British culture - Is there any such thing?
Discussion
Kermit power said:
Another perfect example, thanks!
Let's take, say, Kaleb, Stormzy, subpostmaster Alan Bates and Toby Jones, the actor who played him in the TV series.
All born British but can you imagine four people with much more different experiences of life? How can anyone ever even begin to try and define a British culture which gives them more in common with each other than with people from different countries who share similar backgrounds? None of their lives are any more or less valid than the others, but they are incredibly different.
And yet I suspect they all identify as British. And maybe would surprise you with the commonality of their reasons why.Let's take, say, Kaleb, Stormzy, subpostmaster Alan Bates and Toby Jones, the actor who played him in the TV series.
All born British but can you imagine four people with much more different experiences of life? How can anyone ever even begin to try and define a British culture which gives them more in common with each other than with people from different countries who share similar backgrounds? None of their lives are any more or less valid than the others, but they are incredibly different.
Ridgemont said:
Kermit power said:
NomduJour said:
“England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals ?are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always ?felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman ?and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse ?racing to suet puddings. It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably ?true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of ?standing to attention during ‘God save the King’ than of stealing from a ?poor box. All through the critical years many left-wingers were chipping ?away at English morale, trying to spread an outlook that was sometimes ?squashily pacifist, sometimes violently pro-Russian, but always ?anti-British.”
The more things change…
I don't know who wrote that when, but the suet pudding is an interesting one. I'm not sure I've actually seen one in 30 years, which I guess suggests that British culture isn't exactly preserved in aspic.The more things change…
Horse Racing though? I'd imagine a lot of people in Newmarket would share quite a bit of common ground with people in Chantilly, Kentucky and Ireland that they wouldn't share with anyone else in Britain, so it's hardly unique to here, is it? It was a surprise to find out that Japan is actually the largest horseracing country in the world!
Kermit power said:
Ridgemont said:
Kermit power said:
NomduJour said:
“England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals ?are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always ?felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman ?and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse ?racing to suet puddings. It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably ?true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of ?standing to attention during ‘God save the King’ than of stealing from a ?poor box. All through the critical years many left-wingers were chipping ?away at English morale, trying to spread an outlook that was sometimes ?squashily pacifist, sometimes violently pro-Russian, but always ?anti-British.”
The more things change…
I don't know who wrote that when, but the suet pudding is an interesting one. I'm not sure I've actually seen one in 30 years, which I guess suggests that British culture isn't exactly preserved in aspic.The more things change…
Horse Racing though? I'd imagine a lot of people in Newmarket would share quite a bit of common ground with people in Chantilly, Kentucky and Ireland that they wouldn't share with anyone else in Britain, so it's hardly unique to here, is it? It was a surprise to find out that Japan is actually the largest horseracing country in the world!
Ridgemont said:
Kermit power said:
Another perfect example, thanks!
Let's take, say, Kaleb, Stormzy, subpostmaster Alan Bates and Toby Jones, the actor who played him in the TV series.
All born British but can you imagine four people with much more different experiences of life? How can anyone ever even begin to try and define a British culture which gives them more in common with each other than with people from different countries who share similar backgrounds? None of their lives are any more or less valid than the others, but they are incredibly different.
And yet I suspect they all identify as British. And maybe would surprise you with the commonality of their reasons why.Let's take, say, Kaleb, Stormzy, subpostmaster Alan Bates and Toby Jones, the actor who played him in the TV series.
All born British but can you imagine four people with much more different experiences of life? How can anyone ever even begin to try and define a British culture which gives them more in common with each other than with people from different countries who share similar backgrounds? None of their lives are any more or less valid than the others, but they are incredibly different.
For what it’s worth:
I am a child of Britain: Anglo welsh-Irish primarily with Northern Irish and Scottish relatives.
I am lucky enough I guess to have been brought up in a very middle class setting which would have been standard for a certain few but was until the 60s pretty much the only view of Britain that media portrayed bar almost weird forays by Pathe into the general populace. Dad was a grammar school kid in the 40s who did well enough to get to Oxford.
So Britishness is pretty much baked in. I don’t have a Celtic core or an English core or whatever. I have a sense of Britain.
I was thankfully sent to a decent comp by my parents who didn’t approve of public schooling and eventually flourished.
But without a doubt my ‘privileged’ upbringing has skewed my sense of certainty my opportunities and am well aware that is my fortune, but not others.
However.
Being British is a remarkable start in life.
You live in the sixth largest economy. You have a standard of living envied by probably 95% of the world’s population.
Your political system is not American because it is based on 1000 years of common law and sensible precedent.
It doesn’t require a constitution because the constitution is evolving based on cases not on idiotic things like guns set in stone 300 years ago.
It doesn’t need separation of powers because it holds that parliament (the delegates of the people) are supreme under the monarch in parliament who is in the same way subject to parliament by history.
It is a country which has developed the Industrial Revolution, parliamentary democracy and is copied the world over.
It has strength through literature which is deeply embedded in its society from Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Shelley (both), Dickens, Wells, Forster, Orwell, Tolkein and Lewis, through to the recent (Fowles, Wyndham, Gaiman, etc).
It has consistently moved from autocracy to democracy and brought the world (inadvertently or not) closer to it, whether it be through the North Africa patrol, the American Revolution, the gradual removal of Empire or indeed upholding worldwide basic rights.
I suspect an awful lot of the cringe on this thread is largely due to a lack of historical knowledge.
But I am happy to know as a massive Rugby fiend that as the six nations get underway certainly every part of me will swell with some kind of emotion to hear the massed pipes at Murrayfield, fhe singing at Millennium for Men of Harlech, and Jerusalem at Twickenham to know that many though not all there also believe in a British identity.
And that will do.
I am a child of Britain: Anglo welsh-Irish primarily with Northern Irish and Scottish relatives.
I am lucky enough I guess to have been brought up in a very middle class setting which would have been standard for a certain few but was until the 60s pretty much the only view of Britain that media portrayed bar almost weird forays by Pathe into the general populace. Dad was a grammar school kid in the 40s who did well enough to get to Oxford.
So Britishness is pretty much baked in. I don’t have a Celtic core or an English core or whatever. I have a sense of Britain.
I was thankfully sent to a decent comp by my parents who didn’t approve of public schooling and eventually flourished.
But without a doubt my ‘privileged’ upbringing has skewed my sense of certainty my opportunities and am well aware that is my fortune, but not others.
However.
Being British is a remarkable start in life.
You live in the sixth largest economy. You have a standard of living envied by probably 95% of the world’s population.
Your political system is not American because it is based on 1000 years of common law and sensible precedent.
It doesn’t require a constitution because the constitution is evolving based on cases not on idiotic things like guns set in stone 300 years ago.
It doesn’t need separation of powers because it holds that parliament (the delegates of the people) are supreme under the monarch in parliament who is in the same way subject to parliament by history.
It is a country which has developed the Industrial Revolution, parliamentary democracy and is copied the world over.
It has strength through literature which is deeply embedded in its society from Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Shelley (both), Dickens, Wells, Forster, Orwell, Tolkein and Lewis, through to the recent (Fowles, Wyndham, Gaiman, etc).
It has consistently moved from autocracy to democracy and brought the world (inadvertently or not) closer to it, whether it be through the North Africa patrol, the American Revolution, the gradual removal of Empire or indeed upholding worldwide basic rights.
I suspect an awful lot of the cringe on this thread is largely due to a lack of historical knowledge.
But I am happy to know as a massive Rugby fiend that as the six nations get underway certainly every part of me will swell with some kind of emotion to hear the massed pipes at Murrayfield, fhe singing at Millennium for Men of Harlech, and Jerusalem at Twickenham to know that many though not all there also believe in a British identity.
And that will do.
Kermit power said:
We'll never know, of course, but yes, I suspect they would all identify as British, and they might even be able to give you a fairly consistent view of what the generally accepted definition of Britishness is (not that we have been able to on here), but ask them what their own actual Britishness is and how can they possibly be anything other than completely different one from the other from Ashfordian's Londonian view of Britain? They live utterly different lives in almost every respect.
Why do you attempt to hammer in different lives into one narrative? Stormzy accuses the culture of being racist but never denies that he is British? I would suspect if you were to actually ask him why he is British I suspect it wouldn’t be a million miles away from my earlier post. I can likewise say that I find the incompatibility of many British people who seem to loathe themselves (pace this thread) mad but I don’t deny your Britishness even if you do. Surely the plurality is a bonus? Britishness isn’t as some seem to think confining: it’s pretty much great enough to be all encompassing. highway said:
We are, in the main, possessed of self deprecating humour, understand sarcasm and gifted the world the English language. It’s that language that means many of us, perhaps wrongly, never felt the need to learn another language.
We 'gifted' it to them at gunpoint. Such largesse. 
Ridgemont said:
Randy Winkman said:
NomduJour said:
“England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals ?are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always ?felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman ?and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse ?racing to suet puddings. It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably ?true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of ?standing to attention during ‘God save the King’ than of stealing from a ?poor box. All through the critical years many left-wingers were chipping ?away at English morale, trying to spread an outlook that was sometimes ?squashily pacifist, sometimes violently pro-Russian, but always ?anti-British.”
The more things change…
Simplifying things down to "left wing" and "right wing" and picking your side is definitely a big thing in Britain.The more things change…
What I don't understand is when and why some on the right suddenly decided that this mythical British Culture was somehow more important than economic progress, flipping the left/right stance on immigration on its head? Does it maybe coincide with a rise in workers' rights that make it harder to exploit the potential cheapness of immigrant labour? Or maybe the fact that as we have less labour intensive industry, and much of that which remains (such as Care) doesn't intrinsically drive economic growth there's a perception that we need less immigration?
I'm very much in favour of immigration. Not because I want to see Windsor Castle turned into a mosque or whatever ludicrous b
ks some people seem to think, but because after 50+ years of declining birth rates and.an ageing population which would've been catastrophically worse by now without the immigration we've already had, I want to know that all the hard work I've put into building up my pension isn't going to be for nothing because future labour shortages create the sort of inflation that'll require a metaphorical Weimar Republic wheelbarrow to carry enough cash for a loaf of bread!People might disagree with that, but it bamboozles me that anyone can view it as being motivated by any sort of traditional left wing doctrine?
Ridgemont said:
For what it’s worth:
I am a child of Britain: Anglo welsh-Irish primarily with Northern Irish and Scottish relatives.
I am lucky enough I guess to have been brought up in a very middle class setting which would have been standard for a certain few but was until the 60s pretty much the only view of Britain that media portrayed bar almost weird forays by Pathe into the general populace. Dad was a grammar school kid in the 40s who did well enough to get to Oxford.
So Britishness is pretty much baked in. I don’t have a Celtic core or an English core or whatever. I have a sense of Britain.
I was thankfully sent to a decent comp by my parents who didn’t approve of public schooling and eventually flourished.
But without a doubt my ‘privileged’ upbringing has skewed my sense of certainty my opportunities and am well aware that is my fortune, but not others.
However.
Being British is a remarkable start in life.
You live in the sixth largest economy. You have a standard of living envied by probably 95% of the world’s population.
Your political system is not American because it is based on 1000 years of common law and sensible precedent.
It doesn’t require a constitution because the constitution is evolving based on cases not on idiotic things like guns set in stone 300 years ago.
It doesn’t need separation of powers because it holds that parliament (the delegates of the people) are supreme under the monarch in parliament who is in the same way subject to parliament by history.
It is a country which has developed the Industrial Revolution, parliamentary democracy and is copied the world over.
It has strength through literature which is deeply embedded in its society from Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Shelley (both), Dickens, Wells, Forster, Orwell, Tolkein and Lewis, through to the recent (Fowles, Wyndham, Gaiman, etc).
It has consistently moved from autocracy to democracy and brought the world (inadvertently or not) closer to it, whether it be through the North Africa patrol, the American Revolution, the gradual removal of Empire or indeed upholding worldwide basic rights.
I suspect an awful lot of the cringe on this thread is largely due to a lack of historical knowledge.
But I am happy to know as a massive Rugby fiend that as the six nations get underway certainly every part of me will swell with some kind of emotion to hear the massed pipes at Murrayfield, fhe singing at Millennium for Men of Harlech, and Jerusalem at Twickenham to know that many though not all there also believe in a British identity.
And that will do.
All undeniably valid, but surely you'd have to admit, a rather partial, cherry-picked view of our history? I am a child of Britain: Anglo welsh-Irish primarily with Northern Irish and Scottish relatives.
I am lucky enough I guess to have been brought up in a very middle class setting which would have been standard for a certain few but was until the 60s pretty much the only view of Britain that media portrayed bar almost weird forays by Pathe into the general populace. Dad was a grammar school kid in the 40s who did well enough to get to Oxford.
So Britishness is pretty much baked in. I don’t have a Celtic core or an English core or whatever. I have a sense of Britain.
I was thankfully sent to a decent comp by my parents who didn’t approve of public schooling and eventually flourished.
But without a doubt my ‘privileged’ upbringing has skewed my sense of certainty my opportunities and am well aware that is my fortune, but not others.
However.
Being British is a remarkable start in life.
You live in the sixth largest economy. You have a standard of living envied by probably 95% of the world’s population.
Your political system is not American because it is based on 1000 years of common law and sensible precedent.
It doesn’t require a constitution because the constitution is evolving based on cases not on idiotic things like guns set in stone 300 years ago.
It doesn’t need separation of powers because it holds that parliament (the delegates of the people) are supreme under the monarch in parliament who is in the same way subject to parliament by history.
It is a country which has developed the Industrial Revolution, parliamentary democracy and is copied the world over.
It has strength through literature which is deeply embedded in its society from Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Shelley (both), Dickens, Wells, Forster, Orwell, Tolkein and Lewis, through to the recent (Fowles, Wyndham, Gaiman, etc).
It has consistently moved from autocracy to democracy and brought the world (inadvertently or not) closer to it, whether it be through the North Africa patrol, the American Revolution, the gradual removal of Empire or indeed upholding worldwide basic rights.
I suspect an awful lot of the cringe on this thread is largely due to a lack of historical knowledge.
But I am happy to know as a massive Rugby fiend that as the six nations get underway certainly every part of me will swell with some kind of emotion to hear the massed pipes at Murrayfield, fhe singing at Millennium for Men of Harlech, and Jerusalem at Twickenham to know that many though not all there also believe in a British identity.
And that will do.
Yes, we pioneered the industrial revolution, but that didn't create modern Britain on its own. The amount of capital injected into the system by Empire and the slave trade is simply undeniable, but so too are things like prepubescent British children working long hours down mines or under mechanical looms risking life and limb, quite literally.
I don't see any of that as a reason to wring my hands in guilt and feel I should be sending all my savings to an ex-colonial to say sorry - after all, I suspect that many people would've done my family tree for me if I happened to be a direct descendent of Clive or Warren Hastings - but at the same time it does strike me as wrong that we think we can just completely pull up the drawbridge, especially when you consider the arch-hypocrisy of condemning the use of child labour in the Asian garment trade and the like. A significant element of pulling ourselves up to wealth was based on child labour, so if we deny that same opportunity to less developed economies, is it really any wonder that they then want to come here instead?
NomduJour said:
Kermit power said:
Margaret Thatcher famously stated that there was no such thing as "Society"
…except what she actually said was the opposite of the usual interpretation:“There is no such thing as society. There is living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate”.
I think this must be one of the most misinterpreted quotes in all of British politics.
Yes there is. We have a culture of democratic liberalism, freedom and free speech.
We need to cherish it and defend, because worldwide we're seeing how fragile that is. Russia's take a massive step backwards, Hungary too.
We need to start being proud of what we've got and openly state our way is best.
We need to cherish it and defend, because worldwide we're seeing how fragile that is. Russia's take a massive step backwards, Hungary too.
We need to start being proud of what we've got and openly state our way is best.
hidetheelephants said:
highway said:
We are, in the main, possessed of self deprecating humour, understand sarcasm and gifted the world the English language. It’s that language that means many of us, perhaps wrongly, never felt the need to learn another language.
We 'gifted' it to them at gunpoint. Such largesse. At one point the West's common language was French. Before that, Latin. It's whatever is socially and educationally most useful at that place and time.
The rise of English as a common second language is little to do with British colonialism, and more with Hollywood.
Kermit power said:
Let's take, say, Kaleb, Stormzy, subpostmaster Alan Bates and Toby Jones, the actor who played him in the TV series.
All born British but can you imagine four people with much more different experiences of life? How can anyone ever even begin to try and define a British culture which gives them more in common with each other than with people from different countries who share similar backgrounds? None of their lives are any more or less valid than the others, but they are incredibly different.
It's interesting. A couple of years back there was a thread about the RNLI, and calls from some on the right for people to stop donating because they were "just a taxi service for those on small boats in trouble". A right/left debate ensued and I piped up to say that as a white man in his late 50s who was lucky enough to have accrued a few bob and lived a comfortable middle class London based life, I felt I had far more in common with Marcus Rashford (who was in the midst of his free school meals crusade) that I did with some other people who were outwardly more like me, Johnson & Farage specifically.All born British but can you imagine four people with much more different experiences of life? How can anyone ever even begin to try and define a British culture which gives them more in common with each other than with people from different countries who share similar backgrounds? None of their lives are any more or less valid than the others, but they are incredibly different.
Imho, Rashford's campaign of helping out those less fortunate was a far more British attribute than Brexit or Johnson's flag shagging empty bravado. So the whole issue of defining our culture is a minefield.
Whoozit said:
Culture? No, and why should there be. It's a kingdom which has always had proud regional differences, languages, economies, even laws.
BritishNESS, yes. And for more people than just in this island. My family is from Gibraltar. Ask me how fiercely they defend the right to be counted as British.
How fiercely do your family defend the right to be counted as British? BritishNESS, yes. And for more people than just in this island. My family is from Gibraltar. Ask me how fiercely they defend the right to be counted as British.
shirt said:
Whoozit said:
My family is from Gibraltar. Ask me how fiercely they defend the right to be counted as British.
How fiercely do your family defend the right to be counted as British? Happily lived with a closed border to Spain 1969-1982. Not even fresh milk was available.
1968 referendum, nearly 13,000 votes to stay British and only 44 to join Spain. Local legend has it those 44 were invited to leave
2002 referendum, 18,000 vs 187.
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