UK far right trouble

[Lovebitesandeveryfing]

And it includes a gently satirical refrain from the old Flanders and Swann comedy duo

Don't think you'll get a lot of takers for that, honestly, @AliBobbyJ. You might suggest that @BlueHammer85 start a thread over on Off Topic — something like, say, Flanders and Swann v Bud Flanagan.

 

[AliBobbyJ]

"He might have been a Russ-ian,
A French or Turk or Pruss-ian,
Or perhaps I-tal-ian.
But in spite of all temptations
To belong to other nations
He remains an English-man."


(Thank you!)

 

[BrianW]

You know this 'culture' thing we are attempting to 'defend'?

Can anyone define what it is? Because it seems to me culture changes over the years. Modern Greater Manchester is nothing like the Gorton I knew as a kid.

When did you last go to a Chrysanthemum Show? To a Beetle Drive? Crown green bowling anyone? When did you last take part in a Whit Walk? When did you last go to church, come to that? Fuck, people don't even go to the pub anymore. Not in the way they did back in the day. Even football is nothing like it was.

No one abolished any of these things. You can find shadows of them still, but nothing remotely like they were in the 1950s. You can add dozens of tiny shops, selling (say) just biscuits. Where did they go?

As for patriotism: 'Standing as I do in view of God and Eternity, I realise that patriotism is not enough, I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.' Nurse Edith Cavell on the eve of her execution by the Germans. Read up on her. She was worth 10,000 of these ugly wankers hurling bricks at coppers.

 

[Lovebitesandeveryfing]

"He might have been a Russ-ian,
A French or Turk or Pruss-ian,
Or perhaps I-tal-ian.
But in spite of all temptations
To belong to other nations
He remains an English-man."


(Thank you!)

And that goes back to Gilbert and Sullivan! Did you follow City at Hyde Rd, incidentally?

Just askin.

 

[SebastianBlue]

I think you're being a bit too reductive in terming it systematically an “abstract political unit”, SB. That's not how many people experience their sense of patriotism, I think. Having now spent more than two-thirds of my life outside the country I was born and grew up in (and having spent about 80 to 90% of those two-thirds speaking and writing a language that I'm not using right now in this post), I'm not much of a patriot. But if there are any vestiges of patriotism in me, they're rooted in very concrete, specific things. Things that I take to be special to England (maybe unique). They can be as innocuous and trivial as a liking for Marmite.

But that only becomes patriotism when you tie it to an abstract political unit. If you simply like Marmite, then that is a shared affinity, outside of any political border, that is not concrete or specific to England.

The act of associating it as something special to “England” (even though plenty of people from England, including me, aren’t particularly fond of Marmite), is experiencing it that way.

I think you and I are interesting people to discuss this notion, as well, given we have both either spent large parts of our childhoods or adulthoods (or both) outside of England and currently reside elsewhere, but still have strong connections to the physical region and collection of people currently defined as “England”, particularly the subset defined as “Manchester”.

 

[havefaith]

 

[AliBobbyJ]

And that goes back to Gilbert and Sullivan! Did you follow City at Hyde Rd, incidentally?

Just askin.

How do you say "sod off" in French?

:-)

 

[Lovebitesandeveryfing]

But that only becomes patriotism when you tie it to an abstract political unit. If you simply like Marmite, then that is a shared affinity, outside of any political border, that is not concrete or specific to England.

Sorry. That's exactly what it is. And it so happens that it's bounded by a geographical border (which was later political). Which does not mean that everyone in England likes Marmite.
You're making my point for me. Patriotism is much more fluid and harder to define than you are making it sound. In my opinion.

 

[SebastianBlue]

"He might have been a Russ-ian,
A French or Turk or Pruss-ian,
Or perhaps I-tal-ian.
But in spite of all temptations
To belong to other nations
He remains an English-man."


(Thank you!)

The irony of liking a Gilbert and Sullivan reference in this thread, with the current discussion regarding patriotism is not lost on me. :-)

 

[SebastianBlue]

Sorry. That's exactly what it is. And it so happens that it's bounded by a geographical border (which was later political). Which does not mean that everyone in England likes Marmite.
You're making my point for me. Patriotism is much more fluid and harder to define than you are making it sound. In my opinion.

It is bounded to a political border to you?

Than it has become abstract political unit related. Your patriotism cannot exist without that connection. If there was no connection to England, it would not be “patriotism”. :-)