0 comment Thursday, October 30, 2014 | admin
Another episode in the 'just one big family' series.
According to the news media, Henry Gates and the Cambridge policeman who arrested him, James Crowley, are distant kin -- both being descended from the 4th century Irish king, Niall of the Nine Hostages.
It seems to me that this is reminiscent of the campaign-era stories in the mainstream media which trumpeted 'Obama distant kin to Presidents' or 'Obama's Irish roots', all transparently intended to further convince readers that race is just skin-deep, and that we're all just one big family, one race, 'the human race.'
How that line fits with the whole storyline in these headlines: 'A historic first! America's First African-American President!' A Milestone! Moving beyond race! -- I don't quite understand.
I've read conflicting stories on Gates' alleged European ancestry, and it's all as may be. I question how these 'experts' in the article can say with certainty that 'x' number of men today descend directly from a 4th century individual. Do they have his DNA, or just DNA from those who think they are descended from him? It all sounds rather iffy to me, but I am not a genetics expert.
I do know something about genealogy, and I know that once you get back in time that far, the recorded information is pretty sketchy. If you come from a prominent family in Europe, one that has maintained careful records down through the centuries, there is more solid evidence of descent, but this kind of record-keeping was mainly limited to the more prominent families, in which ancestry and descent and family lineage were all-important because of lands, titles, and status in society. I just don't quite buy how it's possible to claim this kind of lineage without something more solid than the say-so of a researcher, and I have my doubts; is Niall's DNA available for comparison? My doubts are confirmed by the linked article.
The biggest caveat of this research is that without testing DNA from Niall�s remains, it is impossible to say with 100% certainty that Niall is the ancestor (and some argue that there never was a real Niall). For instance, Mrs. Niall could have only reproduced with the friendly neighbor, or a large fraction of the men with the signature Y chromosome could be descended from Niall�s promiscuous uncle George (I don�t know if there was an uncle, or if his name was George - it�s just an example).
I've expressed my skepticism here before about the validity and reliability of some of these DNA testing companies, which for a fee will pinpoint what your ancestry is down to fine details. Do we really possess complete enough samples to make such exact claims? For example, remember the story of Oprah claiming she learned of her Zulu ancestry, which was later contradicted by other testing. Would any American of black ancestry descend from just one tribe? Was there not considerable blending of several West African tribes among black slaves?
I'm skeptical on this whole subject, but open to being corrected.
In so many of these media stories about some famous figure's purported noble ancestry, there seems to be a political agenda at work, sometimes publicity, to make the celebrity or politician more glamorous by asserting his descent from some famous or infamous historical personage. It's just hype, in other words.
In even more cases, the media jumps on any opportunity to push their ''one planet, one people'' trans-racial propaganda. Look! We are all just kissin' cousins anyway, so let's all join together. Race is an illusion, we're all mixed and mingled hopelessly anyway, so embrace it.
Sorry, but this does not resonate with me. In reading some of these genealogical stories during the campaigns, I learned I was (likely) kin to Howard Dean, John Kerry, and John Edwards. I say likely, because if the family trees given are correct, I am probably distant cousin to these people though that does not make me feel all warm and fuzzy towards them.
As I recently quoted Proudhon as saying 'if everybody is my brother, I have no brothers', that applies here; if we are all cousins, then kinship is pretty meaningless. It's hard to love people in the abstract, on that kind of scale. We are not made for that kind of attenuated, stretched-thin 'brotherly love.' It has to be limited in scope or it is not love at all.
What racial lessons are we supposed to take from this latest absurd story about Gates and Crowley and their supposed common ancestor, Niall of the Nine Hostages? That Gates is an Irishman? To believe such is to stretch the definition of Irishman beyond recognition. Gates clearly bears grudges against his White ancestors and kin, and probably feels little fellow-feeling for medieval (or modern) Irishmen. That illustrates how race is not just a matter of mind, but a primal identification; blacks who are half White, as Gates is said to be, still feel and think black. And those on the left and on the right who would like that to change are dreamers. Having some White ancestry, particularly if it is further back in the family line, does not change one's essential identification.
Certainly the multicultists would like to deconstruct the whole notion of nationality and ethnicity, at least where European-descended peoples are concerned. And this serves that purpose. As I don't trust those who write these stories, nor the motives of the left, I can't take this story seriously. Beware of the multicultural agenda.
According to the news media, Henry Gates and the Cambridge policeman who arrested him, James Crowley, are distant kin -- both being descended from the 4th century Irish king, Niall of the Nine Hostages.
It seems to me that this is reminiscent of the campaign-era stories in the mainstream media which trumpeted 'Obama distant kin to Presidents' or 'Obama's Irish roots', all transparently intended to further convince readers that race is just skin-deep, and that we're all just one big family, one race, 'the human race.'
How that line fits with the whole storyline in these headlines: 'A historic first! America's First African-American President!' A Milestone! Moving beyond race! -- I don't quite understand.
I've read conflicting stories on Gates' alleged European ancestry, and it's all as may be. I question how these 'experts' in the article can say with certainty that 'x' number of men today descend directly from a 4th century individual. Do they have his DNA, or just DNA from those who think they are descended from him? It all sounds rather iffy to me, but I am not a genetics expert.
I do know something about genealogy, and I know that once you get back in time that far, the recorded information is pretty sketchy. If you come from a prominent family in Europe, one that has maintained careful records down through the centuries, there is more solid evidence of descent, but this kind of record-keeping was mainly limited to the more prominent families, in which ancestry and descent and family lineage were all-important because of lands, titles, and status in society. I just don't quite buy how it's possible to claim this kind of lineage without something more solid than the say-so of a researcher, and I have my doubts; is Niall's DNA available for comparison? My doubts are confirmed by the linked article.
The biggest caveat of this research is that without testing DNA from Niall�s remains, it is impossible to say with 100% certainty that Niall is the ancestor (and some argue that there never was a real Niall). For instance, Mrs. Niall could have only reproduced with the friendly neighbor, or a large fraction of the men with the signature Y chromosome could be descended from Niall�s promiscuous uncle George (I don�t know if there was an uncle, or if his name was George - it�s just an example).
I've expressed my skepticism here before about the validity and reliability of some of these DNA testing companies, which for a fee will pinpoint what your ancestry is down to fine details. Do we really possess complete enough samples to make such exact claims? For example, remember the story of Oprah claiming she learned of her Zulu ancestry, which was later contradicted by other testing. Would any American of black ancestry descend from just one tribe? Was there not considerable blending of several West African tribes among black slaves?
I'm skeptical on this whole subject, but open to being corrected.
In so many of these media stories about some famous figure's purported noble ancestry, there seems to be a political agenda at work, sometimes publicity, to make the celebrity or politician more glamorous by asserting his descent from some famous or infamous historical personage. It's just hype, in other words.
In even more cases, the media jumps on any opportunity to push their ''one planet, one people'' trans-racial propaganda. Look! We are all just kissin' cousins anyway, so let's all join together. Race is an illusion, we're all mixed and mingled hopelessly anyway, so embrace it.
Sorry, but this does not resonate with me. In reading some of these genealogical stories during the campaigns, I learned I was (likely) kin to Howard Dean, John Kerry, and John Edwards. I say likely, because if the family trees given are correct, I am probably distant cousin to these people though that does not make me feel all warm and fuzzy towards them.
As I recently quoted Proudhon as saying 'if everybody is my brother, I have no brothers', that applies here; if we are all cousins, then kinship is pretty meaningless. It's hard to love people in the abstract, on that kind of scale. We are not made for that kind of attenuated, stretched-thin 'brotherly love.' It has to be limited in scope or it is not love at all.
What racial lessons are we supposed to take from this latest absurd story about Gates and Crowley and their supposed common ancestor, Niall of the Nine Hostages? That Gates is an Irishman? To believe such is to stretch the definition of Irishman beyond recognition. Gates clearly bears grudges against his White ancestors and kin, and probably feels little fellow-feeling for medieval (or modern) Irishmen. That illustrates how race is not just a matter of mind, but a primal identification; blacks who are half White, as Gates is said to be, still feel and think black. And those on the left and on the right who would like that to change are dreamers. Having some White ancestry, particularly if it is further back in the family line, does not change one's essential identification.
Certainly the multicultists would like to deconstruct the whole notion of nationality and ethnicity, at least where European-descended peoples are concerned. And this serves that purpose. As I don't trust those who write these stories, nor the motives of the left, I can't take this story seriously. Beware of the multicultural agenda.
Labels: Dna, Genealogy, Media Bias, Multiculturalism, Multiracialism, Nationality, One World, Political Correctness
0 comment Sunday, October 19, 2014 | admin
In my previous post, the issue of a Catholic Bishop's liberal position on illegal immigration was raised. Unhappily, there are many Protestant clergy and lay people who share the post-modern liberal interpretation of Christian doctrine.
The problem is such that it is becoming increasingly hard for the faithful Christian to answer the ever-louder voices of the critics on the right who say that Christianity is to blame, solely or in part, for the fall of the West and the threatened loss of our country.
AmRen in particular, among racial-realist websites and forums, has its insistent critics and enemies of Christianity, a couple of whom regularly post quite disparaging comments about Christianity and Christians. I can only assume that their viewpoints are agreeable to the moderators of AmRen if not also to the site owner. It's a fact that many comments in general do not get past the moderators, so those which do see the light of day are apparently agreeable to the mods and/or to the site owner.
I know some will say this is just even-handedness. It's not. Islam has its critics on AmRen, but none as insistent as the regular anti-Christian voices. Judaism is not considered fair game for criticism on AmRen, presumably because this is a group which is being courted and whose support is apparently valued more than that of Christians. This makes little tactical sense, because Christians make up a much larger demographic.
For whatever reason, Christians are now on the defensive on the right as well as on the left, and Christianity's detractors are stubbornly unwilling to listen to any defense of Christianity.
It's noteworthy, and heartening, that a British clergyman, Reverend Robert West of the British National Party, has spoken out on the issues of immigration, race, and repatriation in light of Christian belief.
Whilst the BNP is a secular and not a religious party, its views generally agree with the Bible�s own teaching that we are to live as nations, in our nations, and not to submit to a "resurrection" of the Babel thesis of one undifferentiated mass under some form of, probably dictatorial and very unstable, world governance.''
To the credit of AmRen, the issue of Christianity's culpability for the decline of the West was debated there some dozen years ago, and this piece by H.A. Scott Trask was posted there later, although I do wonder if something similar would be posted today. (Incidentally, thanks to Dr. D for calling Trask's piece to my attention once again.)
The Christian Doctrine of Nations
Biblical law respects boundaries of race and nation
by H. A. Scott Trask
In the September 1997 issue of AR there was a debate on whether Christianity is at least partly to blame for the demise of Western Civilization and the suicidal course being pursued by Western peoples. Both positions were ably argued, and on the whole I had to agree that the key to the controversy was a distinction between historical Christianity and contemporary Christianity. As Michael W. Masters ("How Christianity Harms the Race") acknowledged implicitly and Victor Craig ("Defense of the Faith") acknowledged explicitly, the two are not the same; and, as Mr. Craig argued persuasively, historical Christianity has not been indifferent to the fate of the European peoples.
The situation today is quite different. Whether Catholic or Protestant, conservative or liberal, all Western churches have embraced leftist dogmas on questions of nationality and race. The only difference appears to be that the more liberal churches openly support the multicultural and anti-white agenda, while the conservative churches ignore it. Of course, ignoring an agenda that pervades everything from politics to advertising is a form of tacit acceptance. The question is not whether Western churches are betraying their predominantly white congregations; they are. The question is whether they have doctrinal justification to do so.
It would be hard to overestimate the extent to which churches have surrendered to the leftist racial world view. Two years ago, the Pope said this about the inundation of Western countries by Third-World "refugees:" "These foreigners are above all our brothers, and no one should be excepted for reasons of race and religion." Of course, one could argue that race and religion are the two most important reasons to prevent foreigners from settling in one�s homeland. A common race is the foundation of any true nation, while a common religion is the foundation of a common moral code.
Leaving aside the race question for a moment, what kind of insanity has gripped the Catholic hierarchy that it would maintain that a Christian country should not keep out non-Christians? Whatever the answer, Protestant churches in Northern Europe and North America suffer a similar affliction. While liberal Protestants prate about the endless benefits of "diversity," conservative Protestants boast they will convert the newcomers. So lost have they become in the mists of political correctness, so effeminate has become their Christianity, they do not realize the erection of mosques, Hindu temples, and Buddhist shrines in the formerly Christian lands of the West is not a sign of progress in world evangelism but is terrible regress and defeat.
If the children of these pagan newcomers are, indeed, to be converted from the religions of their parents the contest will be between evangelicals and hedonistic liberals. Is there any doubt that the latter will sweep the field? These children�s parents came here to enjoy the good life and escape the challenges of building up their own nations. Their children will inherit this materialistic and self-seeking orientation. Christians can boast all they want about tolerance and love of foreigners, but immigration is only further marginalizing Christianity in our culture.'
[...]
Most Christians never mention, much less oppose, policies that directly harm whites: racial quotas, affirmative action, anti-discrimination laws, forced busing, extortion-motivated "civil rights" lawsuits, black-on-white hate crimes, interracial marriage, and Third-World immigration. They believe Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American Christian hero who truly deserves to be the only American with a national holiday in his honor. They believe "racism" is a sin, but a sin only when it is white racial consciousness or loyalty, never non-white racial consciousness or identity. They believe whites have a moral and Christian obligation to "bridge the racial divide," integrate their churches, reach out to people of color, etc. It therefore seems a bad joke to speak of Christian conservatives or the Christian Right, for there is nothing conservative about acquiescing in a demographic revolution to turn whites into a minority.
White Christians became racial liberals mainly because the Church has been besieged by the same forces that now dominate every other Western institution. The universalistic and egalitarian ideas of the Enlightenment have now fully penetrated Western culture. Feminist and socialist values have worked their way into Western culture and have overthrown traditional ideals of manhood, patriarchy, and chivalry. Biblical illiteracy, illogic, and historical ignorance have created an environment in which the Scriptures have been perverted into a religious justification for racial liberalism.''
Trask goes on to refute the frequently-cited interpretation of Galatians 3:28, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus".
I will let you read the entire essay for yourselves. It's a very thorough job of answering the liberalized postmodern Christians who have no problem with breaking with two millennia of Christian belief to embrace the 'one-world' agenda. I often repeat this, and it doesn't seem to pierce through the indoctrination, but how do such Christians reconcile their radical departure from what their parents and grandparents and so on, as far back as you can go, believed? Our Christian parents and our forefathers did not believe there were no nations or races; they did not believe we were to drop all barriers and tear down borders and fences and become one undifferentiated mass of humanity, as today's PC pharisees have decreed we must do.
If we believe that the traditional understanding of nations, as laid out in the Bible and by centuries of custom and tradition were not only mistaken but sinful and immoral, where does that put our ancestors, who held such 'immoral' beliefs and lived by such 'hateful' customs? If today's politically correct believers are right, most of our forefathers will not enter the kingdom of heaven, having not known the 'truth' according to today's wisdom, and having lived what today's generation would call 'racist' and xenophobic lives.
As for me, I am not prepared to condemn our forefathers in that way, while assuming that today's confused Christians are the standard by which to judge.
I suppose there is little chance of exonerating Christianity from the accusations made by some nationalists and realists; I have always had the feeling that they have rejected Christianity already, and are simply looking for further reasons to denigrate the faith and to vilify Christians. So I don't think that anything will change their condemnation of Christianity.
If they are intellectually honest, they would surely at least try to explain why, as I often ask, Europe and the West generally were at their zenith when Christianity still reigned, and when it was a strong and muscular faith. And why, conversely, did the West become effete and passive and self-doubting as the Christian faith waned, and Christianity became stripped of its original power?
These questions are often touched on in various essays of Cambria Will Not Yield, such as this one.
If the ''Christianity did it'' theory of the West's demise were true, should not the West have fallen centuries ago when Christianity was at its peak of power, when the majority of people in the West truly lived their lives according to Christianity's precepts? Why did the fall of the West come only as Christianity became enfeebled and had strayed from its original truths, and when only a small number of faithful believers remain? It makes no logical sense whatsoever, yet I have never heard any of the anti-Christian critics explain why this paradox exists, if their theory is true.
I don't hold any hope of dissuading the 'Christianity did it'' sect from their beliefs. I would, however, hope that some Christians who think it is sinful and evil to close our borders, or to want to preserve our nation and our people, will rethink that position based on what Trask has to say, or better yet, what their Bible has to say, minus the politicized interpretations of our day.
The problem is such that it is becoming increasingly hard for the faithful Christian to answer the ever-louder voices of the critics on the right who say that Christianity is to blame, solely or in part, for the fall of the West and the threatened loss of our country.
AmRen in particular, among racial-realist websites and forums, has its insistent critics and enemies of Christianity, a couple of whom regularly post quite disparaging comments about Christianity and Christians. I can only assume that their viewpoints are agreeable to the moderators of AmRen if not also to the site owner. It's a fact that many comments in general do not get past the moderators, so those which do see the light of day are apparently agreeable to the mods and/or to the site owner.
I know some will say this is just even-handedness. It's not. Islam has its critics on AmRen, but none as insistent as the regular anti-Christian voices. Judaism is not considered fair game for criticism on AmRen, presumably because this is a group which is being courted and whose support is apparently valued more than that of Christians. This makes little tactical sense, because Christians make up a much larger demographic.
For whatever reason, Christians are now on the defensive on the right as well as on the left, and Christianity's detractors are stubbornly unwilling to listen to any defense of Christianity.
It's noteworthy, and heartening, that a British clergyman, Reverend Robert West of the British National Party, has spoken out on the issues of immigration, race, and repatriation in light of Christian belief.
Whilst the BNP is a secular and not a religious party, its views generally agree with the Bible�s own teaching that we are to live as nations, in our nations, and not to submit to a "resurrection" of the Babel thesis of one undifferentiated mass under some form of, probably dictatorial and very unstable, world governance.''
To the credit of AmRen, the issue of Christianity's culpability for the decline of the West was debated there some dozen years ago, and this piece by H.A. Scott Trask was posted there later, although I do wonder if something similar would be posted today. (Incidentally, thanks to Dr. D for calling Trask's piece to my attention once again.)
The Christian Doctrine of Nations
Biblical law respects boundaries of race and nation
by H. A. Scott Trask
In the September 1997 issue of AR there was a debate on whether Christianity is at least partly to blame for the demise of Western Civilization and the suicidal course being pursued by Western peoples. Both positions were ably argued, and on the whole I had to agree that the key to the controversy was a distinction between historical Christianity and contemporary Christianity. As Michael W. Masters ("How Christianity Harms the Race") acknowledged implicitly and Victor Craig ("Defense of the Faith") acknowledged explicitly, the two are not the same; and, as Mr. Craig argued persuasively, historical Christianity has not been indifferent to the fate of the European peoples.
The situation today is quite different. Whether Catholic or Protestant, conservative or liberal, all Western churches have embraced leftist dogmas on questions of nationality and race. The only difference appears to be that the more liberal churches openly support the multicultural and anti-white agenda, while the conservative churches ignore it. Of course, ignoring an agenda that pervades everything from politics to advertising is a form of tacit acceptance. The question is not whether Western churches are betraying their predominantly white congregations; they are. The question is whether they have doctrinal justification to do so.
It would be hard to overestimate the extent to which churches have surrendered to the leftist racial world view. Two years ago, the Pope said this about the inundation of Western countries by Third-World "refugees:" "These foreigners are above all our brothers, and no one should be excepted for reasons of race and religion." Of course, one could argue that race and religion are the two most important reasons to prevent foreigners from settling in one�s homeland. A common race is the foundation of any true nation, while a common religion is the foundation of a common moral code.
Leaving aside the race question for a moment, what kind of insanity has gripped the Catholic hierarchy that it would maintain that a Christian country should not keep out non-Christians? Whatever the answer, Protestant churches in Northern Europe and North America suffer a similar affliction. While liberal Protestants prate about the endless benefits of "diversity," conservative Protestants boast they will convert the newcomers. So lost have they become in the mists of political correctness, so effeminate has become their Christianity, they do not realize the erection of mosques, Hindu temples, and Buddhist shrines in the formerly Christian lands of the West is not a sign of progress in world evangelism but is terrible regress and defeat.
If the children of these pagan newcomers are, indeed, to be converted from the religions of their parents the contest will be between evangelicals and hedonistic liberals. Is there any doubt that the latter will sweep the field? These children�s parents came here to enjoy the good life and escape the challenges of building up their own nations. Their children will inherit this materialistic and self-seeking orientation. Christians can boast all they want about tolerance and love of foreigners, but immigration is only further marginalizing Christianity in our culture.'
[...]
Most Christians never mention, much less oppose, policies that directly harm whites: racial quotas, affirmative action, anti-discrimination laws, forced busing, extortion-motivated "civil rights" lawsuits, black-on-white hate crimes, interracial marriage, and Third-World immigration. They believe Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American Christian hero who truly deserves to be the only American with a national holiday in his honor. They believe "racism" is a sin, but a sin only when it is white racial consciousness or loyalty, never non-white racial consciousness or identity. They believe whites have a moral and Christian obligation to "bridge the racial divide," integrate their churches, reach out to people of color, etc. It therefore seems a bad joke to speak of Christian conservatives or the Christian Right, for there is nothing conservative about acquiescing in a demographic revolution to turn whites into a minority.
White Christians became racial liberals mainly because the Church has been besieged by the same forces that now dominate every other Western institution. The universalistic and egalitarian ideas of the Enlightenment have now fully penetrated Western culture. Feminist and socialist values have worked their way into Western culture and have overthrown traditional ideals of manhood, patriarchy, and chivalry. Biblical illiteracy, illogic, and historical ignorance have created an environment in which the Scriptures have been perverted into a religious justification for racial liberalism.''
Trask goes on to refute the frequently-cited interpretation of Galatians 3:28, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus".
I will let you read the entire essay for yourselves. It's a very thorough job of answering the liberalized postmodern Christians who have no problem with breaking with two millennia of Christian belief to embrace the 'one-world' agenda. I often repeat this, and it doesn't seem to pierce through the indoctrination, but how do such Christians reconcile their radical departure from what their parents and grandparents and so on, as far back as you can go, believed? Our Christian parents and our forefathers did not believe there were no nations or races; they did not believe we were to drop all barriers and tear down borders and fences and become one undifferentiated mass of humanity, as today's PC pharisees have decreed we must do.
If we believe that the traditional understanding of nations, as laid out in the Bible and by centuries of custom and tradition were not only mistaken but sinful and immoral, where does that put our ancestors, who held such 'immoral' beliefs and lived by such 'hateful' customs? If today's politically correct believers are right, most of our forefathers will not enter the kingdom of heaven, having not known the 'truth' according to today's wisdom, and having lived what today's generation would call 'racist' and xenophobic lives.
As for me, I am not prepared to condemn our forefathers in that way, while assuming that today's confused Christians are the standard by which to judge.
I suppose there is little chance of exonerating Christianity from the accusations made by some nationalists and realists; I have always had the feeling that they have rejected Christianity already, and are simply looking for further reasons to denigrate the faith and to vilify Christians. So I don't think that anything will change their condemnation of Christianity.
If they are intellectually honest, they would surely at least try to explain why, as I often ask, Europe and the West generally were at their zenith when Christianity still reigned, and when it was a strong and muscular faith. And why, conversely, did the West become effete and passive and self-doubting as the Christian faith waned, and Christianity became stripped of its original power?
These questions are often touched on in various essays of Cambria Will Not Yield, such as this one.
If the ''Christianity did it'' theory of the West's demise were true, should not the West have fallen centuries ago when Christianity was at its peak of power, when the majority of people in the West truly lived their lives according to Christianity's precepts? Why did the fall of the West come only as Christianity became enfeebled and had strayed from its original truths, and when only a small number of faithful believers remain? It makes no logical sense whatsoever, yet I have never heard any of the anti-Christian critics explain why this paradox exists, if their theory is true.
I don't hold any hope of dissuading the 'Christianity did it'' sect from their beliefs. I would, however, hope that some Christians who think it is sinful and evil to close our borders, or to want to preserve our nation and our people, will rethink that position based on what Trask has to say, or better yet, what their Bible has to say, minus the politicized interpretations of our day.
Labels: Babel, Bible, Christendom, Death Of The West, Ethnonationalism, Liberal Christianity, Nationality, Nations, Political Correctness, Western Decline
0 comment Monday, October 13, 2014 | admin
Leo McKinstry, writing for the Express, asks 'Just what does it mean to be called British these days?' It's a pertinent question these days, what with mass immigration threatening to overwhelm much of the West, or former Christendom.
We could just as appropriately ask 'just what does it mean to be called American these days?' The difference between our country and the UK is that Britain, unlike this country of ours, was not a nation of immigrants, or 'multicultural from the beginning', as leftwing propagandists shamelessly assert.
Our country, though I reject the ''nation of immigrants'' label, did, gradually, admit many immigrants from very disparate places and cultures, and we did so at considerable cost to our sense of commonality and our very identity. Nowadays almost anyone who has set foot on this soil with an intention to stay here is deemed an 'American', even if they speak no English, and even if they are openly hostile to the people of this country and our traditions. Sadly, this seems to be the case in Britain, too, though their subjection to 'diversity' is of a much more recent origin.
One element of the British identity crisis is that ironically, it is the English who seem to be marginalized and at a disadvantage, in the country which is at its core, their country. Many Americans seem not to be aware that 'British' is a kind of civic identity, whereas 'English' is an ethnic designation. Aliens and foreigners can become 'British' by obtaining a British passport and obtaining all the rights of British nationality -- but they can never be 'English', because English is an exclusive identity, based on lineage, not documents. Many Americans seem unable to grasp that the Scots are British in a civic sense, as are the Welsh, but both groups would likely object to being termed 'English', as they have their own, separate, ethnic identity. They can fly their national flags, but the English are not given the same leeway to express their ethnicity.
I would liken this to the position of White, old-stock Americans, who are oftentimes of English descent, lacking an ethnic identity. The descendants of the Irish and Scots, including Ulster Scots, have their identity and their symbols and their pride, but the Anglo-American is the invisible and silent ethnicity. In a sense I suppose this could in part be attributed to having been dominant for a long time, and taking such dominance for granted, until one day we wake up dispossessed and pushed to the margins of the society our ancestors created here.
But perhaps the English, in a similar situation in their land, will become more conscious of their own identity as they face dispossession and domination by outsiders. In a world in which everyone around you is very assertive about their own race and ethnicity and religion, it's hard to remain unaware of one's own roots and origins.
One point with which I will disagree with McKinstry in this article is his statement about the European immigrants of older times. He says that
''...the small numbers that arrived here, such as Irish labourers, or Jewish or French refugees fleeing religious persecution, were steeped in the Judeo-Christian culture that built our civilisation.''
I disagree that there is a 'Judeo-Christian culture.' There is a Jewish culture and a Christian one. Their commonalities are few; they share very different outlooks on God, life, and human nature. They live by rather different moral codes.
It might have been a turning point for our country, when, as the proposition nation idea grew, we began to think that there is a common Judeo-Christian culture that binds us together. Lately, building on that idea, we have the talk about the 'three Abrahamic faiths', Judaism, Christianity and Islam. This is a false notion, that we share some kind of common ground. The religious ''right'' in this country is thoroughly persuaded that there is such a bond, though it does not really exist.
It's with such small steps that Western countries gradually found ourselves in the multicultural soup. There needs to be a re-thinking of some of the deceptive notions that put us here.
We could just as appropriately ask 'just what does it mean to be called American these days?' The difference between our country and the UK is that Britain, unlike this country of ours, was not a nation of immigrants, or 'multicultural from the beginning', as leftwing propagandists shamelessly assert.
Our country, though I reject the ''nation of immigrants'' label, did, gradually, admit many immigrants from very disparate places and cultures, and we did so at considerable cost to our sense of commonality and our very identity. Nowadays almost anyone who has set foot on this soil with an intention to stay here is deemed an 'American', even if they speak no English, and even if they are openly hostile to the people of this country and our traditions. Sadly, this seems to be the case in Britain, too, though their subjection to 'diversity' is of a much more recent origin.
One element of the British identity crisis is that ironically, it is the English who seem to be marginalized and at a disadvantage, in the country which is at its core, their country. Many Americans seem not to be aware that 'British' is a kind of civic identity, whereas 'English' is an ethnic designation. Aliens and foreigners can become 'British' by obtaining a British passport and obtaining all the rights of British nationality -- but they can never be 'English', because English is an exclusive identity, based on lineage, not documents. Many Americans seem unable to grasp that the Scots are British in a civic sense, as are the Welsh, but both groups would likely object to being termed 'English', as they have their own, separate, ethnic identity. They can fly their national flags, but the English are not given the same leeway to express their ethnicity.
I would liken this to the position of White, old-stock Americans, who are oftentimes of English descent, lacking an ethnic identity. The descendants of the Irish and Scots, including Ulster Scots, have their identity and their symbols and their pride, but the Anglo-American is the invisible and silent ethnicity. In a sense I suppose this could in part be attributed to having been dominant for a long time, and taking such dominance for granted, until one day we wake up dispossessed and pushed to the margins of the society our ancestors created here.
But perhaps the English, in a similar situation in their land, will become more conscious of their own identity as they face dispossession and domination by outsiders. In a world in which everyone around you is very assertive about their own race and ethnicity and religion, it's hard to remain unaware of one's own roots and origins.
One point with which I will disagree with McKinstry in this article is his statement about the European immigrants of older times. He says that
''...the small numbers that arrived here, such as Irish labourers, or Jewish or French refugees fleeing religious persecution, were steeped in the Judeo-Christian culture that built our civilisation.''
I disagree that there is a 'Judeo-Christian culture.' There is a Jewish culture and a Christian one. Their commonalities are few; they share very different outlooks on God, life, and human nature. They live by rather different moral codes.
It might have been a turning point for our country, when, as the proposition nation idea grew, we began to think that there is a common Judeo-Christian culture that binds us together. Lately, building on that idea, we have the talk about the 'three Abrahamic faiths', Judaism, Christianity and Islam. This is a false notion, that we share some kind of common ground. The religious ''right'' in this country is thoroughly persuaded that there is such a bond, though it does not really exist.
It's with such small steps that Western countries gradually found ourselves in the multicultural soup. There needs to be a re-thinking of some of the deceptive notions that put us here.
Labels: Britain, England, Ethnonationalism, Multuculturalism, Nationality, Proposition Nation
0 comment Sunday, August 17, 2014 | admin
England, Your England
From The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius, 1941
George Orwell, it is true, was a leftist; but the leftists of his day were apparently not the same breed as the nihilistic, life-hating leftists of today -- or it may simply be that he was a much more clear-thinking and honest man than his fellow leftists.
But whichever is the case, it is true, without a doubt, that the England of his time bears scant resemblance to the England or the United Kingdom of our day.
In the above-linked essay, England, Your England, written during World War II, he discusses the English character. Now today, the epithet 'English' is rarely used, as it is considered too exclusive, too restricted. It makes all those diverse residents of today's UK feel left out, offended, and persecuted, so the adjective 'English' is used far less than it was in Orwell's day.
But Orwell makes some very interesting observations about the English character, and patriotism, and discussing, as we have been, the present sad state of the UK, it is instructive to look at what he says. As we read his words, we might ponder whether the character of the country still persists, or whether that mysterious force called patriotism can be summoned up to revive Orwell's country.
One cannot see the modern world as it is unless one recognizes the overwhelming strength of patriotism, national loyalty. In certain circumstances it can break down, at certain levels of civilization it does not exist, but as a positive force there is nothing to set beside it. Christianity and international Socialism are as weak as straw in comparison with it. Hitler and Mussolini rose to power in their own countries very largely because they could grasp this fact and their opponents could not.
Also, one must admit that the divisions between nation and nation are founded on real differences of outlook. Till recently it was thought proper to pretend that all human beings are very much alike, but in fact anyone able to use his eyes knows that the average of human behaviour differs enormously from country to country. Things that could happen in one country could not happen in another. Hitler's June purge, for instance, could not have happened in England. And, as western peoples go, the English are very highly differentiated. There is a sort of back-handed admission of this in the dislike which nearly all foreigners feel for our national way of life. Few Europeans can endure living in England, and even Americans often feel more at home in Europe.
When you come back to England from any foreign country, you have immediately the sensation of breathing a different air. Even in the first few minutes dozens of small things conspire to give you this feeling. The beer is bitterer, the coins are heavier, the grass is greener, the advertisements are more blatant. The crowds in the big towns, with their mild knobby faces, their bad teeth and gentle manners, are different from a European crowd. Then the vastness of England swallows you up, and you lose for a while your feeling that the whole nation has a single identifiable character. Are there really such things as nations? Are we not forty-six million individuals, all different? And the diversity of it, the chaos! The clatter of clogs in the Lancashire mill towns, the to-and-fro of the lorries on the Great North Road, the queues outside the Labour Exchanges, the rattle of pin-tables in the Soho pubs, the old maids hiking to Holy Communion through the mists of the autumn morning � all these are not only fragments, but characteristic fragments, of the English scene. How can one make a pattern out of this muddle?
But talk to foreigners, read foreign books or newspapers, and you are brought back to the same thought. Yes, there is something distinctive and recognizable in English civilization. It is a culture as individual as that of Spain. It is somehow bound up with solid breakfasts and gloomy Sundays, smoky towns and winding roads, green fields and red pillar-boxes. It has a flavour of its own. Moreover it is continuous, it stretches into the future and the past, there is something in it that persists, as in a living creature. What can the England of 1940 have in common with the England of 1840? But then, what have you in common with the child of five whose photograph your mother keeps on the mantelpiece? Nothing, except that you happen to be the same person.
And above all, it is your civilization, it is you. However much you hate it or laugh at it, you will never be happy away from it for any length of time. The suet puddings and the red pillar-boxes have entered into your soul. Good or evil, it is yours, you belong to it, and this side the grave you will never get away from the marks that it has given you.
Meanwhile England, together with the rest of the world, is changing. And like everything else it can change only in certain directions, which up to a point can be foreseen. That is not to say that the future is fixed, merely that certain alternatives are possible and others not. A seed may grow or not grow, but at any rate a turnip seed never grows into a parsnip. It is therefore of the deepest importance to try and determine what England is, before guessing what part England can play in the huge events that are happening.''
If only Orwell could have known just how much England would change, and in how short a time. What would he have thought? Of course he foresaw the totalitarian trends which would develop in the years ahead; he was quite prescient in that regard. But I wonder if, as a leftist, he would have envisioned multiculturalism and the 'war against the people' by the Western elites?
Still, if we re-read the passages above, we see that Orwell clearly believed that there was an intrinsic national character, and that it persisted in spite of profound societal changes. He alludes to the changes between 1840 and 1940, and declares, that in spite of those changes, the people are still the same.
He clearly says that the whole nation has 'a single, identifiable character' and he seems to mean that the nation, through time, maintains that character.
He also says something quite important: that the divisions between nations are founded on real differences of outlook; the divisions from one nation to another reflect the innate differences. They are not simply a matter of geopolitical boundaries, or lines arbitrarily drawn on a map. Of course there have been and are 'nations' which are merely artificially-drawn nations, with no unifying genetic or cultural bonds. Iraq comes to mind, and increasingly, our own country -- and the UK. There are unfortunate consequences that follow in creating these unnatural 'nations' which are no nations. We are seeing those consequences playing out in the UK, in our country, and throughout the West.
To return to Orwell's description of the English character:
Here are a couple of generalizations about England that would be accepted by almost all observers. One is that the English are not gifted artistically. They are not as musical as the Germans or Italians, painting and sculpture have never flourished in England as they have in France. Another is that, as Europeans go, the English are not intellectual. They have a horror of abstract thought, they feel no need for any philosophy or systematic 'world-view�. Nor is this because they are 'practical�, as they are so fond of claiming for themselves. [...]
But they have a certain power of acting without taking thought. Their world-famed hypocrisy � their double-faced attitude towards the Empire, for instance � is bound up with this. Also, in moments of supreme crisis the whole nation can suddenly draw together and act upon a species of instinct, really a code of conduct which is understood by almost everyone, though never formulated. The phrase that Hitler coined for the Germans, 'a sleep-walking people�, would have been better applied to the English. Not that there is anything to be proud of in being called a sleep-walker.
But here it is worth noting a minor English trait which is extremely well marked though not often commented on, and that is a love of flowers. This is one of the first things that one notices when one reaches England from abroad, especially if one is coming from southern Europe. Does it not contradict the English indifference to the arts? Not really, because it is found in people who have no aesthetic feelings whatever. What it does link up with, however, is another English characteristic which is so much a part of us that we barely notice it, and that is the addiction to hobbies and spare-time occupations, the privateness of English life. We are a nation of flower-lovers, but also a nation of stamp-collectors, pigeon-fanciers, amateur carpenters, coupon-snippers, darts-players, crossword-puzzle fans. All the culture that is most truly native centres round things which even when they are communal are not official � the pub, the football match, the back garden, the fireside and the 'nice cup of tea�. The liberty of the individual is still believed in, almost as in the nineteenth century. But this has nothing to do with economic liberty, the right to exploit others for profit. It is the liberty to have a home of your own, to do what you like in your spare time, to choose your own amusements instead of having them chosen for you from above. The most hateful of all names in an English ear is Nosey Parker. It is obvious, of course, that even this purely private liberty is a lost cause. Like all other modern people, the English are in process of being numbered, labelled, conscripted, 'co-ordinated�. But the pull of their impulses is in the other direction, and the kind of regimentation that can be imposed on them will be modified in consequence.'' [Emphasis mine]
First, I am struck by the extent to which much of what Orwell says about the English character can also be applied to Americans, most importantly the part about the belief in the liberty of the individual. Too often we here in America like to claim that we invented this love of liberty, or that it sprang full-grown here among our colonists, like Athena from the head of Zeus. No; it is part of our British heritage. And the more weakened our ties to our old colonial heritage, the more we lose that natural aptitude for freedom. I believe the 'melting pot' philosophy watered down our essential strengths and gifts, and the more 'diverse' our country becomes, the greater the distance between us and our founding ancestors. This is no less true in the UK as they dilute their indigenous heritage via mass immigration.
But here, we come to the part in which Orwell notes the essential gentleness of the English, and their natural aversion to martial pursuits:
One can learn a good deal about the spirit of England from the comic coloured postcards that you see in the windows of cheap stationers� shops. These things are a sort of diary upon which the English people have unconsciously recorded themselves. Their old-fashioned outlook, their graded snobberies, their mixture of bawdiness and hypocrisy, their extreme gentleness, their deeply moral attitude to life, are all mirrored there.
The gentleness of the English civilization is perhaps its most marked characteristic. You notice it the instant you set foot on English soil. It is a land where the bus conductors are good-tempered and the policemen carry no revolvers. In no country inhabited by white men is it easier to shove people off the pavement. And with this goes something that is always written off by European observers as 'decadence� or hypocrisy, the English hatred of war and militarism. It is rooted deep in history, and it is strong in the lower-middle class as well as the working class.
[...]
In peace time, even when there are two million unemployed, it is difficult to fill the ranks of the tiny standing army, which is officered by the country gentry and a specialized stratum of the middle class, and manned by farm labourers and slum proletarians. The mass of the people are without military knowledge or tradition, and their attitude towards war is invariably defensive. No politician could rise to power by promising them conquests or military 'glory�, no Hymn of Hate has ever made any appeal to them.''
As we saw in the O'Sullivan article which I blogged on, the gentleness of British society is their vulnerability, with the presence of so many hostile and violent outsiders, who have at best a sullen indifference toward the native British people and at worst, a burning hostility to them. We here in this country are probably made vulnerable by the same traits, although they may be less marked in America, because of our mixed heritage. We, too, are by nature more polite, more hospitable, and too welcoming and trusting for our own good. This is true to some extent of all Western European peoples, but especially so of the English and Anglo-derived peoples in the West. It is said that J.R.R. Tolkien modeled the Hobbits after the English; they were essentially a gentle, stay-at-home, family-and-hearth people.
Here again, Orwell describes the English regard for the law, and the idea of the Rule of Law, which we too have traditionally valued very highly in America:
And yet the gentleness of English civilization is mixed up with barbarities and anachronisms. Our criminal law is as out-of-date as the muskets in the Tower. Over against the Nazi Storm Trooper you have got to set that typically English figure, the hanging judge, some gouty old bully with his mind rooted in the nineteenth century, handing out savage sentences. In England people are still hanged by the neck and flogged with the cat o� nine tails. Both of these punishments are obscene as well as cruel, but there has never been any genuinely popular outcry against them. People accept them (and Dartmoor, and Borstal) almost as they accept the weather. They are part of 'the law�, which is assumed to be unalterable.
[Note - Orwell apparently didn't foresee that the British would abolish capital punishment, thanks to leftism, and become very lenient, too lenient, in their treatment of criminals.]
Here one comes upon an all-important English trait: the respect for constitutionalism and legality, the belief in 'the law� as something above the State and above the individual, something which is cruel and stupid, of course, but at any rate incorruptible.
It is not that anyone imagines the law to be just. Everyone knows that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor. But no one accepts the implications of this, everyone takes it for granted that the law, such as it is, will be respected, and feels a sense of outrage when it is not. Remarks like 'They can't run me in; I haven't done anything wrong�, or 'They can't do that; it's against the law�, are part of the atmosphere of England. The professed enemies of society have this feeling as strongly as anyone else.
[...]
Everyone believes in his heart that the law can be, ought to be, and, on the whole, will be impartially administered. The totalitarian idea that there is no such thing as law, there is only power, has never taken root. Even the intelligentsia have only accepted it in theory.
[...]
In England such concepts as justice, liberty and objective truth are still believed in. They may be illusions, but they are very powerful illusions.''
I wonder to what extent that last is still true in Britain? Leftism and post-modernism, as taught by the left-controlled media and government, have seemingly weakened such beliefs. And here in America, the same is true, although I think we are a few steps behind the British on that path. We would do well to reverse our course before we reach the point where our British cousins seem to be.
Orwell talks about the sense of national unity, which seems to be very precarious in the UK at this time, with so many nationalities and races, each with their own 'communities' and allegiances, and with the indigenous British people so weakened in their national identity due to leftism and its anti-nationalistic jihad.
Up to a point, the sense of national unity is a substitute for a 'world-view�. Just because patriotism is all but universal and not even the rich are uninfluenced by it, there can be moments when the whole nation suddenly swings together and does the same thing, like a herd of cattle facing a wolf. There was such a moment, unmistakably, at the time of the disaster in France. After eight months of vaguely wondering what the war was about, the people suddenly knew what they had got to do: first, to get the army away from Dunkirk, and secondly to prevent invasion. It was like the awakening of a giant. Quick! Danger! The Philistines be upon thee, Samson! And then the swift unanimous action � and, then, alas, the prompt relapse into sleep. In a divided nation that would have been exactly the moment for a big peace movement to arise. But does this mean that the instinct of the English will always tell them to do the right thing? Not at all, merely that it will tell them to do the same thing. In the 1931 General Election, for instance, we all did the wrong thing in perfect unison. We were as single-minded as the Gadarene swine. But I honestly doubt whether we can say that we were shoved down the slope against our will.''
The sense of unity, the oneness in spirit and in national character, is what enabled Britain during the War to pull together and to survive. Without that sense of national unity, survival is doubtful.
One more little trivial note: Orwell, in that last passage, makes a couple of Biblical allusions: the reference to the Philistines and Samson, and the reference to the Gadarene swine. Do any leftists of today recognize such allusions, and would any leftist dare to refer to the Bible today, other than those leftists wearing backwards collars? I doubt it. And even among the general population, how many British people would recognize those Biblical references or names, or know the symbolism inherent therein? Precious few, and I am afraid that even in a more 'religious' country like America, not many are Biblically literate enough to get the allusions. My point is not just to lament that we in America are not the Biblically-conversant country we once were, or that Britain has lost its religion (though both are cause for lament) but also that we no longer have a common grounding in Western culture; we no longer have these common reference points and cultural bonds which enabled us to speak in shorthand amongst ourselves. We can no longer make such an allusion, whether Biblical or from the old classics, or from Shakespeare, and trust that our readers or hearers will understand. To that extent, we are weaker and less connected. Such is the fruit of multiculturalism. It eats away at the cultural connections and bonds.
But Orwell, later in the essay, concludes that
England is not the jewelled isle of Shakespeare's much-quoted message, nor is it the inferno depicted by Dr Goebbels. More than either it resembles a family, a rather stuffy Victorian family, with not many black sheep in it but with all its cupboards bursting with skeletons. It has rich relations who have to be kow-towed to and poor relations who are horribly sat upon, and there is a deep conspiracy of silence about the source of the family income. It is a family in which the young are generally thwarted and most of the power is in the hands of irresponsible uncles and bedridden aunts. Still, it is a family. It has its private language and its common memories, and at the approach of an enemy it closes its ranks. A family with the wrong members in control � that, perhaps, is as near as one can come to describing England in a phrase.''
I've often used the family as the analogy for our American nation; at first, we were truly a kin group, a nation in the original sense, and later our family circle expanded to welcome in those who became ours by adoption. Now, the family analogy is being stretched to the breaking point. If the family's would-be new members are simply there to exploit and to plunder, and have no wish to join the family circle and conform to the family and its ways, then there is no more family; it's everybody for himself.
And I have no doubt that to use Orwell's analogy, the British family, or what still remains of it, has the wrong members in control -- as do we in America.
Will Britain recover this natural character of which Orwell writes, or will the corrosive influences, in John O'Sullivan's parlance, have destroyed the essential character and the strengths of the British family?
We will see, because it appears that Britain is being tested by very difficult circumstances, just as we are.
And as cousins, we and the British should try to restore the lost connections between us, so as to offer help and support, if only moral support, to each other -- as 'the Philistines are upon us' both.
From The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius, 1941
George Orwell, it is true, was a leftist; but the leftists of his day were apparently not the same breed as the nihilistic, life-hating leftists of today -- or it may simply be that he was a much more clear-thinking and honest man than his fellow leftists.
But whichever is the case, it is true, without a doubt, that the England of his time bears scant resemblance to the England or the United Kingdom of our day.
In the above-linked essay, England, Your England, written during World War II, he discusses the English character. Now today, the epithet 'English' is rarely used, as it is considered too exclusive, too restricted. It makes all those diverse residents of today's UK feel left out, offended, and persecuted, so the adjective 'English' is used far less than it was in Orwell's day.
But Orwell makes some very interesting observations about the English character, and patriotism, and discussing, as we have been, the present sad state of the UK, it is instructive to look at what he says. As we read his words, we might ponder whether the character of the country still persists, or whether that mysterious force called patriotism can be summoned up to revive Orwell's country.
One cannot see the modern world as it is unless one recognizes the overwhelming strength of patriotism, national loyalty. In certain circumstances it can break down, at certain levels of civilization it does not exist, but as a positive force there is nothing to set beside it. Christianity and international Socialism are as weak as straw in comparison with it. Hitler and Mussolini rose to power in their own countries very largely because they could grasp this fact and their opponents could not.
Also, one must admit that the divisions between nation and nation are founded on real differences of outlook. Till recently it was thought proper to pretend that all human beings are very much alike, but in fact anyone able to use his eyes knows that the average of human behaviour differs enormously from country to country. Things that could happen in one country could not happen in another. Hitler's June purge, for instance, could not have happened in England. And, as western peoples go, the English are very highly differentiated. There is a sort of back-handed admission of this in the dislike which nearly all foreigners feel for our national way of life. Few Europeans can endure living in England, and even Americans often feel more at home in Europe.
When you come back to England from any foreign country, you have immediately the sensation of breathing a different air. Even in the first few minutes dozens of small things conspire to give you this feeling. The beer is bitterer, the coins are heavier, the grass is greener, the advertisements are more blatant. The crowds in the big towns, with their mild knobby faces, their bad teeth and gentle manners, are different from a European crowd. Then the vastness of England swallows you up, and you lose for a while your feeling that the whole nation has a single identifiable character. Are there really such things as nations? Are we not forty-six million individuals, all different? And the diversity of it, the chaos! The clatter of clogs in the Lancashire mill towns, the to-and-fro of the lorries on the Great North Road, the queues outside the Labour Exchanges, the rattle of pin-tables in the Soho pubs, the old maids hiking to Holy Communion through the mists of the autumn morning � all these are not only fragments, but characteristic fragments, of the English scene. How can one make a pattern out of this muddle?
But talk to foreigners, read foreign books or newspapers, and you are brought back to the same thought. Yes, there is something distinctive and recognizable in English civilization. It is a culture as individual as that of Spain. It is somehow bound up with solid breakfasts and gloomy Sundays, smoky towns and winding roads, green fields and red pillar-boxes. It has a flavour of its own. Moreover it is continuous, it stretches into the future and the past, there is something in it that persists, as in a living creature. What can the England of 1940 have in common with the England of 1840? But then, what have you in common with the child of five whose photograph your mother keeps on the mantelpiece? Nothing, except that you happen to be the same person.
And above all, it is your civilization, it is you. However much you hate it or laugh at it, you will never be happy away from it for any length of time. The suet puddings and the red pillar-boxes have entered into your soul. Good or evil, it is yours, you belong to it, and this side the grave you will never get away from the marks that it has given you.
Meanwhile England, together with the rest of the world, is changing. And like everything else it can change only in certain directions, which up to a point can be foreseen. That is not to say that the future is fixed, merely that certain alternatives are possible and others not. A seed may grow or not grow, but at any rate a turnip seed never grows into a parsnip. It is therefore of the deepest importance to try and determine what England is, before guessing what part England can play in the huge events that are happening.''
If only Orwell could have known just how much England would change, and in how short a time. What would he have thought? Of course he foresaw the totalitarian trends which would develop in the years ahead; he was quite prescient in that regard. But I wonder if, as a leftist, he would have envisioned multiculturalism and the 'war against the people' by the Western elites?
Still, if we re-read the passages above, we see that Orwell clearly believed that there was an intrinsic national character, and that it persisted in spite of profound societal changes. He alludes to the changes between 1840 and 1940, and declares, that in spite of those changes, the people are still the same.
He clearly says that the whole nation has 'a single, identifiable character' and he seems to mean that the nation, through time, maintains that character.
He also says something quite important: that the divisions between nations are founded on real differences of outlook; the divisions from one nation to another reflect the innate differences. They are not simply a matter of geopolitical boundaries, or lines arbitrarily drawn on a map. Of course there have been and are 'nations' which are merely artificially-drawn nations, with no unifying genetic or cultural bonds. Iraq comes to mind, and increasingly, our own country -- and the UK. There are unfortunate consequences that follow in creating these unnatural 'nations' which are no nations. We are seeing those consequences playing out in the UK, in our country, and throughout the West.
To return to Orwell's description of the English character:
Here are a couple of generalizations about England that would be accepted by almost all observers. One is that the English are not gifted artistically. They are not as musical as the Germans or Italians, painting and sculpture have never flourished in England as they have in France. Another is that, as Europeans go, the English are not intellectual. They have a horror of abstract thought, they feel no need for any philosophy or systematic 'world-view�. Nor is this because they are 'practical�, as they are so fond of claiming for themselves. [...]
But they have a certain power of acting without taking thought. Their world-famed hypocrisy � their double-faced attitude towards the Empire, for instance � is bound up with this. Also, in moments of supreme crisis the whole nation can suddenly draw together and act upon a species of instinct, really a code of conduct which is understood by almost everyone, though never formulated. The phrase that Hitler coined for the Germans, 'a sleep-walking people�, would have been better applied to the English. Not that there is anything to be proud of in being called a sleep-walker.
But here it is worth noting a minor English trait which is extremely well marked though not often commented on, and that is a love of flowers. This is one of the first things that one notices when one reaches England from abroad, especially if one is coming from southern Europe. Does it not contradict the English indifference to the arts? Not really, because it is found in people who have no aesthetic feelings whatever. What it does link up with, however, is another English characteristic which is so much a part of us that we barely notice it, and that is the addiction to hobbies and spare-time occupations, the privateness of English life. We are a nation of flower-lovers, but also a nation of stamp-collectors, pigeon-fanciers, amateur carpenters, coupon-snippers, darts-players, crossword-puzzle fans. All the culture that is most truly native centres round things which even when they are communal are not official � the pub, the football match, the back garden, the fireside and the 'nice cup of tea�. The liberty of the individual is still believed in, almost as in the nineteenth century. But this has nothing to do with economic liberty, the right to exploit others for profit. It is the liberty to have a home of your own, to do what you like in your spare time, to choose your own amusements instead of having them chosen for you from above. The most hateful of all names in an English ear is Nosey Parker. It is obvious, of course, that even this purely private liberty is a lost cause. Like all other modern people, the English are in process of being numbered, labelled, conscripted, 'co-ordinated�. But the pull of their impulses is in the other direction, and the kind of regimentation that can be imposed on them will be modified in consequence.'' [Emphasis mine]
First, I am struck by the extent to which much of what Orwell says about the English character can also be applied to Americans, most importantly the part about the belief in the liberty of the individual. Too often we here in America like to claim that we invented this love of liberty, or that it sprang full-grown here among our colonists, like Athena from the head of Zeus. No; it is part of our British heritage. And the more weakened our ties to our old colonial heritage, the more we lose that natural aptitude for freedom. I believe the 'melting pot' philosophy watered down our essential strengths and gifts, and the more 'diverse' our country becomes, the greater the distance between us and our founding ancestors. This is no less true in the UK as they dilute their indigenous heritage via mass immigration.
But here, we come to the part in which Orwell notes the essential gentleness of the English, and their natural aversion to martial pursuits:
One can learn a good deal about the spirit of England from the comic coloured postcards that you see in the windows of cheap stationers� shops. These things are a sort of diary upon which the English people have unconsciously recorded themselves. Their old-fashioned outlook, their graded snobberies, their mixture of bawdiness and hypocrisy, their extreme gentleness, their deeply moral attitude to life, are all mirrored there.
The gentleness of the English civilization is perhaps its most marked characteristic. You notice it the instant you set foot on English soil. It is a land where the bus conductors are good-tempered and the policemen carry no revolvers. In no country inhabited by white men is it easier to shove people off the pavement. And with this goes something that is always written off by European observers as 'decadence� or hypocrisy, the English hatred of war and militarism. It is rooted deep in history, and it is strong in the lower-middle class as well as the working class.
[...]
In peace time, even when there are two million unemployed, it is difficult to fill the ranks of the tiny standing army, which is officered by the country gentry and a specialized stratum of the middle class, and manned by farm labourers and slum proletarians. The mass of the people are without military knowledge or tradition, and their attitude towards war is invariably defensive. No politician could rise to power by promising them conquests or military 'glory�, no Hymn of Hate has ever made any appeal to them.''
As we saw in the O'Sullivan article which I blogged on, the gentleness of British society is their vulnerability, with the presence of so many hostile and violent outsiders, who have at best a sullen indifference toward the native British people and at worst, a burning hostility to them. We here in this country are probably made vulnerable by the same traits, although they may be less marked in America, because of our mixed heritage. We, too, are by nature more polite, more hospitable, and too welcoming and trusting for our own good. This is true to some extent of all Western European peoples, but especially so of the English and Anglo-derived peoples in the West. It is said that J.R.R. Tolkien modeled the Hobbits after the English; they were essentially a gentle, stay-at-home, family-and-hearth people.
Here again, Orwell describes the English regard for the law, and the idea of the Rule of Law, which we too have traditionally valued very highly in America:
And yet the gentleness of English civilization is mixed up with barbarities and anachronisms. Our criminal law is as out-of-date as the muskets in the Tower. Over against the Nazi Storm Trooper you have got to set that typically English figure, the hanging judge, some gouty old bully with his mind rooted in the nineteenth century, handing out savage sentences. In England people are still hanged by the neck and flogged with the cat o� nine tails. Both of these punishments are obscene as well as cruel, but there has never been any genuinely popular outcry against them. People accept them (and Dartmoor, and Borstal) almost as they accept the weather. They are part of 'the law�, which is assumed to be unalterable.
[Note - Orwell apparently didn't foresee that the British would abolish capital punishment, thanks to leftism, and become very lenient, too lenient, in their treatment of criminals.]
Here one comes upon an all-important English trait: the respect for constitutionalism and legality, the belief in 'the law� as something above the State and above the individual, something which is cruel and stupid, of course, but at any rate incorruptible.
It is not that anyone imagines the law to be just. Everyone knows that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor. But no one accepts the implications of this, everyone takes it for granted that the law, such as it is, will be respected, and feels a sense of outrage when it is not. Remarks like 'They can't run me in; I haven't done anything wrong�, or 'They can't do that; it's against the law�, are part of the atmosphere of England. The professed enemies of society have this feeling as strongly as anyone else.
[...]
Everyone believes in his heart that the law can be, ought to be, and, on the whole, will be impartially administered. The totalitarian idea that there is no such thing as law, there is only power, has never taken root. Even the intelligentsia have only accepted it in theory.
[...]
In England such concepts as justice, liberty and objective truth are still believed in. They may be illusions, but they are very powerful illusions.''
I wonder to what extent that last is still true in Britain? Leftism and post-modernism, as taught by the left-controlled media and government, have seemingly weakened such beliefs. And here in America, the same is true, although I think we are a few steps behind the British on that path. We would do well to reverse our course before we reach the point where our British cousins seem to be.
Orwell talks about the sense of national unity, which seems to be very precarious in the UK at this time, with so many nationalities and races, each with their own 'communities' and allegiances, and with the indigenous British people so weakened in their national identity due to leftism and its anti-nationalistic jihad.
Up to a point, the sense of national unity is a substitute for a 'world-view�. Just because patriotism is all but universal and not even the rich are uninfluenced by it, there can be moments when the whole nation suddenly swings together and does the same thing, like a herd of cattle facing a wolf. There was such a moment, unmistakably, at the time of the disaster in France. After eight months of vaguely wondering what the war was about, the people suddenly knew what they had got to do: first, to get the army away from Dunkirk, and secondly to prevent invasion. It was like the awakening of a giant. Quick! Danger! The Philistines be upon thee, Samson! And then the swift unanimous action � and, then, alas, the prompt relapse into sleep. In a divided nation that would have been exactly the moment for a big peace movement to arise. But does this mean that the instinct of the English will always tell them to do the right thing? Not at all, merely that it will tell them to do the same thing. In the 1931 General Election, for instance, we all did the wrong thing in perfect unison. We were as single-minded as the Gadarene swine. But I honestly doubt whether we can say that we were shoved down the slope against our will.''
The sense of unity, the oneness in spirit and in national character, is what enabled Britain during the War to pull together and to survive. Without that sense of national unity, survival is doubtful.
One more little trivial note: Orwell, in that last passage, makes a couple of Biblical allusions: the reference to the Philistines and Samson, and the reference to the Gadarene swine. Do any leftists of today recognize such allusions, and would any leftist dare to refer to the Bible today, other than those leftists wearing backwards collars? I doubt it. And even among the general population, how many British people would recognize those Biblical references or names, or know the symbolism inherent therein? Precious few, and I am afraid that even in a more 'religious' country like America, not many are Biblically literate enough to get the allusions. My point is not just to lament that we in America are not the Biblically-conversant country we once were, or that Britain has lost its religion (though both are cause for lament) but also that we no longer have a common grounding in Western culture; we no longer have these common reference points and cultural bonds which enabled us to speak in shorthand amongst ourselves. We can no longer make such an allusion, whether Biblical or from the old classics, or from Shakespeare, and trust that our readers or hearers will understand. To that extent, we are weaker and less connected. Such is the fruit of multiculturalism. It eats away at the cultural connections and bonds.
But Orwell, later in the essay, concludes that
England is not the jewelled isle of Shakespeare's much-quoted message, nor is it the inferno depicted by Dr Goebbels. More than either it resembles a family, a rather stuffy Victorian family, with not many black sheep in it but with all its cupboards bursting with skeletons. It has rich relations who have to be kow-towed to and poor relations who are horribly sat upon, and there is a deep conspiracy of silence about the source of the family income. It is a family in which the young are generally thwarted and most of the power is in the hands of irresponsible uncles and bedridden aunts. Still, it is a family. It has its private language and its common memories, and at the approach of an enemy it closes its ranks. A family with the wrong members in control � that, perhaps, is as near as one can come to describing England in a phrase.''
I've often used the family as the analogy for our American nation; at first, we were truly a kin group, a nation in the original sense, and later our family circle expanded to welcome in those who became ours by adoption. Now, the family analogy is being stretched to the breaking point. If the family's would-be new members are simply there to exploit and to plunder, and have no wish to join the family circle and conform to the family and its ways, then there is no more family; it's everybody for himself.
And I have no doubt that to use Orwell's analogy, the British family, or what still remains of it, has the wrong members in control -- as do we in America.
Will Britain recover this natural character of which Orwell writes, or will the corrosive influences, in John O'Sullivan's parlance, have destroyed the essential character and the strengths of the British family?
We will see, because it appears that Britain is being tested by very difficult circumstances, just as we are.
And as cousins, we and the British should try to restore the lost connections between us, so as to offer help and support, if only moral support, to each other -- as 'the Philistines are upon us' both.
Labels: American Identity, British Culture, Nationalism, Nationality, Patriotism, United Kingdom
0 comment Friday, May 23, 2014 | admin
Joe Sobran, who recently passed away, wrote a piece on nationalism and patriotism. It was written not long after the 9/11 attacks, and it is written in the spirit of warning against the dangers of the blind patriotism that seemed, for a while, to be sweeping this country.
The subject of patriotism vs. nationalism is one that I have returned to periodically on this blog. It is a distinction that is hard to explain, and hard to discuss with others, because different people seem to have differing perceptions of what each of those terms means.
To me, the term 'patriotism' is what Sobran, in the linked essay, calls 'nationalism', in the jingoistic sense.
''This is a season of patriotism, but also of something that is easily mistaken for patriotism; namely, nationalism. The difference is vital.
G.K. Chesterton once observed that Rudyard Kipling, the great poet of British imperialism, suffered from a "lack of patriotism." He explained: "He admires England, but he does not love her; for we admire things with reasons, but love them without reasons. He admires England because she is strong, not because she is English."
In the same way, many Americans admire America for being strong, not for being American. For them America has to be "the greatest country on earth" in order to be worthy of their devotion. If it were only the 2nd-greatest, or the 19th-greatest, or, heaven forbid, "a 3rd-rate power," it would be virtually worthless.
This is nationalism, not patriotism. Patriotism is like family love. You love your family just for being your family, not for being "the greatest family on earth" (whatever that might mean) or for being "better" than other families. You don�t feel threatened when other people love their families the same way. On the contrary, you respect their love, and you take comfort in knowing they respect yours. You don�t feel your family is enhanced by feuding with other families.
While patriotism is a form of affection, nationalism, it has often been said, is grounded in resentment and rivalry; it�s often defined by its enemies and traitors, real or supposed. It is militant by nature, and its typical style is belligerent. Patriotism, by contrast, is peaceful until forced to fight.
The patriot differs from the nationalist in this respect too: he can laugh at his country, the way members of a family can laugh at each other�s foibles. Affection takes for granted the imperfection of those it loves; the patriotic Irishman thinks Ireland is hilarious, whereas the Irish nationalist sees nothing to laugh about.
The nationalist has to prove his country is always right. He reduces his country to an idea, a perfect abstraction, rather than a mere home.''
My impression is that most Americans, especially those on the paleo-conservative end, as well as libertarians and leftists, associate patriotism with the blind jingoism and militarism. Witness how the slur ''patriotard'' is directed at those who tended to be pro-Iraq War and Islamo-skeptical. Most Republicans consider themselves patriotic, and their detractors on right and left call them ''patriotards''.
Likewise, the term nationalist is viewed with suspicion by most of the average American type; the media have assigned a derogatory meaning to ''nationalist'' as being associated with ''supremacists'' or Nazis or right-wing xenophobes (so-called.)
I don't know how we might untangle the contradictory and confused meanings and connotations of those two terms. Sobran makes a pretty effective case for his definitions, and for a humble kind of patriotism that does not go in for interventionism and militarism for its own sake.
''When it comes to war, the patriot realizes that the rest of the world can�t be turned into America, because his America is something specific and particular � the memories and traditions that can no more be transplanted than the mountains and the prairies. He seeks only contentment at home, and he is quick to compromise with an enemy. He wants his country to be just strong enough to defend itself.''
By Sobran's definitions, I would have to consider myself a patriot, but a patriot towards my people, not towards a regime or an ideology or a set of principles.
But this can get sticky in our ''post-American America.'' The ruling ideology in this country is insistent that everybody and anybody who takes up residence on American soil is one of my people, just by virtue of being here. Likewise everybody who is born here, even though they may be part an ethnic enclave and speak little English, is one of my people, an American. So we have to distinguish between loyalty based on geographic location and political boundaries, and loyalty based on blood kinship plus common culture and history.
I am reminded of this piece from 1996 to which I linked in a past blog entry.
And, of course, the American media are becoming less American, as Britons and others infiltrate their ranks. CNN epitomizes an emerging electronic life-form that is slowly becoming the eyes and ears of the world community. Members of the media, particularly foreign correspondents, are becoming what Mitchell Cohen, an editor at Dissent, calls "rooted cosmopolitans" -- people with several loyalties, standing "in many circles, but with common ground" in the form of a home base. Cohen's description evokes the turn-of-the-century essayist Randolph Bourne's idea of a transnational America -- of multiple-passport holders and dual citizens.
A new Manifest Destiny, in other words: We strip the world of its human ingenuity, attracting the most talented Asians, Africans, and so on to the United States. We anglicize them. Although they are not loyal to the degree that former immigrants were, they accept America as their base. We become the place where all the world's major cultures and economies meet, conquering the world as it conquers us. Blood-and-soil nationalism recedes.
Given that American politics has often been a series of peaceful evolutions, we may be in the midst of a transition so gradual that it cannot fit within the confines of the news. It will be apparent only after it happens. Tom Nairn, a social scientist, writes that nationalism is "an inwardly-determined social necessity, a 'growth-stage,' located somewhere in between . . . 'feudal societies' and a future where the factors of nationality will become less prominent." America, more than any other nation, may have been born to die.''
We are entering a new phase in which we will see which side prevails: the idea of ''transnational America'', which, to me, is a contradiction in terms, an oxymoron, or the traditional nation, (which word, after all, denotes 'birth'). Human nature inclines us to kin loyalty; it does not incline us to the article writer's abomination of America as a congeries of ''rooted cosmopolitans'' of all races and creeds.
The two ideas are on a collision course, and we can only hope that human nature and tradition win out against social engineering and utopian ideology.
The subject of patriotism vs. nationalism is one that I have returned to periodically on this blog. It is a distinction that is hard to explain, and hard to discuss with others, because different people seem to have differing perceptions of what each of those terms means.
To me, the term 'patriotism' is what Sobran, in the linked essay, calls 'nationalism', in the jingoistic sense.
''This is a season of patriotism, but also of something that is easily mistaken for patriotism; namely, nationalism. The difference is vital.
G.K. Chesterton once observed that Rudyard Kipling, the great poet of British imperialism, suffered from a "lack of patriotism." He explained: "He admires England, but he does not love her; for we admire things with reasons, but love them without reasons. He admires England because she is strong, not because she is English."
In the same way, many Americans admire America for being strong, not for being American. For them America has to be "the greatest country on earth" in order to be worthy of their devotion. If it were only the 2nd-greatest, or the 19th-greatest, or, heaven forbid, "a 3rd-rate power," it would be virtually worthless.
This is nationalism, not patriotism. Patriotism is like family love. You love your family just for being your family, not for being "the greatest family on earth" (whatever that might mean) or for being "better" than other families. You don�t feel threatened when other people love their families the same way. On the contrary, you respect their love, and you take comfort in knowing they respect yours. You don�t feel your family is enhanced by feuding with other families.
While patriotism is a form of affection, nationalism, it has often been said, is grounded in resentment and rivalry; it�s often defined by its enemies and traitors, real or supposed. It is militant by nature, and its typical style is belligerent. Patriotism, by contrast, is peaceful until forced to fight.
The patriot differs from the nationalist in this respect too: he can laugh at his country, the way members of a family can laugh at each other�s foibles. Affection takes for granted the imperfection of those it loves; the patriotic Irishman thinks Ireland is hilarious, whereas the Irish nationalist sees nothing to laugh about.
The nationalist has to prove his country is always right. He reduces his country to an idea, a perfect abstraction, rather than a mere home.''
My impression is that most Americans, especially those on the paleo-conservative end, as well as libertarians and leftists, associate patriotism with the blind jingoism and militarism. Witness how the slur ''patriotard'' is directed at those who tended to be pro-Iraq War and Islamo-skeptical. Most Republicans consider themselves patriotic, and their detractors on right and left call them ''patriotards''.
Likewise, the term nationalist is viewed with suspicion by most of the average American type; the media have assigned a derogatory meaning to ''nationalist'' as being associated with ''supremacists'' or Nazis or right-wing xenophobes (so-called.)
I don't know how we might untangle the contradictory and confused meanings and connotations of those two terms. Sobran makes a pretty effective case for his definitions, and for a humble kind of patriotism that does not go in for interventionism and militarism for its own sake.
''When it comes to war, the patriot realizes that the rest of the world can�t be turned into America, because his America is something specific and particular � the memories and traditions that can no more be transplanted than the mountains and the prairies. He seeks only contentment at home, and he is quick to compromise with an enemy. He wants his country to be just strong enough to defend itself.''
By Sobran's definitions, I would have to consider myself a patriot, but a patriot towards my people, not towards a regime or an ideology or a set of principles.
But this can get sticky in our ''post-American America.'' The ruling ideology in this country is insistent that everybody and anybody who takes up residence on American soil is one of my people, just by virtue of being here. Likewise everybody who is born here, even though they may be part an ethnic enclave and speak little English, is one of my people, an American. So we have to distinguish between loyalty based on geographic location and political boundaries, and loyalty based on blood kinship plus common culture and history.
I am reminded of this piece from 1996 to which I linked in a past blog entry.
And, of course, the American media are becoming less American, as Britons and others infiltrate their ranks. CNN epitomizes an emerging electronic life-form that is slowly becoming the eyes and ears of the world community. Members of the media, particularly foreign correspondents, are becoming what Mitchell Cohen, an editor at Dissent, calls "rooted cosmopolitans" -- people with several loyalties, standing "in many circles, but with common ground" in the form of a home base. Cohen's description evokes the turn-of-the-century essayist Randolph Bourne's idea of a transnational America -- of multiple-passport holders and dual citizens.
A new Manifest Destiny, in other words: We strip the world of its human ingenuity, attracting the most talented Asians, Africans, and so on to the United States. We anglicize them. Although they are not loyal to the degree that former immigrants were, they accept America as their base. We become the place where all the world's major cultures and economies meet, conquering the world as it conquers us. Blood-and-soil nationalism recedes.
Given that American politics has often been a series of peaceful evolutions, we may be in the midst of a transition so gradual that it cannot fit within the confines of the news. It will be apparent only after it happens. Tom Nairn, a social scientist, writes that nationalism is "an inwardly-determined social necessity, a 'growth-stage,' located somewhere in between . . . 'feudal societies' and a future where the factors of nationality will become less prominent." America, more than any other nation, may have been born to die.''
We are entering a new phase in which we will see which side prevails: the idea of ''transnational America'', which, to me, is a contradiction in terms, an oxymoron, or the traditional nation, (which word, after all, denotes 'birth'). Human nature inclines us to kin loyalty; it does not incline us to the article writer's abomination of America as a congeries of ''rooted cosmopolitans'' of all races and creeds.
The two ideas are on a collision course, and we can only hope that human nature and tradition win out against social engineering and utopian ideology.
Labels: Cosmopolitanism, Creedal Patriotism, Ethnopatriotism, Nationalism, Nationality, Patriotism