Rude Britannia {UK decline?}

The New York Times ^ | 23 July 2011 | John F Burns

[Cronos]

.....it has been left to the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, to suggest that the scandal has revealed something much broader, by depicting what has happened as a symptom of a wholesale corruption of values in Britain’s public and private life. ....

a culture that engendered a “shirking of basic responsibility” from “top to bottom” in British life, that “sends the message that anything goes, that right and wrong don’t matter, that we can all be in it for ourselves as long as we can get away with it.”

...And that will leave many in the country to ponder,.. three of my fellow countrymen who have lived for years abroad ticked off some of the things that have troubled them about life back at home: policemen behaving with an arrogance and indifference unremembered from childhood days; top-level soccer players earning astronomical salaries behaving like cheap thugs, on and off the field; multi-million-dollar performers on television and radio, including the BBC, resorting to coarse language, and, on at least one occasion in recent memory, bullying and taunting an aging comic actor for their trifling amusement; gangs of feral youths prowling center-city areas menacingly after dark; and a beer culture among the nation’s youth that has made public drunkenness a scourge.......The end of Britain’s empire in the 1950s and 1960s, coupled with the gradual erosion of once-rigid class divides, have cast the country loose from the old anchors, and left many people in a restless search for new certainties, new sources of identity and pride. The collapse of standards in the public education system, once among the world’s best, have precipitated an epidemic of antisocial behavior among urban youth. The decline of manufacturing industries has fostered soaring unemployment and, among many, a lifelong welfare dependency.

[Cronos]

From the article Britain, he said, resembled more than anything, a “post-communist society” — unhinged from the old verities, and not yet in sight of anything enduring to replace them. It made for a disheartening verdict on a deeply discouraging week.

And yet the REAL post-communist societies in Eastern Europe are doing quite well in finding their identities, especially in comparison to western europe

[nathanbedford]

John F Burns is a difficult Britain to get a handle on. Unquestionably, he is a certified European leftist who qualifies for his exposure at the New York Times. But occasionally, as with some of his reporting from war zones, he betrays himself to be groping for the truth. This ambivalence is reflected in this piece. On the one hand he searches for the real reasons for the disintegration of Britain and even credits Thatcher to some degree with seeing them accurately and acting effectively, at least for a time, upon them, but on the other hand he fails to mention the most immediate reason for the disintegration of British society, immigration, and he fails to even grapple with the more general truth that socialism in Britain is now reaping its bitter harvest.

Egalitarianism as a statist goal invariably leads to indigestible social inequality. That inequality inevitably becomes sanctified by the state and becomes immutable. Cynicism is the rational response to cronyism-or identity politics. One need only watch BBC programs which wallow in self flagellation over Victorianism and the British Empire to understand the depths of this cheap and easy "sophistication."

When the state seeks to regulate human conduct on a personal level down to the way man thinks about his fellow human beings and impose criminal sanctions for "wrong thinking," one really has wrought a Kafkaesque tyranny.

I have posted here before my musings on a return flight from Moscow in which I was so troubled by the atmosphere and the condition of the Russian psyche which I encountered that I was compelled to write that the overwhelming feeling one takes away is that of an appalling, empty, cynicism. Today we read of the corruption which is thoroughly out of control. When we cite Eastern European countries as recovering from communism and having some true hold on the notions of liberty, I hope we intend to except Russia, Ukraine etc for these lands are now even as corrupt as czarist Russia and nearly as corrupt as the Stalinist Soviet Union.

This cynicism is the inevitable result of statism. Cronyism and corruption are inevitable results of statism and cynicism is their spawn.

I'm about to make an observation which will be unpopular in these threads to those who are not libertarians: when the state undertakes to regulate private morality, such as prostitution, gambling, adultery, drugs, homosexuality, it verges on the same error and courts the same cynicism.

The United States is about to become a United States of Europe because immigration feeds into our body politic an indigestible quantum of alien culture. If this culture does not share our assumptions about the rule of law, the common language, the capitalist system, even democracy itself, it will overwhelm our values if the numbers are sufficient. If we on the right misjudge our proper role and alienate our modern youth with misplaced emphasis on controlling private morality, we will be regarded with contempt and cynicism.

Caveat: this is not to say that we should abandon our God-given responsibility to protect the unborn, that is a crime with a victim. What the Tories in England and America misunderstand is the difference between ethics and morality. When we abandon ethics and pander to morality, when we prostitute the power of the state to a sect's morality, we breed cynicism.

[familyop]

The western experiment in legalization and tolerance of immorality and its fallacious tool, relativism, is in the process of failure. It didn’t take long, and our economy goes with it.

[count-your-change]

What reason does Britain have for continued existence? Colonies? Military conquest? Superiority of culture? Divine will?

Or it just going to sit in a comfortably warm bath with an open vein until it’s all done with?

[RayChuang88]

Britain still clings to "glory" because of its banking system, automotive industry and aerospace industry.

If I remember correctly, the Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC Group, Lloyds Bank and Barclays Bank are in the top 15 banks in terms of assets in the world. This is why the UK wields considerable influence in world finance.

But in the automotive industry, ever since British Leyland broke up in the late 1980's, the British automotive industry is now strongly influenced by foreigners. Ford has most of its European models designed built in continental Europe; Vauxhall has most of its models designed and built by various Opel factories across Europe; Jaguar and Land Rover are owned by the Tata Group in India; and the MG brand is mostly products of SAIC in China.

As for the aerospace industry, the UK is mostly a supplier to other companies (the wings for Airbus airliners for example) and Rolls-Royce's jet engines now use a lot of parts made by non-UK manufacturers or is a supplier to Pratt & Whitney (the IAE V2500 and possibly the PW1000G series of geared turbofans).

[Cronos]

By "Britain" do you mean the united Kingdom? it started out as English hegemony.

English culture should be recreated (yes, it's dead in most places) -- down to individual idioscyncracies between regions

[Cronos]

Technically both HSBC and Standard Chartered are Asian banks in the sense that most of their assets and revenues are from Asia. The headquarters are in London for historical reasons

Lloyds and Barclays too have a large footprint in Asia with directors moving there

The UK wields clout in world finance due to the ease of listing on the FTSE, the easy access to finance and the depth and width of its financial services.

This has faced a problem with the increasing taxation by the UK government, however the UK has an advantage that foreigners can easily purchase property etc. in England

[count-your-change]

Britain, Great Britain, the U.K. I mean.

[count-your-change]

I would assume by English culture you mean the English way of life and habits.

Like the Roman Empire England once believed in the superiority of it's culture, it's language, form of government, it’ industry,... an arrogance not entirely unjustified, and the propriety of spreading it around the world.

Since WWI that vision has been clouded by a contempt for their past accomplishments and tolerance of those who would pull the house down on their heads.

[Cronos]

well, not since WWI. Besides, the English truly had about 150 years of accomplishments from about 1750 to 1900. Since then, decline..

[count-your-change]

The rise and fall of civilizations follow a pattern wherein out of chaos people organize themselves, develop strong morals and discipline, become strong, then wealthy, then comfortable, then take for granted their success, become lazy and immoral, then poor, then weak and finally sink into chaos whether by economic failure or internal strife.

For some the process is quick while for others like England it takes a bit longer.

[Cronos]

True.

[grey_whiskers]

The United States is about to become a United States of Europe because immigration feeds into our body politic an indigestible quantum of alien culture. If this culture does not share our assumptions about the rule of law, the common language, the capitalist system, even democracy itself, it will overwhelm our values if the numbers are sufficient. If we on the right misjudge our proper role and alienate our modern youth with misplaced emphasis on controlling private morality, we will be regarded with contempt and cynicism.

This is the crux of your issue; and yet it is not a complete picture.

As in the Lord of the Rings, in which the Appendices described Gondor and its allies seemingly suffering mere misfortune, until one of the Steward realized that all of the problems were the results of carefully crafted attacks at the hand of Sauron and his emissaries -- so too, the misfortunes befalling the United States are the result of a decades-long series of attacks on our very culture, on the "glue" which holds us together.

The United States "worked" for a number of reasons: a godly people, therefore honest, industrious, trustworthy; the uniform rule of law; personal safety and private property; a non-invasive government; in addition to isolation from military enemies and abundant natural resources.

So the attacks on our culture are going after the moral underpinnings: and this is done by the ACLU, by immoral people seeded into positions of authority and influence; by the long march through the institutions. And by subverting the moral consensus from without, as you say: by people who do not hold to elementary Christianity, nor yet to its cultural penumbras. For it is true that Christianity used to be the overwhelming creed in the US, held implicitly: and thus many of the laws were written with what now appears to be laxity, for many of the vices now common, were thought then to be inconceivable.

In addition, the moral decay increases as the hold of Christians on public affairs weakens, since our laws forbid draconian measures, and use public opinion and opprobrium as enforcers. But what to do when the offenders live in a sub-cultural bubble which glories in the disapproval of Christians? Our system is designed so a small minority can wield disproportionate power, and whipsaw the majority.

Our system was written for a populace in which the Christians were the majority: and now, in many places, in the halls of power, money, and influence, they are no longer even a plurality. But those who bid fair to usurp the levers of power have no conception of mercy, of justice, of "fair play." Like Sauron, their only measure is power: power to exact revenge, power for retribution and redistribution, until they have plucked, boiled, dismembered, eaten, and eliminated the last remnant of the hapless Eagle, who lay not golden eggs, but freedom.

And so it is coming to pass.

Alas! The answer can, should, and must be revival: and stemming the tide of those who have no conception of our natural-law foundations, to whom the very concepts and axioms are mere quaint curiosities, foreign ideas from men who lived long ago.

That, and reclaiming the education of the youth, to pass on what was purchased at so high a price, and a sense of rightful community.

Cheers!

[nathanbedford]

As in the Lord of the Rings, in which the Appendices described Gondor and its allies seemingly suffering mere misfortune, until one of the Steward realized that all of the problems were the results of carefully crafted attacks at the hand of Sauron and his emissaries -- so too, the misfortunes befalling the United States are the result of a decades-long series of attacks on our very culture, on the "glue" which holds us together.

I tried very hard to read Lord of the Rings and to sit through the movie but I simply cannot accept the premises of science fiction or romanticized fiction, whatever it is called, in which the author gets to change the rules of the game, indeed to change the Newtonian rules of the universe, as the story unfolds. I want my drama to evolve from character and plot and not duex ex machina.

I leave those kinds of stories to younger more supple minds and those with gray whiskers who have higher IQs. That's probably why I am simply annoyed rather than edified by poetry. I want my draughts, my moral lessons, on the rocks without any cocktail mixes to disguise the gin. I want to be able to understand what the hell it is the guy is trying to say.

However, I think you knew that I would jump on this quotation as an excuse to launch into one of my rants about The Frankfurt School . I have posted long (no surprise here) and hard about The Frankfurt School trying to expose the malevolent assault on the American culture and constitution. You are quite right, the attack is calculated, one determined to undermine every prop to our representative democracy and the remnants of our capitalist system.

We have had some great exchanges on this subject. I am fascinated that a coterie of leftists can quite consciously set out to undermine a culture and accomplish so much merely by wielding their pens. It is sobering to connect the dots from The Frankfurt School to Cloward and Piven and onto Saul Alinsky and his posthumous protégé, Barak Obama. The first three explicitly set out to destroy every institution, indeed every culturally accepted value, which presented an obstacle to the onrush of international socialism. The fourth has resorted to misdirection to camouflage his Marxism as "transformation."

The Frankfurt School and its spawn have been so effective that we sense the disintegration of our economy, our politics and our culture. But if we see them in terms of causation in that order we will have the wrong end of the telescope to our eye. The Frankfurt School knew that they must start from the bottom and work their way up changing our very epistemology to effect changes in our politics in order to get at our economy. The old aphorism is true: culture trumps politics.

Long before we got the Obamacare act, for example, we got the subversion of the American Medical Association and the co-opting of AARP. The left attacks the culture and the institutions and then it merely usurps the politics.

Today, we are in extremis. We are confronted with a pivotal moment in history. We are forced to fight now from the top down in a political contest for our economic survival that has been rigged from the bottom up. We must win this war on the budget and we must win the political contest in 2012 but we must understand that we are losing the culture war, the demographic war, and the war for our souls. If we step once more into the breach and save the Republic for our kids this time, they will get us the next time.

We cannot stake our legacy to our children on the hope of deux ex machina. That is to presume upon the gods or the writers of fiction.