men all wore the 'Mao jackets' and caps; the women, too, wore some kind of drab proletarian uniform-style garb. Everybody dressed the same. You could see no distinctions in their dress to indicate any kind of class distinctions, much less individual differences.
Now, of course, China is much more Westernized in outward aspects, at least, but oddly we in the West have begun to follow the example of Mao-era China, voluntarily donning drab proletarian-style clothes which look very uniform-like. Nondescript shirts and jackets, jeans, and athletic shoes -- even the old folks with walkers or canes are decked out in The Uniform: running shoes and jeans. We see the same style of clothing everywhere: shopping, going to the theatre or to a concert or even to church: jeans, running shoes, shapeless clothes.
The 70s brought the 'unisex' trend in which men and women increasingly dressed alike. This trend has not gone away. We seem to be determined to erase or level out all the visible differences among us. And now, the old dress much as their middle-aged children do. It used to be that old people had their own distinctive style which was always appropriate to their age and station. Nowadays there are more 60-year-olds dressing like 30-year-olds.
Class differences, generational differences, sex differences, all these distinctions seem to be played down in the New America, at least in our outward appearance.
Now, some will say 'but clothes are superficial; clothes don't make the man (or woman)'. It's true, they don't, but clothes certainly reflect our priorities. And it seems we are moving more towards uniformity and egalitarianism, judging by the way we present ourselves.
And I think it's no accident that there is less respect for age, sex, and authority now than there was in the Old America.
The decline in civility is a problem that is visible everywhere we go; people seem to have hair-trigger tempers and a barely-concealed hostility towards others in too many situations. Old America was not like this.
Post-60s America is not the same place, if we look at society and human interaction, as it was before. The skeptic will answer that nothing stays the same; each generation differs from the one preceding it, and from the one following. It's true that change is the one constant in this world, but does that mean that we have to accept change willy-nilly, regardless of whether it's beneficial or destructive? No; being a 'conservative' should mean trying to preserve that which is good and trying to stave off whatever is corrosive and destructive of our way of life and our heritage. Civilization depends on continuity; if we are civilized and we have a way of life which has worked well for us, which we have, then passing that civilization on to the coming generations in as intact a form as possible is the essence of maintaining civilization. Once we discard all that was good and all that fostered stability and equilibrium, then 'things fall apart; the center cannot hold.'
Somewhere along the line we were duped out of our birthright, just as Esau was, and for similar reasons; we focus too much on the here and now and on our own gratification without thinking of tomorrow or of the generations to come. And somehow we've been duped into believing that 'conservatism' means a particular political party, or lower taxes and smaller government, when it really has so much more to do with the way we live our daily lives, the rules which govern our interactions among ourselves, and the principle of continuity and respect for the past.
And on those criteria, I encounter precious few conservatives today. We have mostly become petulant children of the counterculture, with all the arrogance and impetuousness inherent in that era.
We have lost the essential part of conservatism, which is the society we are supposedly trying to preserve, and ultimately the people who create that society. Once we've accepted the liberal goals such as egalitarianism and the leveling out of all distinctions, along with the idea that human history is 'progressive' and ever improving, then we have become what we claim to despise.
At this point I am no longer losing sleep over the fortunes of something called 'conservatism'. Conservatism is a diversion and a distraction; what we should be concerned over is our heritage and our way of life and our people. That is what we should be preserving -- or, more accurately, restoring.
We don't need to read any holy canons of Conservatism to find our way back; we have the example of the generations that went before us, and their time-tested ways of living and being and doing. We have the authority we seek, contained in the lives of our forefathers.
We need to shed the liberalism and egalitarian progressivism which has warped every area of our lives. We need to scrape away the accretions of the past few decades from the palimpsest of America and find our true heritage underneath the crude scrawlings of the recent past.
A recurring subject on this blog has been the state of conservatism, and what conservatism actually means these days. It's a commonplace observation now that there are many conflicting and contradictory viewpoints which are included under the label 'conservative'. The contradictions have become ever more glaringly obvious during the present Presidential campaign, in which the term 'conservative' is used to describe a gamut of views from those of John McCain to Tom Tancredo to Ron Paul. How can such a disparate group of people be described as conservative while still preserving any kind of fixed definition of conservatism?
There is quite a spectrum of viewpoints there.
Now we have the various shades of 'conservatism': neoconservatism (whose advocates often vociferously deny, first, that there is such a thing as neoconservatism, and second, that they themselves are neoconservatives), paleoconservatives (many of whom also reject that label) and 'traditionalists'.
Lately it has seemed to me that 'traditionalists' are also an ill-defined group, being divided among the more mainstream Republicans (who may oppose illegal immigration and multiculturalism as well as the Iraq war), and those who are closer to the paleoconservative viewpoint, but who may dissent from the paleos on issues like the Middle East or social issues.
The last few years for me have been a journey away from the Republican mainstream. This shifting of opinions on my part had mostly to do with the immigration issue and the national question, and later, with the Iraq war and interventionism in general.
One conclusion that was inescapable for me is that conservatism as it stands today is in the business of conserving yesterday's liberalism. That observation is not original with me; others have noted it, including R.L. Dabney in the 19th century. It is even more true today than it was in his day.
American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. This pretended salt hath utterly lost its savor: wherewith shall it be salted? Its impotency is not hard, indeed, to explain. It is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It intends to risk nothing serious for the sake of the truth, and has no idea of being guilty of the folly of martyrdom.'' - Robert L. Dabney, Discussions, Vol. 4 [1897].
So how can we respond to this 'loss of savor' within conservatism? Can we rediscover the Original Scriptures of conservatism like Hilkiah the high priest finding the forgotten book of the Law in II Kings ? That would make it easy; if only we had a Bible of conservatism to keep us on the straight and narrow, to keep us true and on target. But the problem is, 'conservatism' is not an ideology and it is not a set of dogmas or a rigid group of precepts. Conservatism is always particular to a time and place and people. It's about conserving the true and the classical and the traditional, the time-honored, within a particular civilization and its heritage.
As I observe life, I notice that more and more, it seems we really did begin anew in the post-counterculture era, after the late 60s and 70s. True, we didn't suddenly throw out the calendar and decree a new beginning officially as did the revolutionaries in 18th century France. But our world did change then, and it was done rather suddenly in many cases but very gradually in others, so that we've scarcely noticed how very different our world is from what it was before the 60s Revolution. And we as a people and as a culture have changed considerably. We have all become, to some degree or another, accepting of the post-60s liberal and radical innovations in our way of life and our behavior.
I am a keen watcher of people, and what I see around me, even among 'conservatives', is a country of people who are children of the counterculture in many respects. A lot of the old traditions which lent some gentility to daily life: social niceties, etiquette, chivalry (which means far more than opening doors for ladies) decorum, restraint. All these things are conspicuously missing in our society.
The old America had certain ways of doing things, and certain rules, often unspoken, that acted as a social lubricant, minimizing friction between people. There was a hierarchy in society, and our liberal egalitarian age rebels against any hint of hierarchies. But it used to be that one's elders were respected, as were authority figures in general. Differences between the sexes were acknowledged and adjusted for accordingly. Children were taught to honor their parents and elders.
Now we are all rank egalitarians; women and men are expected to behave the same, and we indulge in this pretense that women are the equals of men in all respects, including bodily strength and size. Gone are most of the displays of courtesy like titles before names: Mr. or Mrs. or Miss. College students and even high school students call their teachers by their first names; the teachers seem mostly flattered by this display of familiarity; I think it helps them maintain an illusion that they are still young, and that their students are their peers and friends.
Back in the 1970s, after Nixon made his famous trip to China and normalized relations with the Communist regime there, we were deluged with images of life in Communist China. One of the striking things to a Westerner, at least to me, was the fact that the Chinese people we saw in the pictures of the teeming cities of China was their uniformity. The men all wore the 'Mao jackets' and caps; the women, too, wore some kind of drab proletarian uniform-style garb. Everybody dressed the same. You could see no distinctions in their dress to indicate any kind of class distinctions, much less individual differences.
Now, of course, China is much more Westernized in outward aspects, at least, but oddly we in the West have begun to follow the example of Mao-era China, voluntarily donning drab proletarian-style clothes which look very uniform-like. Nondescript shirts and jackets, jeans, and athletic shoes -- even the old folks with walkers or canes are decked out in The Uniform: running shoes and jeans. We see the same style of clothing everywhere: shopping, going to the theatre or to a concert or even to church: jeans, running shoes, shapeless clothes.
The 70s brought the 'unisex' trend in which men and women increasingly dressed alike. This trend has not gone away. We seem to be determined to erase or level out all the visible differences among us. And now, the old dress much as their middle-aged children do. It used to be that old people had their own distinctive style which was always appropriate to their age and station. Nowadays there are more 60-year-olds dressing like 30-year-olds.
Class differences, generational differences, sex differences, all these distinctions seem to be played down in the New America, at least in our outward appearance.
Now, some will say 'but clothes are superficial; clothes don't make the man (or woman)'. It's true, they don't, but clothes certainly reflect our priorities. And it seems we are moving more towards uniformity and egalitarianism, judging by the way we present ourselves.
And I think it's no accident that there is less respect for age, sex, and authority now than there was in the Old America.
The decline in civility is a problem that is visible everywhere we go; people seem to have hair-trigger tempers and a barely-concealed hostility towards others in too many situations. Old America was not like this.
Post-60s America is not the same place, if we look at society and human interaction, as it was before. The skeptic will answer that nothing stays the same; each generation differs from the one preceding it, and from the one following. It's true that change is the one constant in this world, but does that mean that we have to accept change willy-nilly, regardless of whether it's beneficial or destructive? No; being a 'conservative' should mean trying to preserve that which is good and trying to stave off whatever is corrosive and destructive of our way of life and our heritage. Civilization depends on continuity; if we are civilized and we have a way of life which has worked well for us, which we have, then passing that civilization on to the coming generations in as intact a form as possible is the essence of maintaining civilization. Once we discard all that was good and all that fostered stability and equilibrium, then 'things fall apart; the center cannot hold.'
Somewhere along the line we were duped out of our birthright, just as Esau was, and for similar reasons; we focus too much on the here and now and on our own gratification without thinking of tomorrow or of the generations to come. And somehow we've been duped into believing that 'conservatism' means a particular political party, or lower taxes and smaller government, when it really has so much more to do with the way we live our daily lives, the rules which govern our interactions among ourselves, and the principle of continuity and respect for the past.
And on those criteria, I encounter precious few conservatives today. We have mostly become petulant children of the counterculture, with all the arrogance and impetuousness inherent in that era.
We have lost the essential part of conservatism, which is the society we are supposedly trying to preserve, and ultimately the people who create that society. Once we've accepted the liberal goals such as egalitarianism and the leveling out of all distinctions, along with the idea that human history is 'progressive' and ever improving, then we have become what we claim to despise.
At this point I am no longer losing sleep over the fortunes of something called 'conservatism'. Conservatism is a diversion and a distraction; what we should be concerned over is our heritage and our way of life and our people. That is what we should be preserving -- or, more accurately, restoring.
We don't need to read any holy canons of Conservatism to find our way back; we have the example of the generations that went before us, and their time-tested ways of living and being and doing. We have the authority we seek, contained in the lives of our forefathers.
We need to shed the liberalism and egalitarian progressivism which has warped every area of our lives. We need to scrape away the accretions of the past few decades from the palimpsest of America and find our true heritage underneath the crude scrawlings of the recent past.
Labels: American Identity, Conservatism, Conservative Principles, Egalitarianism, Heritage
0 comment Thursday, August 7, 2014 | admin
As we watch from afar the apparent decline of the British people, it often occurs to me that most Americans are very cavalier about it; it's very popular among the 'mainstream' Republicans and self-described 'conservatives' who congregate on certain of the big web forums to sneer at the British, and to perversely cheer their setbacks. It's all very much of a piece with their Francophobia, and their general disdain for people across 'the pond'. After all, our ancestors were smart enough to get out of there, and to set up a 'democratic' government here, so why should we care what happens to the Euros? It's survival of the fittest, and if they're too weak, let them be conquered and overrun. Such is the attitude of some.
All this while, of course, we Americans are being conquered by stealth by Latinos and Moslems and whoever else can cross the finish line into our wide-open country.
But I often wonder why most Americans, even those of older generations who were taught actual history in school, are so blase about the fate of Europe, specifically Britain, which after all, is our mother country.
This yahooish attitude is something I do not remember in my younger days, and my memory reaches back to the 1950s. I honestly do not remember, in my wide travels around this country, so much hostility and sneering pretensions to superiority on the part of many Americans. Educated and cultured Americans once valued our European heritage; almost everyone aspired to visit Europe and to experience the cultural and historical sites there; almost everyone had a consciousness of having European origins. Now suddenly it's the thing to look down one's nose at Europe, especially the British and the French. Where did this attitude originate? My best guess is that it, like much of the 'conservative' attitude these days in America, is simply a knee-jerk reaction against what they perceive as the liberals' Europhilia. So many Republicans and 'conservatives' think that only liberals admire or like Europe. And because Europe's ruling ideology is socialist, that is enough reason for them to hate the people. Needless to say, this is an ignorant attitude; our government does not reflect the attitudes of the American people, nor does our media; yet Americans are prone to judge all Europeans by their liberal governments and their leftist media.
But aside from our political differences with our British and French cousins, why are many Americans indifferent to their own European origins, and our kinship with Europe? Some of it, I think, is a result of a pro-patriotic, anti-British bias which was understandable in our early history, when our forefathers fought two wars against their British brothers.
Still, much of the Anglophobia seemed to have been forgotten by the time of the two World Wars, in which we fought alongside our British cousins, and viewed them as our staunchest allies. Now, the attitude seems to have changed to one of bitterness as many resent the fact that 'we bailed the British out; we saved them from the Germans'.
But all that notwithstanding, the fact is, Britain is our mother country; our culture, our language, our folkways, our religion, our view of the world, derives more from Britain than any other country. And they are of the same blood as our Founding Fathers. Blood IS thicker than water, and no amount of neocon/liberal "proposition nation" hogwash can change that fact.
Another factor in modern American callousness towards the British is that many Americans lack knowledge of their ancestry and roots; so many Americans that I have encountered have only the vaguest notion of their origins; many seem not to care. I suppose it is commendable in a sense that many people consider themselves 'just American'; I certainly consider myself an American, first and foremost, as I say in my profile. I do have an assortment of European ancestors, from Holland, France, and a few from Germany, but by far, the majority of my colonist ancestors came from Great Britain. It's been my good fortune that my family is aware of our roots, but many people are unaware, and uninterested in knowing.
I suspect that many Americans who are unaware of it have English/British ancestry; many of them simply think they are 'just Americans' when in fact they have a lot of British blood. If only more Americans knew their genealogy; but I've found that some people are interested in family history and some are profoundly indifferent, or even hostile to finding out. I find that latter attitude strange, but there we are. However, to any who care about the American heritage, history, and culture, which is vanishing quickly, I recommend studying your family tree; it's very gratifying to know who you are in the larger scheme of things. It's fascinating to learn of your ancestors' place in history: where they were born, what they did for a living, where they fit in. It brings history alive to know where your forefathers were and what they were doing when the events in the history books were unfolding.
I think there is a conscious effort to sever people from their roots; this new 'multicultural' regime is served by having us disconnected from our ancestors and our blood ties; in the brave new 'global village' we are not to belong to nations, especially nations which are extended families, based on genetics and blood. So we are all encouraged to be deracinated, atomized 'world citizens' with an allegiance to some watered-down, vague ideal like 'freedom' and 'equality', and not to a place or above all, a kin group.
For some reason, we are informed via Census information that most white Americans claim German ancestry.
How did this come to be, I wonder, that the great majority of white Americans claim to be of German origin? I realize there was a wave of German immigration in the mid-19th century. My few German ancestors came in the 1700s to join the Germanna colony in Virginia, but they quickly assimilated into the British stock of that area. Many of the later German immigrants remained clustered with other Germans, and continued to speak their own language. This pattern was true in Texas; many German colonists came in the 19th and 20th century, founding towns like Fredericksburg and Shiner and Boerne; my father tells of how some Texas towns were still largely German-speaking during his childhood in the Depression era. So perhaps the descendants of the later German settlers clung to their identity, with the result that many Americans today claim German as their primary ancestry.
Similarly with Irish ancestry; I've rarely met an American who does not claim Irish ancestry (and Cherokee Indian ancestry,too). Did the Irish and the Germans truly outnumber the descendants of the old English stock? Or did they merely intermarry with them, leaving a greater cultural imprint because of their more recent arrival?
If the majority of American whites have German ancestry, or Irish, for that matter, how do we account for the fact that English/Welsh/Scottish names are much, much more common in America? What names do we consider quintessentially old-fashioned American surnames? Smith? English. Jones? Welsh. Johnson? English, or Scottish, or possibly Scandinavian. Wilson? Scottish or English. Davis? Welsh. Evans? Welsh. Jackson? Scottish or English.
It does seem to call into question the idea that German or Irish descent is more common, based on the evidence of surnames alone.
This link indicates that
at the beginning of the Constitutional Government approximately 800 surnames�practically all of which were of English or British origin�contributed about one-third of the entire population of the United States...'
A look at the chart on this page is very informative.
Compare the most common names in 1790, and note that almost all, if not all, were British: English, Scottish, or Welsh. Then note the appearance in the 1990 lists of names like Garcia, Martinez, Rodriguez, Hernandez, Lopez.
These names were absent from the lists of 200 years ago, yet it appears that before too long they will be the most common names, challenged by various other third-world names.
Here is an excerpt from an old Harper's Magazine article, no author's name given, from the turn of the last century:
Thus...the people of New England were homogeneous in character to an unparalleled degree, and they were drawn from the very sturdiest part of the English stock. In all history there has been no other instance of a colony so exclusively peopled by picked and chosen men. The colonists knew this and were proud of it, as well they might be. It was the simple truth that was spoken by William Stoughton when he said, in his election sermon in 1688, "God sifted a nation that he might send choice grain into the wilderness."
The population of New England was as homogeneous in blood as it was in social condition. The Puritan migration we are here considering was purely and exclusively English; there was nothing in it at first that was either Irish, Scotch, or Welsh, nothing that came from the continent of Europe.
It began in 1620 with the founding of Plymouth. It reached its maximum between 1630 and 1640, when the first settlements were made in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire. After the meeting of the Long Parliament in 1640, the Puritans found so much work cut out for them at home that the emigration to New England virtually ceased. By this time, 21,000 Englishmen had settled in New England, and this population "thenceforward multiplied on its own soil in remarkable seclusion from other communities for nearly a century and a half."
[quote from Palfrey, New England, introduction]
During the whole of this period, New England received but few immigrants, and "it was not till the last quarter of the eighteenth century that those swarms began to depart [from New England] which have since occupied so large a portion of the territory of the United States."
[...]In view of these facts, it may be said that there is not a county in England of which the population is more thoroughly English than was the population of New England a the end of the eighteenth century. From long and careful research, Mr. Savage, the highest authority on this subject, concludes that more than ninety-eight in one hundred of the New England people at that time could trace their origin to England in the strictest sense, excluding even Wales. Every English county, from Northumberland to Cornwall, from Cumberland to Kent, contributed to the emigration; but the great majority came from Linconshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex in the east, and from Devonshire and Dorset in the southwest.
[...]These 21,000 English Puritans...have now increased to nearly 13,000,000. According to most careful estimates, at least one-fourth of the whole population of the United States at the present moment [circa 1900] is descended from these men. " [Emphases mine]
Despite what the census statistics show, I think there are still many of us who are descended from those 21,000 Englishmen; many of us simply are not aware of it. That 'choice grain' sent into the American wilderness is still growing, although there are now tares among the wheat.
This piece by Steve Sailer
It's Official: British (a.k.a. America's Founders) Not Diverse At All
debunks the now-established PC propaganda that Britain was always 'a nation of immigrants' or a 'mongrel nation' as some malicious multiculturalists would have it. And the homogeneity of Britain carried over to the early settlement of the colonies in New England, as indicated by the above excerpts.
It is often claimed by Southern partisans, with whom I am in sympathy, by the way, that most of the South was settled by 'Celtic' peoples, Scots-Irish and to a lesser extent, Welsh.
However, Steve Sailer mentions, in the above-linked article, that Brian Sykes' book on the genetics of the British Isles indicates there was scant difference between the Anglo-Saxons and Celts:
Sykes writes: "Overall, the genetic structure of the Isles is stubbornly Celtic." (Interestingly, this means that the Irish and the English are largely the same�and Sykes is unable to discern any difference at all between the Ulster Catholics and Protestants, or "Scotch-Irish", as they are known to American immigration history).
Sykes points, out, however, that the term "Celtic" is something of a misnomer...'
Still the 'Celtic' identity of the South is an idea that has caught on. I remain skeptical of that idea, however, because of my familiarity with the genealogy of many Southern families. And it would seem that just looking at the surnames most common throughout the Southern states, at least before they were extensively invaded, we would find a predominance of English/Welsh names with a lesser number of Scottish names. A perusal of the names of the early Jamestown colonists, and of records of most Southern states in the next century or two, would likely show mostly English/Welsh names. So I am skeptical of the 'Celtic' culture of the South; I think it is a fanciful, romanticized idea that caught on, in part because the English in particular have been stereotyped as a cold, aloof people, while the 'Celts' have been portrayed as fiery-natured and warm, though given to belligerence and rebellion. I think this is an oversimplified portrayal of both the English and the Scots. I know that Grady McWhiney in particular, along with Forrest McDonald, did much to popularize the "Celtic Thesis" of the South's origins. I respect the work McWhiney did as a historian, but I am not convinced of his 'Celtic origins' idea.
As someone who has both Southern Cavaliers and New England Puritans in my family tree, I am familiar at firsthand with the differences in the culture of North and South; I simply think McWhiney and many others overemphasize the idea of different genetic origins. If Bryan Sykes is correct, the Celtic-Anglo Saxon divide is not so wide as thought.
Too often the Norman strain is discounted when analyzing the British people and their character and culture; I've noticed how very few want to own any Norman ancestry. Many people speak and write of the Normans as if they invaded idyllic England in 1066, and after ravaging the countryside, and setting up a tyrannical government, just receded into the mist. Surely people must realize that the Normans left many descendants in the British Isles and here in the United States and in Australia as well; the Normans did not disappear into the sunset. They are our ancestors too, and in the case of my family, they were the majority. And the Normans, though imperfect, were a capable, adventurous people who are often stereotyped as a sort of medieval European Klingon race; just watch a movie like 'Ivanhoe' and you will see the Normans as black-clad, sinister thugs. It's not surprising few people want to claim their Norman ancestry, based on the image of them in fiction and popular imagination. Most people want to be 'Celtic' or Anglo-Saxon, but the poor Normans are the red-headed step-cousins in the British family tree.
My point is: many Southerners think that their better qualities, their fighting spirit and independence, derive only from Scottish ancestry; can we not give our Norman forebears some credit? The Normans were the big guys on the block for centuries; we can take pride in them. Enough apologizing for the successes of our forefathers; we have glamorized the loser and the underdog for too long.
I often think that maybe our present-day Anglo-Americans and Anglo-Australians and even the 'indigenous British' as the PC brigade calls them, will be viewed by future generations much as those Norman baddies are viewed now: the Normans are depicted as oppressors and baddies, while the people they conquered (and in many cases, civilized) were the poor downtrodden underdogs, much as American Indians and Mexicans are now seen as the victims of the dominant white settlers. I wonder if the future owners of America, who may be partially descended from old-stock Americans, will disavow their 'Anglo' blood? I rather think they will. We will be the bad guys in the history books, if there are any, and if there are any literate people to read the books. We will be the ancestors nobody wants to claim; we will be the ones whose names draw hisses and boos.
I find the possibility of Europe's conquest by Islam and by various exotic immigrants in general to be a sad prospect, even if I had no blood ties to the countries in question; all of us are culturally descended from Europe, and most especially from Britain. If we in the West had a natural sense of kinship and solidarity, as we had for centuries, we would not be such easy prey for the invaders. Divide and conquer is the age-old formula; our enemies have successfully divided us, and continue to do so, as Western people turn on each other and side with the invaders, or simply refuse to take a side. Many in America prefer to pretend that we are a special, isolated people in the world, who just sprang up from nowhere. But we owe much of our vaunted ideas on freedom to our British forebears and heritage; we can't pretend that we "just growed", like Topsy.
If only we in the West had sense of our history and our roots, I think we could once again be the strong people we were. We cannot or dare not write off Europe, and pretend that we do not need them, nor they us. I don't care to contemplate a world in which Islam has swallowed up Europe, and taken control of their nuclear weapons; who will stand with us then? What friends or allies or kin will we have then? Our duplicitous Saudi friends? Backstabbing Mexico?
As Europe goes, so go we; we cannot ignore or turn our backs on Europe, especially on our British cousins.
If our Western civilization is swallowed up, I expect a 'Mad Max' kind of future for the West; I sincerely hope to be proven wrong by future events.
All this while, of course, we Americans are being conquered by stealth by Latinos and Moslems and whoever else can cross the finish line into our wide-open country.
But I often wonder why most Americans, even those of older generations who were taught actual history in school, are so blase about the fate of Europe, specifically Britain, which after all, is our mother country.
This yahooish attitude is something I do not remember in my younger days, and my memory reaches back to the 1950s. I honestly do not remember, in my wide travels around this country, so much hostility and sneering pretensions to superiority on the part of many Americans. Educated and cultured Americans once valued our European heritage; almost everyone aspired to visit Europe and to experience the cultural and historical sites there; almost everyone had a consciousness of having European origins. Now suddenly it's the thing to look down one's nose at Europe, especially the British and the French. Where did this attitude originate? My best guess is that it, like much of the 'conservative' attitude these days in America, is simply a knee-jerk reaction against what they perceive as the liberals' Europhilia. So many Republicans and 'conservatives' think that only liberals admire or like Europe. And because Europe's ruling ideology is socialist, that is enough reason for them to hate the people. Needless to say, this is an ignorant attitude; our government does not reflect the attitudes of the American people, nor does our media; yet Americans are prone to judge all Europeans by their liberal governments and their leftist media.
But aside from our political differences with our British and French cousins, why are many Americans indifferent to their own European origins, and our kinship with Europe? Some of it, I think, is a result of a pro-patriotic, anti-British bias which was understandable in our early history, when our forefathers fought two wars against their British brothers.
Still, much of the Anglophobia seemed to have been forgotten by the time of the two World Wars, in which we fought alongside our British cousins, and viewed them as our staunchest allies. Now, the attitude seems to have changed to one of bitterness as many resent the fact that 'we bailed the British out; we saved them from the Germans'.
But all that notwithstanding, the fact is, Britain is our mother country; our culture, our language, our folkways, our religion, our view of the world, derives more from Britain than any other country. And they are of the same blood as our Founding Fathers. Blood IS thicker than water, and no amount of neocon/liberal "proposition nation" hogwash can change that fact.
Another factor in modern American callousness towards the British is that many Americans lack knowledge of their ancestry and roots; so many Americans that I have encountered have only the vaguest notion of their origins; many seem not to care. I suppose it is commendable in a sense that many people consider themselves 'just American'; I certainly consider myself an American, first and foremost, as I say in my profile. I do have an assortment of European ancestors, from Holland, France, and a few from Germany, but by far, the majority of my colonist ancestors came from Great Britain. It's been my good fortune that my family is aware of our roots, but many people are unaware, and uninterested in knowing.
I suspect that many Americans who are unaware of it have English/British ancestry; many of them simply think they are 'just Americans' when in fact they have a lot of British blood. If only more Americans knew their genealogy; but I've found that some people are interested in family history and some are profoundly indifferent, or even hostile to finding out. I find that latter attitude strange, but there we are. However, to any who care about the American heritage, history, and culture, which is vanishing quickly, I recommend studying your family tree; it's very gratifying to know who you are in the larger scheme of things. It's fascinating to learn of your ancestors' place in history: where they were born, what they did for a living, where they fit in. It brings history alive to know where your forefathers were and what they were doing when the events in the history books were unfolding.
I think there is a conscious effort to sever people from their roots; this new 'multicultural' regime is served by having us disconnected from our ancestors and our blood ties; in the brave new 'global village' we are not to belong to nations, especially nations which are extended families, based on genetics and blood. So we are all encouraged to be deracinated, atomized 'world citizens' with an allegiance to some watered-down, vague ideal like 'freedom' and 'equality', and not to a place or above all, a kin group.
For some reason, we are informed via Census information that most white Americans claim German ancestry.
How did this come to be, I wonder, that the great majority of white Americans claim to be of German origin? I realize there was a wave of German immigration in the mid-19th century. My few German ancestors came in the 1700s to join the Germanna colony in Virginia, but they quickly assimilated into the British stock of that area. Many of the later German immigrants remained clustered with other Germans, and continued to speak their own language. This pattern was true in Texas; many German colonists came in the 19th and 20th century, founding towns like Fredericksburg and Shiner and Boerne; my father tells of how some Texas towns were still largely German-speaking during his childhood in the Depression era. So perhaps the descendants of the later German settlers clung to their identity, with the result that many Americans today claim German as their primary ancestry.
Similarly with Irish ancestry; I've rarely met an American who does not claim Irish ancestry (and Cherokee Indian ancestry,too). Did the Irish and the Germans truly outnumber the descendants of the old English stock? Or did they merely intermarry with them, leaving a greater cultural imprint because of their more recent arrival?
If the majority of American whites have German ancestry, or Irish, for that matter, how do we account for the fact that English/Welsh/Scottish names are much, much more common in America? What names do we consider quintessentially old-fashioned American surnames? Smith? English. Jones? Welsh. Johnson? English, or Scottish, or possibly Scandinavian. Wilson? Scottish or English. Davis? Welsh. Evans? Welsh. Jackson? Scottish or English.
It does seem to call into question the idea that German or Irish descent is more common, based on the evidence of surnames alone.
This link indicates that
at the beginning of the Constitutional Government approximately 800 surnames�practically all of which were of English or British origin�contributed about one-third of the entire population of the United States...'
A look at the chart on this page is very informative.
Compare the most common names in 1790, and note that almost all, if not all, were British: English, Scottish, or Welsh. Then note the appearance in the 1990 lists of names like Garcia, Martinez, Rodriguez, Hernandez, Lopez.
These names were absent from the lists of 200 years ago, yet it appears that before too long they will be the most common names, challenged by various other third-world names.
Here is an excerpt from an old Harper's Magazine article, no author's name given, from the turn of the last century:
Thus...the people of New England were homogeneous in character to an unparalleled degree, and they were drawn from the very sturdiest part of the English stock. In all history there has been no other instance of a colony so exclusively peopled by picked and chosen men. The colonists knew this and were proud of it, as well they might be. It was the simple truth that was spoken by William Stoughton when he said, in his election sermon in 1688, "God sifted a nation that he might send choice grain into the wilderness."
The population of New England was as homogeneous in blood as it was in social condition. The Puritan migration we are here considering was purely and exclusively English; there was nothing in it at first that was either Irish, Scotch, or Welsh, nothing that came from the continent of Europe.
It began in 1620 with the founding of Plymouth. It reached its maximum between 1630 and 1640, when the first settlements were made in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire. After the meeting of the Long Parliament in 1640, the Puritans found so much work cut out for them at home that the emigration to New England virtually ceased. By this time, 21,000 Englishmen had settled in New England, and this population "thenceforward multiplied on its own soil in remarkable seclusion from other communities for nearly a century and a half."
[quote from Palfrey, New England, introduction]
During the whole of this period, New England received but few immigrants, and "it was not till the last quarter of the eighteenth century that those swarms began to depart [from New England] which have since occupied so large a portion of the territory of the United States."
[...]In view of these facts, it may be said that there is not a county in England of which the population is more thoroughly English than was the population of New England a the end of the eighteenth century. From long and careful research, Mr. Savage, the highest authority on this subject, concludes that more than ninety-eight in one hundred of the New England people at that time could trace their origin to England in the strictest sense, excluding even Wales. Every English county, from Northumberland to Cornwall, from Cumberland to Kent, contributed to the emigration; but the great majority came from Linconshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex in the east, and from Devonshire and Dorset in the southwest.
[...]These 21,000 English Puritans...have now increased to nearly 13,000,000. According to most careful estimates, at least one-fourth of the whole population of the United States at the present moment [circa 1900] is descended from these men. " [Emphases mine]
Despite what the census statistics show, I think there are still many of us who are descended from those 21,000 Englishmen; many of us simply are not aware of it. That 'choice grain' sent into the American wilderness is still growing, although there are now tares among the wheat.
This piece by Steve Sailer
It's Official: British (a.k.a. America's Founders) Not Diverse At All
debunks the now-established PC propaganda that Britain was always 'a nation of immigrants' or a 'mongrel nation' as some malicious multiculturalists would have it. And the homogeneity of Britain carried over to the early settlement of the colonies in New England, as indicated by the above excerpts.
It is often claimed by Southern partisans, with whom I am in sympathy, by the way, that most of the South was settled by 'Celtic' peoples, Scots-Irish and to a lesser extent, Welsh.
However, Steve Sailer mentions, in the above-linked article, that Brian Sykes' book on the genetics of the British Isles indicates there was scant difference between the Anglo-Saxons and Celts:
Sykes writes: "Overall, the genetic structure of the Isles is stubbornly Celtic." (Interestingly, this means that the Irish and the English are largely the same�and Sykes is unable to discern any difference at all between the Ulster Catholics and Protestants, or "Scotch-Irish", as they are known to American immigration history).
Sykes points, out, however, that the term "Celtic" is something of a misnomer...'
Still the 'Celtic' identity of the South is an idea that has caught on. I remain skeptical of that idea, however, because of my familiarity with the genealogy of many Southern families. And it would seem that just looking at the surnames most common throughout the Southern states, at least before they were extensively invaded, we would find a predominance of English/Welsh names with a lesser number of Scottish names. A perusal of the names of the early Jamestown colonists, and of records of most Southern states in the next century or two, would likely show mostly English/Welsh names. So I am skeptical of the 'Celtic' culture of the South; I think it is a fanciful, romanticized idea that caught on, in part because the English in particular have been stereotyped as a cold, aloof people, while the 'Celts' have been portrayed as fiery-natured and warm, though given to belligerence and rebellion. I think this is an oversimplified portrayal of both the English and the Scots. I know that Grady McWhiney in particular, along with Forrest McDonald, did much to popularize the "Celtic Thesis" of the South's origins. I respect the work McWhiney did as a historian, but I am not convinced of his 'Celtic origins' idea.
As someone who has both Southern Cavaliers and New England Puritans in my family tree, I am familiar at firsthand with the differences in the culture of North and South; I simply think McWhiney and many others overemphasize the idea of different genetic origins. If Bryan Sykes is correct, the Celtic-Anglo Saxon divide is not so wide as thought.
Too often the Norman strain is discounted when analyzing the British people and their character and culture; I've noticed how very few want to own any Norman ancestry. Many people speak and write of the Normans as if they invaded idyllic England in 1066, and after ravaging the countryside, and setting up a tyrannical government, just receded into the mist. Surely people must realize that the Normans left many descendants in the British Isles and here in the United States and in Australia as well; the Normans did not disappear into the sunset. They are our ancestors too, and in the case of my family, they were the majority. And the Normans, though imperfect, were a capable, adventurous people who are often stereotyped as a sort of medieval European Klingon race; just watch a movie like 'Ivanhoe' and you will see the Normans as black-clad, sinister thugs. It's not surprising few people want to claim their Norman ancestry, based on the image of them in fiction and popular imagination. Most people want to be 'Celtic' or Anglo-Saxon, but the poor Normans are the red-headed step-cousins in the British family tree.
My point is: many Southerners think that their better qualities, their fighting spirit and independence, derive only from Scottish ancestry; can we not give our Norman forebears some credit? The Normans were the big guys on the block for centuries; we can take pride in them. Enough apologizing for the successes of our forefathers; we have glamorized the loser and the underdog for too long.
I often think that maybe our present-day Anglo-Americans and Anglo-Australians and even the 'indigenous British' as the PC brigade calls them, will be viewed by future generations much as those Norman baddies are viewed now: the Normans are depicted as oppressors and baddies, while the people they conquered (and in many cases, civilized) were the poor downtrodden underdogs, much as American Indians and Mexicans are now seen as the victims of the dominant white settlers. I wonder if the future owners of America, who may be partially descended from old-stock Americans, will disavow their 'Anglo' blood? I rather think they will. We will be the bad guys in the history books, if there are any, and if there are any literate people to read the books. We will be the ancestors nobody wants to claim; we will be the ones whose names draw hisses and boos.
I find the possibility of Europe's conquest by Islam and by various exotic immigrants in general to be a sad prospect, even if I had no blood ties to the countries in question; all of us are culturally descended from Europe, and most especially from Britain. If we in the West had a natural sense of kinship and solidarity, as we had for centuries, we would not be such easy prey for the invaders. Divide and conquer is the age-old formula; our enemies have successfully divided us, and continue to do so, as Western people turn on each other and side with the invaders, or simply refuse to take a side. Many in America prefer to pretend that we are a special, isolated people in the world, who just sprang up from nowhere. But we owe much of our vaunted ideas on freedom to our British forebears and heritage; we can't pretend that we "just growed", like Topsy.
If only we in the West had sense of our history and our roots, I think we could once again be the strong people we were. We cannot or dare not write off Europe, and pretend that we do not need them, nor they us. I don't care to contemplate a world in which Islam has swallowed up Europe, and taken control of their nuclear weapons; who will stand with us then? What friends or allies or kin will we have then? Our duplicitous Saudi friends? Backstabbing Mexico?
As Europe goes, so go we; we cannot ignore or turn our backs on Europe, especially on our British cousins.
If our Western civilization is swallowed up, I expect a 'Mad Max' kind of future for the West; I sincerely hope to be proven wrong by future events.
Labels: American History, Genealogy, Heritage, Western Civilization
0 comment Sunday, May 25, 2014 | admin
"After the aforesaid victory, Robert the Bruce was commonly called King of Scotland by all men, because he had acquired Scotland by force of arms.'' - Chronicle of LanercostJune 24 is the anniversary of the historical Battle of Bannockburn in Scotland, which was the decisive battle in the first War of Scottish Independence. The Battle of Bannockburn took place in 1314, some 694 years ago.
To provide some perspective, it was 20+ generations ago for most of us; I know this because some of our family's ancestors were there that day, the Douglases and Stewarts, on the Scottish side and some of our English ancestors on the other side. So which side should people like my family sympathize with?
Most Americans, because of our own struggles for independence from the English, and also because a number of Americans claim some Celtic roots, sympathize 100 percent with the Scots in that struggle.
When we consider how long ago that is, how many generations removed from us, it's amazing that the wars of Scottish independence, of which Bannockburn was a part, carry such emotional resonance for so many Americans today, even though we are mostly reacting to a fictional, jazzed-up version of that era: Mel Gibson's Braveheart.
The Hollywood version makes the British, and especially Edward II to be the evil ones; this is very much a trend these days. The English are often depicted as cold-blooded, ruthless, and entirely unsympathetic; they are the 'bad guys', oppressors. The English are now, perhaps alongside Americans for much of the rest of the world, seen as the arch-Whites, the most oppressive of an oppressive race. I think it's rather troubling that so many people accept these stereotypes.
For those who are interested in reading the actual historical accounts of the event, this website claims to have the most complete account.
The Wikipedia entry here also gives a good summary of the events.
However, for an alternative view which critiques Mel Gibson's version of the Scottish wars of independence, see this page.
From all I can discern, his criticisms are valid.
I can just hear some answering that 'that's just nitpicking', or 'it's just a movie; it's called artistic license.'
Yes, but shouldn't truth at least be a serious consideration in making a movie like this? I think the real facts, minus Gibson's little additions and liberties, are every bit as dramatic and stirring as the Hollywood version.
We seem to live in an age which is too relaxed about truth and facts, wherein most people seem to adhere to the postmodern idea that 'there is no truth, only competing narratives.' However, when Hollywood depicts historical figures and events, their 'narrative' becomes a kind of established truth for most people, who get their history from movies and TV programs.
I think truth does matter. By turning history into silly putty, which can be twisted and re-fashioned this way and that according to popular trends or prejudices, we do a great dishonor to our ancestors who lived the events in question. And the story of Robert the Bruce, Bannockburn, and the whole struggle between England and Scotland is part of the actual history of many Americans whose roots go back to England and Scotland during that momentous era.
If we create a false past on which to base our present understanding of the world, we will never see aright; we will be making erroneous judgments based on falsehoods, and we will be led in the wrong direction as a result.
The spirit of both sides who fought at Bannockburn is something which is our heritage; that spirit can serve us well if we reclaim it and rekindle it in ourselves.
And it's important to remember that in a sense, these battles were internecine in nature. The Scots had a definite identity and heritage, but many of the noblemen who were slaughtering each other in the battle were descendants of a common ancestry. Bruce as well as his foe, Edward II, had Norman/Viking ancestry. They all shared a common Christian faith, and were of the same ethnic origins, not many generations before.
In that sense, the wars seem more tragic. And we might take a lesson from that, too.
Note: another good source on Robert the Bruce is the biography of that name by Ronald McNair Scott.
Labels: Heritage, Revisionist History, Western Civilization, Western Culture