From: dk0a@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (DIMITRIOS KOUVATSOS)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
Subject: Re: Rule Britannia
Date: 5 Nov 92 06:57:01 GMT
Organization: Lehigh University

In article <CC.92Nov2100125@arran.dcs.ed.ac.uk>, cc@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Chris Cooke) w
rites:
>In article <1992Oct28.081157.35208@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu> dk0a@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (D
IMITRIOS KOUVATSOS) writes:
>
>   How is it that most contemporary Britons feel such contempt for everything
>   that expresses Britain's Victorian golden age?
>
>That "golden age" was hell on earth for many of our ancestors.  It's
>memorable for nothing so much as disgusting hypocrisy, poverty, disease,
>armies wreaking havoc all over the world - not much to be proud of, if you
>ask me.
>--

I most certainly disagree with your assessment - the Victorians' achievements
far outweigh any shortcomings. I would advise you to read Mr. Roberts's quote.
I would also think that Mr. Livesey's comment on the underlying reasons for the
hostility to the Victorians contains a large element of truth.

>       -- Chris.       cc@dcs.ed.ac.uk   (on Janet, cc@uk.ac.ed.dcs)
>

I am belatedly and briefly also discussing some of Mr. Patience's comments
(who seems to be in agreement with Mr. Chris Cooke) below.

>> How is it that most contemporary Britons feel such contempt for everything
>> that expresses Britain's Victorian golden age?
>
>Probably because the Victorians were pompous, hypocritical, exploiting
>snobs.

Ah, what a naive fellow... "Pompous"? Is that a derogatory way to say "proud",
which the Victorians generally were? And pray tell me why should a people that
pioneered the Industrial Revolution, at a time everybody else was still a slave
of manual labor, not feel proud?

>> It was the 17th to 19th century Britain that gave rise to the modern
>> parliamentary democracy, to the industrial revolution and capitalism. Whateve
r
>> the British shortcomings, these momentous contributions to the western
>> civilization should certainly be a source of pride, not derision.
>
>Ah, you mean the Grandmother of Parliaments that everyone complains does
>not reflect the wishes of the people today. Oh and that wonderful
>industrial base that we have with hardly any class conflict in it.

I'm surprised to hear that "everyone" complains that the UK is not a
democratic country! Did Major roll over the tanks to Number 10 last April,
or what? I'd suggest that, for whatever reasons, the Tories won the popular
vote. Simple arithmetic.

"Class conflict", I see... This sort of loonie leftists are a perfect
manifestation of the "British disease" - which ushered in a uniquely
continuous, uniquely catastrophic decline of Britain in the last 60 to 70
years. As someone who truly respects the achievements of the English-speaking
peoples, the entrenchment of individual rights and the rule of law after the
Habeas Corpus Act of 1679 (when Louis XIV of France proudly proclaimed, "L'
etat c' est moi") and the industrial revolution, I would rather hope that this
decline be arrested before Britain slips below Taiwan economically (if it
hasn't already).

>> What the hell are you Brits ashamed of? With this kind of mentality, it is no
>> wonder that you have slipped, in just three quarters of a century, from being
>> the world's richest and most powerful country to being the poorest of the
>> "big" developed democracies and in considerable danger of falling out of
>> their ranks...
>
>Well, we had a bad start. Once we had stopped stealing the wealth of other
>countries like the Victorians use to do, we found life a bit harder.

It appears that you have no understanding whatsoever of how the capitalist
system works. The UK, as well as the USA and the whole Britannic world, swept
to prosperity in the 18th and 19th century because it _created_ vast new
wealth that had never existed before - not because it stole it from the
underdeveloped societies of the Third World, which until recently had never
developed the cultural mindset necessary for prosperity - the spirit of trade,
maritime dominance, individualism. And the UK declined once the collectivist
mindset you express became dominant (among a host of secondary reasons, to be
sure). Sure, Britain had to decline once the rest of the world caught up and
the vast American republic dwarfed it - but not so shockingly much, so fast!

>Simon.
>
>--
>  Simon Patience
>  Open Software Foundation                      Phone: +33-76-63-48-72
>  Research Institute                            FAX:   +33-76-51-05-32
>  2 Avenue De Vignate                           Email: sp@gr.osf.org
>  38610 Gieres, France                                 uunet!gr.osf.org!sp

Dimitris Kouvatsos
Dimitris Kouvatsos

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