tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post4434483684210301036..comments2024-03-29T05:46:39.542+00:00Comments on Penny Red: I actually do predict an actual riot!Penny Redhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07677315565893516941noreply@blogger.comBlogger59125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-5009058686314935202009-03-18T18:00:00.000+00:002009-03-18T18:00:00.000+00:00"Theodore Dalrymple and grow up."One NEVER leads t..."Theodore Dalrymple and grow up."<BR/><BR/>One NEVER leads to the other, you vile piece of bumdribble.Danielhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12164464680485002247noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-27596244629476826412009-03-16T01:27:00.000+00:002009-03-16T01:27:00.000+00:00Fucking awful commie cunt - read some Theodore Dal...Fucking awful commie cunt - read some Theodore Dalrymple and grow up.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-34784927748407468122009-03-13T19:48:00.000+00:002009-03-13T19:48:00.000+00:00Okay, that's fair enough. I think if you can't fin...Okay, that's fair enough. I think if you can't find something nice to say about your extended family that's not a national stereotype, then you need to look at both your rhetoric AND your family members...<BR/><BR/>And now back to the kvetching! ;)Penny Redhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07677315565893516941noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-79001785085877903252009-03-13T19:16:00.000+00:002009-03-13T19:16:00.000+00:00I'm (genuinely) sorry that you seem to have a diff...I'm (genuinely) sorry that you seem to have a difficult/complicated relationship with parts of your family. That doesn't change the fact that you were peddling ethnic stereotypes, though.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-71717286486119684842009-03-13T17:38:00.000+00:002009-03-13T17:38:00.000+00:00Well, alright, if you want to go there -Most of my...Well, alright, if you want to go there -<BR/><BR/>Most of my Lithuanian family are also my Jewish family. The tradition there is for stocky, straight-up-and-down-women, and the tradition is to work extremely hard at whatever you do. I believe that this is, in part, an immgrant thing in general rather than a specific Jewish thing. I think it's a positive stereotype which also has some truth in it, especially in my family's case.<BR/><BR/>In fact, despite the fact that it WAS hastily bashed off, everything I wrote is true, apart from the fact that the singing is actually more from the Lithuanian/Jewish side than from the Irish/Maltese one. I tend to sing, riotously, when I'm drunk or high. I can, so far, pretty much only point to the tendency towards introspection and substance abuse as something I pick up from my Irish family, all of whom happen to be deeply fucked up. But hell, I wanted to say something good about them, so I spun it a little bit rather than just say, 'oh, and I'm inclined towards alcoholism because I'm Irish'. Which would have been both slightly untrue and a horrible thing to imply, as it's my responsibility to not become an alcoholic, which is why I mostly don't drink. So excuse me for fantasising there. I deeply and genuinely wish that I had a better relationship with my Irish family so that I could say more about them, but you know what? They're all unavailable right now. Not all Irish people are substance abusers and emotional fuckwits. Mine just happen to be. I can't help it any more than I can help the stereotype, but I wanted to put a positive spin on what it gives me. So sue me.Penny Redhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07677315565893516941noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-75406910028854432982009-03-13T16:46:00.000+00:002009-03-13T16:46:00.000+00:00Are you genuinely telling me that your Jewish fami...Are you genuinely telling me that your Jewish family don't sing? That your lithuanian family don't work hard? That your Irish family doesn't include curvy beautiful women?<BR/><BR/>I'm not saying be ashamed of your heritage, I'm saying, please please don't uncritically repeat racial stereotypes, because it's offensive and harmful. I would like very much to respect you as a writer; but that is lazy writing and lazy thinking. <BR/><BR/>Your identity can be complex and as beautiful and as multifaceted and diverse without you having to resort to lazy stereotypes to describe it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-87575809529650942812009-03-13T12:24:00.000+00:002009-03-13T12:24:00.000+00:00So I suppose it doesn't matter whether it's actual...So I suppose it doesn't matter whether it's actually true or not?<BR/>For fuck's sake.Penny Redhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07677315565893516941noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-4374400540927374422009-03-13T12:18:00.000+00:002009-03-13T12:18:00.000+00:00I have the work ethic of my immigrant Jewish famil...<I> I have the work ethic of my immigrant Jewish family and when I get drunk I sing like my Irish cousins. </I><BR/><BR/>Does your Jewish family not sing? Or the Maltese, or the Lithuaniun? Do the Irish cousins not have a work ethic?<BR/><BR/>The problem is that you picked on exactly the stereotypes associated with these races and nothing else. Saying when you get drunk you sing like you Irish cousins and <B> not </B> saying you get your work ethic from them reinforces "Irish = drunk/lazy"Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-78601858195794505122009-03-13T11:28:00.000+00:002009-03-13T11:28:00.000+00:00"Maybe as I'm neither English nor actually definab..."Maybe as I'm neither English nor actually definably 'other' by descent, I'm not allowed a culture at all."<BR/>Oh please, Anon didn’t say anything along those lines. And you weren’t talking about culture yourself, you were referencing and reinforcing stereotypes – whether or not you actually do have indepth understanding and experiences of your family background, from *what you wrote* it looks to people reading like you only have superficial stereotypical views. Suppose we should be glad you didn’t say you got your financial sense from your Jewish relatives.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-79115647808112308522009-03-06T16:56:00.000+00:002009-03-06T16:56:00.000+00:00Look, making comments about one's own race isn't t...Look, making comments about one's own race isn't the same as racism. And my family, on both sides, *are like that*. I'm not trying to make a point about ALL the Irish or All Jews - I'm telling you what I get from my family, physically and culturally. I can't change that to make people happy, and you know what? I wouldn't if I could. I've listed things I'm glad about.<BR/><BR/>But maybe you're right. Maybe as I'm neither English nor actually definably 'other' by descent, I'm not allowed a culture at all. I'll stop trying to claim one then. Sorry.Penny Redhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07677315565893516941noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-89282702207529173092009-03-06T16:43:00.000+00:002009-03-06T16:43:00.000+00:00You are displaying racist attitudes here.Maybe you...You are displaying racist attitudes here.<BR/><BR/>Maybe you don't damn mean to, but you are.<BR/><BR/>You are exoticising physical difference (curves, skin, hair), and you are reinforcing stereotypical views (hard-working Jew, drunken musical Irish). It's lazy, and crass.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-29451344565249688922009-03-03T19:14:00.000+00:002009-03-03T19:14:00.000+00:00Anon: Ah. The top one, which I followed, seemed to...Anon: Ah. The top one, which I followed, seemed to be about what I know of by that title.<BR/><BR/>The work was pioneered in the 1960s and early 1970s when crisis teams were assembled to care for the children of expatriate operatives who'd been driven out of African nations such as the Belgian Congo by war and atrocity. What it <EM>is</EM> is the thing that happens to a kid when their parents come from place A (e.g. Britain) and they grow up in place B, which is significantly different (e.g. any third-world nation, in my case West Africa). They are not able to fully integrate into either the first or second cultures, and psychologists noticed firstly that there was a predictable process (now known as Re-Entry) through which such kids dealt with coming to live in a place that was 'home' (where they 'come from') but which they really don't come from at all. <BR/><BR/>It was also observed that children who grew up this way display all of the psycho-social indicators of shared culture with no-one except for one another, <EM>regardless of variation in first or third culture</EM>. I respond to meeting an Indian boy who grew up in Brazil in much the same ways, behaviourally speaking, as two English journalists who meet in a bar in Baghdad.<BR/><BR/>Thus, the Third Culture phenomenon, which people like Agatha Christie used to call 'bloody colonials', is the large and growing group of us whose identity is made complex by belonging to more than one culture.<BR/><BR/>Now think on this: virtually every home-grown suicide bomber in the 7/7 and 21/7 cells were TCKs. Parents from furrin parts, constant lectures about how you have to stay within the world-view of <EM>your</EM> country, but you don't feel that <EM>is</EM> your country. You're more like the kids at school in Bethnal Green than you are like the kids in the Sahara. <BR/><BR/>One way to resolve that identity conflict is to integrate into the field culture to such an extent that conflict goes away. Another is to retreat into ghettoisation: which is what happened to the poor kids who blew themselves up.John Q. Publicanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11333595645345108989noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-64972025599000565682009-03-03T18:47:00.000+00:002009-03-03T18:47:00.000+00:00What's the third culture? That google link gives ...What's the third culture? That google link gives links to several different, completely unrelated meanings...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-33515152434703149322009-03-03T13:35:00.000+00:002009-03-03T13:35:00.000+00:00Cassiel: very kind of you :) That was a largely un...Cassiel: very kind of you :) That was a largely unedited rant, but yes: identity politics is extremely important to me because I'm part of the the <A HREF="http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=third+culture+phenomenon&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=com.ubuntu:en-GB:unofficial&client=firefox-a" REL="nofollow">Third Culture</A> phenomenon. I grew up as an ethnic minority, I chose a life in the west (and it took me 10 years to decide I was going to stay, for the first 5 all I wanted to do was go home) and yet I am the fabled enemy of all minorities: young, white, male. I'm also politically engaged with the problem of how one prevents what boils down to empire-guilt from eradicating everything that is English rather than British.<BR/><BR/>The Celtic nations, as a result of having a wicked overlord to fight, spent the years between 1750 and 1900 fabricating and then ruthlessly propagandising a 'national cultural identity' out of scraps, songs, stories and completely made-up bits. This discourse became so profoundly woven into the fabric of political and educational functions in those societies that what was invented then is real now.<BR/><BR/>The English went the other way. They spent centuries developing (very slowly) a rich and varied national identity, culture, art and social tradition, which we're now abandoning because doing anything associated with being English means you're intrinsically offending someone Welsh, Scotch, Irish or Insert Nation Here.<BR/><BR/>"We learn to be ashamed before we walk,<BR/>Of the way we look and the way we talk,<BR/>Without our stories and our songs,<BR/>How can we know where we come from,<BR/>We've lost St. George and the Union Jack,<BR/>It's my flag too and <EM>I want it back!</EM>"<BR/>-- Steve Knightley<BR/><BR/>Britain is a remarkably stable and, on average, happy cultural confederacy. My pub in London serves haggis, neeps and tatties for Burns night and you can see Shakespeare performed in Edingburgh. The difficulty is that there is a perception that Englishness doesn't exist (because people only get Celtic or German mythology off television: how many knew John Uskglass before Susannah Clarke saved his memory?): or a perception that in fact it does but that it shouldn't, that every good thing an Englishman has done should be expunged and over-written because one of the things the English did was win wars.<BR/><BR/>If there's anger to be directed at us over imperialism, let's bring it home where it lives: the Protestant work-ethic combined with an imperial religion (which Christianity became at the point Constantine bought the pontifical perspective). We didn't go out there and conquer because we're English; look at the Spaniards and the Portuguese, who were at it long before we were, and the French, who were at it for as long afterwards. We were just much better at it because we were the first Protestant imperialists. The Catholic imperial nations saw their mission as 1) money, 2) conversion by mass baptism. The Protestant ones saw the mission as 1) money, 2) Sort the place out a bit and get it properly organised, 3) convert people by retail rather than wholesale proselytisation.<BR/><BR/>If people want to eradicate a cultural heritage which drove the age of Empire, it's the Protestant work-ethic they should be attacking, not the English.John Q. Publicanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11333595645345108989noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-53651606495130721672009-03-03T13:28:00.000+00:002009-03-03T13:28:00.000+00:00This comment has been removed by the author.John Q. Publicanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11333595645345108989noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-63635921343281697582009-03-03T07:41:00.000+00:002009-03-03T07:41:00.000+00:00Mr. Publican.As one SciFi buff to another I have t...Mr. Publican.<BR/><BR/>As one SciFi buff to another I have to say that your comment was genuinely interesting. But, man, what a lot of work! Obviously this is a subject that interests you.<BR/><BR/>Or did you simply do a little cut and paste operation to transfer text from your D.Phil dissertation to Penny Red's blog? IMO you ought to receive some sort of award or prize for your efforts besides my admiration and Penny Red's love.<BR/><BR/>Nice one.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-22080542068364899572009-03-03T01:37:00.000+00:002009-03-03T01:37:00.000+00:00TBR - Scottish and Welsh culture are exactly the s...TBR - Scottish and Welsh culture are exactly the same as English culture, just a little less comprehensible. (With a bit more fighting, dresses and alcohol for good measure.)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-90488338689686717112009-03-03T01:29:00.000+00:002009-03-03T01:29:00.000+00:00What he said.I love you sometimes, JQP.What he said.<BR/>I love you sometimes, JQP.Penny Redhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07677315565893516941noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-61897769838129707782009-03-03T01:19:00.000+00:002009-03-03T01:19:00.000+00:00Beautiful.Beautiful.Dandelionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12302932867084357713noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-51046813832746852702009-03-02T13:29:00.000+00:002009-03-02T13:29:00.000+00:00The identity of these islands has been tribal, and...The identity of these islands has been tribal, and collective, for nearly three thousand years. Tribal, in that there have always been local variations in language, genetic heritage, dress, weapons and ability to countenance foreigners: collective in that the people of Greater Britain, the Summer Isles and Lesser Britain (which we did, eventually, lose to France) have always seen themselves as having a collective identity <EM>if under assault from without</EM>. The war between the Demetae and the Ordovices would be forgotten in the face of incursions from Saxony or Gaul. Or Ireland. Or Scotland.<BR/><BR/>The tribal identities slowly became associated with geographical areas, much more clearly than ever before. They also shrank as certain clan captains began to really <EM>win</EM>. The "English" got a head start because the Romans enforced a level of coherence on them. They then got a fast-track because <EM>everyone</EM> was invading them (they had the nice farm land): from Saxony, Normandy, Scandewegia... And Ireland. And Scotland. A lot. That made the people who lived in the middle bit get pretty good at working as a team, and created a national identity centered, by the time of Harold Godwineson, on the Wessex power-base in Southern England. It could, with a few differences, as easily have cohered around York or Bamburgh; but neither of them bred an Alfred.<BR/><BR/>Then the "English" started to stop invasions by going and thwapping the invaders where they lived. That really isn't a feature of their culture between the Romans and the Normans. It's not that Englishmen didn't go Viking, a few did. Some ended up at the Byzantine court, but we didn't make a major industry out of it like the Scands. Or the Scots. Or the Irish.<BR/><BR/>We did invade Ireland, and got them to lay off for a century during which we flattened the Scots and got <EM>them</EM> to lay off for a century. That led <EM>directly</EM> to the modern, intense 'Scottish' sense of identity: as the English were forced by the Age of Invasions to fight it out between the tribes until they had an effective national state structure, so were the Scots forced by the English.<BR/><BR/>Well, someone mentioned history, so I thought I'd reference one of the bits modernists like to ignore: the history of all of the 'national identities' in these islands is the product of warfare which, for the first two thousand years or so, the Celtic Nations were undoubtedly having the better of.<BR/><BR/>We've come a very long way since then. Dandelion's point about the psychology of identity (by which I suspect you mean the othering process) explains the above very well but as a model it loses its accuracy as soon as the subjects become conscious of the effect, which for us is about 1750.<BR/><BR/>People are now able to derive, propagate and adopt methods of community formation which are completely different from the necessity-driven, defensive mob psychologies of the barbarous past. We are also massively more conscious of multi-layered identity than we ever were before. All of the following identity statements are true of me:<BR/><BR/>I am British (cf. my passport)<BR/>I am English (I was born in Salisbury and my father's family were English rievers way back when.)<BR/>I am an immigrant (I came to live here permanently in 1993).<BR/>I am of mixed blood (my mother's mother is East End Italian, my mother's father New Jersey dutch, my grandmother's mother Irish, my grandfather's mother Jewish).<BR/><BR/>I've competed with 'GBR' on my kit, and also 'ENG'. No contradictions there. I am English, because my father is and I have chosen to settle in his country. I am British because my father is, and because these islands are the home of my heritage: <EM>all</EM> of these islands.<BR/><BR/>Now try it like this: I am Sikh, because my mother is and because I keep the Five K's. I am British, because I have never been to the Punjab and have no wish to ever go: this is my home, here in these Islands I was born, and here I will work. The soil that fed Shakespeare feeds me.<BR/><BR/>Now try it like this: I am Sikh, because my mother was. I am Pakistani, because my father chose to leave India in 1946. I am British, because I came here so that my children would have more than I could build. I am British because my children anchor me to these islands as surely as my parents anchor me to the Five Rivers.<BR/><BR/><EM>That</EM> is multi-culturalism. Where I came from is important, but it is more important to me than it is to the people where I live now. Where I live now can be richer because I am here: but only if I become part of this new place, and learn its ways. Only then will I help make it stronger, rather than pulling it apart.<BR/><BR/>The ghetto is safe. In the ghetto no-one will challenge the ideas of the past, or the fanaticisms of old men. But the ghetto is only safe for so long.<BR/><BR/>Part of the heritage of Britain is the Norwich blood libel, and we should rightly be ashamed of it, but we didn't cause anti-Semitism and we didn't invent the pogroms. Any culture which militantly holds itself apart, walled off from indigenous society, states to the locals that they are either feared or scorned. Wait long enough and they'll react to that. [1]<BR/><BR/>Part of the heritage of Britain is that we trafficed slaves. Part of the heritage of Britain is that we freed them, and that we led the modern war against the trade throughout the nineteenth century. Of one, we can be ashamed, and of the other, proud: like any nation.<BR/><BR/>Part of the heritage of Britain is that we fought and conquered our three most near neighbors, and that we went on to conquer half the world. Part of our heritage is that what we left behind <EM>worked</EM>. I grew up in an ex-British colony and went to school in an ex-French one, I <EM>know</EM>. No other colonial power had its colonies begging for <EM>greater</EM> involvement after independence: the Commonwealth is a British invention.<BR/><BR/>At every turn our heritage is what it is. The people of these islands have made beauty and they have made war: have changed the world, and have fought to preserve its prejudices. We are what we are. If a person wants to be part of that, who are we to stop them?<BR/><BR/>[1] In case some idiot wants to accuse me of anti-Semitism; oh grow up. Of course anti-Semitism is more complex in its causes than just ghettoisation among the Ashkenazi. There's church propaganda in there, there's imbalances in cash wealth and hoarded medical or engineering knowledge which led to an impression of magical power: lots of things. And several of them would have been no threat, if they hadn't been happening inside a pale.John Q. Publicanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11333595645345108989noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-65586808590113337942009-03-02T00:52:00.000+00:002009-03-02T00:52:00.000+00:00Good point, TBR. I use "British" to mean any of i...Good point, TBR. I use "British" to mean any of its constituent parts, but I think the emergence of the false notion of there being such a thing as "British" culture comes from wanting to sell it to America (for eg) - or possibly from wanting to foster some cohesion (or an illusion of it) so that people don't feel disenfranchised, and so they vote New Labour. <BR/><BR/>Also, in marketing terms, the word "British" lends itself more snappily to becoming a prefix for cultural product(BritPop, BritArt, etc) than, say "English", or even "United Kingdom".<BR/><BR/>Also, in America, they seem to prefer to refer to "Brits", as opposed to the English, Scottish, or Welsh.Dandelionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12302932867084357713noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-43455814197095014052009-03-01T22:28:00.000+00:002009-03-01T22:28:00.000+00:00Please sign and distribute: Israel is an outlawed ...Please sign and distribute: Israel is an outlawed entity<BR/><BR/>http://www.petitiononline.com/ttwpdi/petition.html<BR/><BR/>campaign with usAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13861105695847033353noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-25411982061996154852009-03-01T22:09:00.000+00:002009-03-01T22:09:00.000+00:00Ok I'll add to the debate. I think Britishness is ...Ok I'll add to the debate. I think Britishness is a load of nonsense. There isn't really a British culture. In Britain there are English, Welsh and Scottish cultures. But not one homogeneous British one.<BR/><BR/>I regard myself as English. And I think most Scottish and Welsh people would agree with the above statement.<BR/><BR/>Currently Britishness is a Gordon Brown buzz word. It's used by him and New Labour so much because they require the Union to maintain power in Westminster. <BR/><BR/>But in reality Britishness is meaningless. It has little historical or cultural basis.RobWhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02255978974948870928noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-43038384661469255592009-03-01T20:24:00.000+00:002009-03-01T20:24:00.000+00:00Griffin - That link of yours leads to standard iss...Griffin - That link of yours leads to standard issue communalism. Now tell me: do you think that communalism will be weakened or strengthened by your attitude?<BR/><BR/>The rest: I think you're arguing over nothing, frankly. If anyone had said they were "Proud" I would have lashed out (proud of something that was up to chance, eh?), but "Pleased" is understandable.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343658614010405479.post-37079753943391027942009-03-01T20:12:00.000+00:002009-03-01T20:12:00.000+00:00You believe that they are, and that that hostility...<B>You believe that they are, and that that hostility justifies the ugly paranoia of British pure-bloods.</B><BR/><BR/>I'm honestly baffled. Could you read what I wrote and explain where you think I said that?Neuroskeptichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06647064768789308157noreply@blogger.com