UK Politics: The End of May

[Werthead]

Philip Hammond - actually one of the slightly more reasonable Tories in these unreasonable times (although this is very much relative) - refusing to accept that there is a vast amount of poverty in the UK as a direct result of his party's policies is quite something.

[Ser Reptitious]

20 hours ago, Conflicting Thought said:

No, you still are, you are just paying attwntion to your blind spots and uncunsious . Saying that you have never had a racist thought is being ignorant of the racist socialisation that you are subjected to.

If you are aware of that, you can deconstruct how you where tought and fight your unconscious bias

If you are aware of any biases you may have (had) then it is no longer subconscious. Subconscious racism is the type where you have prejudices that you simply consider to be "realistic", whereas people who call that sort of thing racist are simply denying reality for the sake of being "politically correct". Sound familiar?*

And I agree with @James Arryn that accusing everyone of being subconsciously racist is an easy way out for actual (subconscious and otherwise) racists by implying that they are simply saying out loud what everyone else is thinking. The notion that only a small minority of the population thinks/feels like they do would be a very uncomfortable thing for them.

 

*I'm not saying that's your view, I'm simply saying that we've all heard that kind of talk before.

[Blue Roses]

5 hours ago, Which Tyler said:

Normans simply took over the aristocracy, largely leaving the peasants alone. Local areas will have suffered genocidal bouts, but nothing national.

 

Er no. 

https://www.historytoday.com/history-matters/harrying-north

Its a bit hard to paint half of England as all a bit local. The Welsh border area as well suffered tremendously with wholesale relocation/looting/killing of the local populace in violent spasms throughout the Norman period and as the Welsh were just as capable at raids, killing and sacking, the Normans got it straight back at them especially in 1136. Peasants, clergy, nobility; all got it in the neck.

Many were forced into slavery often to work on the Norman building projects of castles and cathedrals thoughout. They were definitely not left alone. 

 

[Which Tyler]

I must admit - I'd forgotten about the harying on the north

[Fragile Bird]

I just watched the Trump/May press conference and he said protests were fake news and there were cheering crowds wherever he went.

He also said that after Brexit when trade talks begin not just the NHS will be on the table, everything will be on the table. Think about that one, folks.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

10 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

I just watched the Trump/May press conference and he said protests were fake news and there were cheering crowds wherever he went.

He also said that after Brexit when trade talks begin not just the NHS will be on the table, everything will be on the table. Think about that one, folks.

The president promised us great healthcare on the cheap. What better solution than to make the Eurocommies pay for it, just like Mexico will be paying for the wall and Canada will be giving us all the free water we want!

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

there were cheering crowds wherever he went.

Like for Queen Victorian in Ireland in the 1849.

Item: the cheers and flags were stage managed, i.e. 'fake.'

[A Horse Named Stranger]

I must admit, as a big fan of symmetries and stuff. I am really humoured by colonial Britain going full circle on Brexit.

While the British establishment moaned the loss of the colonies after, what the Americans so ungratefully call, the war for independence centuries ago. That the current political establishment is so dead set on bringing the colonies home is really nothing short but laudible. Ok, it's more like redcoats will now be the colony on the other side of the world. From colonizer to colony. But as I said, I like symmetries.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

Like for Queen Victorian in Ireland in the 1849.

Item: the cheers and flags were stage managed, i.e. 'fake.'

Why did you quote me with the BIRD!’s comment? This is like the third time you’ve done this. Literally quit putting words in my mouth!  

[Zorral]

46 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Why did you quote me with the BIRD!’s comment? This is like the third time you’ve done this. Literally quit putting words in my mouth!  

Because this place's quoting function is screwy.  

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Gonna share two articles.

Well, one article, and one interview.

Article what PM Johnson could mean for Brexit.

Interview with Prof. Dorling (Oxford). Colonial Roots of Brexit.

I think the interview was particularly interesting given the last few pages of discussion about underlying racism of Brexit.

[Which Tyler]

Farage refuses to face the beak: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48516348

[Werthead]

2 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Gonna share two articles.

Well, one article, and one interview.

Article what PM Johnson could mean for Brexit.

Interview with Prof. Dorling (Oxford). Colonial Roots of Brexit.

I think the interview was particularly interesting given the last few pages of discussion about underlying racism of Brexit.

I think they missed an obvious point on British views on history: history is not a mandatory subject in British secondary schools, so most young people (and most people full stop, it's been this way since the late 1980s) get their view of history from primary school lessons which tend to focus on WWII, Elizabeth I, Henry VIII and a distinct, "Hoo rar, the British are awesome" view of things. Secondary schools teach History (as an option subject) to a higher standard and start looking at things like the incompetence of WWI and the evils of colonialism, but you have to wait until college to delve deeply into things like Anglo-Irish relations and Suez. It doesn't help that the study of History seems to have been discouraged in recent decades in favour of "more practical" courses.

So you have a huge number of people in this country whose knowledge of their national history is pretty much Normans - Henry VIII sticking it to the Pope - Empire - the UK cock-punching Hitler with only minimal help from the US and Russia - Falklands. That creates a pretty warped view of the country's history. A lot of people are also bizarrely ignorant of recent history: a pro-Brexiter in an office job I did last year angrily asked why Britain should accept Syrian refugees and I pointed out that the UK and US had to take some responsibility for the rise of ISIS from how they handled the Iraq War and its aftermath, and they were completely confounded at the idea there was any kind of casual link between the two events.

[Ormond]

3 minutes ago, Werthead said:

I think they missed an obvious point on British views on history: history is not a mandatory subject in British secondary schools, so most young people (and most people full stop, it's been this way since the late 1980s) get their view of history from primary school lessons which tend to focus on WWII, Elizabeth I, Henry VIII and a distinct, "Hoo rar, the British are awesome" view of things. 

So you have a huge number of people in this country whose knowledge of their national history is pretty much Normans - Henry VIII sticking it to the Pope - Empire - the UK cock-punching Hitler with only minimal help from the US and Russia - Falklands. That creates a pretty warped view of the country's history. A lot of people are also bizarrely ignorant of recent history: a pro-Brexiter in an office job I did last year angrily asked why Britain should accept Syrian refugees and I pointed out that the UK and US had to take some responsibility for the rise of ISIS from how they handled the Iraq War and its aftermath, and they were completely confounded at the idea there was any kind of casual link between the two events.

I'm not even sure you get anything about the Normans any more. In my classes at the university in Nebraska where I teach, I have had several students from the UK who are here on scholarships while playing for our soccer ("football") teams.  When I talk about my expertise on names in my classes, I often mention the language change that started with the Norman invasion, and tend to start that off by asking students if they know what happened in 1066. The British students I've had the last 15 years have been no more likely than the Americans to know why 1066 is an important date. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

So who here was among the thousands of people cheering in the streets for Trump?

[The Anti-Targ]

52 minutes ago, Werthead said:

I think they missed an obvious point on British views on history: history is not a mandatory subject in British secondary schools, so most young people (and most people full stop, it's been this way since the late 1980s) get their view of history from primary school lessons which tend to focus on WWII, Elizabeth I, Henry VIII and a distinct, "Hoo rar, the British are awesome" view of things. Secondary schools teach History (as an option subject) to a higher standard and start looking at things like the incompetence of WWI and the evils of colonialism, but you have to wait until college to delve deeply into things like Anglo-Irish relations and Suez. It doesn't help that the study of History seems to have been discouraged in recent decades in favour of "more practical" courses.

So you have a huge number of people in this country whose knowledge of their national history is pretty much Normans - Henry VIII sticking it to the Pope - Empire - the UK cock-punching Hitler with only minimal help from the US and Russia - Falklands. That creates a pretty warped view of the country's history. A lot of people are also bizarrely ignorant of recent history: a pro-Brexiter in an office job I did last year angrily asked why Britain should accept Syrian refugees and I pointed out that the UK and US had to take some responsibility for the rise of ISIS from how they handled the Iraq War and its aftermath, and they were completely confounded at the idea there was any kind of casual link between the two events.

I imagine it would caused him an aneurysm if you'd drawn that line all the way back to how Britain and the USA carved up the middle East post WWI to share out the oil spoils of war.

[Raja]

3 hours ago, Werthead said:

So you have a huge number of people in this country whose knowledge of their national history is pretty much Normans - Henry VIII sticking it to the Pope - Empire - the UK cock-punching Hitler with only minimal help from the US and Russia - Falklands. 

Is there nothing about the colonization of South Asia? 

[polishgenius]

3 hours ago, Raja said:

Is there nothing about the colonization of South Asia? 

The only mention of any kind of European colonialism in the average British school is when we learn that the Aztecs died because of the Spanish. The British Empire vaguely gets mentioned in the background of studying the Victorians but it's generally presented as a jolly old jape and boasts over how big it was.

That's the reason that so many British people are genuinely confused when they're exposed to the idea that the rest of the world doesn't think we're that great.

[Alarich II]

I did two years of A-Level History in a boarding school in Wales, about two decades ago, so I don't know if the system changed.

Now, the first thing that was remarkable, that out of maybe 40 pupils we were only 3(!) choosing History for A-Level. The only subjects with even less pupils were Greek (1) and Latin (2). Even French was chosen more often (4). So even amongst a rather priviledged set of young people, for the vast majority, History education stops at GCSE-Levels. Which was IMO rather appalling. Now, I have to say that we had excellent teachers, there's no doubt about that. Being a small group and having two dedicated history teachers did a lot to open my eyes to the complexity of history, how things like economy, religion, social systems interact with plain old chance and individual psychology. I found it fascinating and enriching and that makes so much more of a loss for all those who didn't chose history.

The second, very remarkable thing, was the choice of subjects during those 2 years of A-Level:

Roughly speaking, we concentrated on Renaissance Europe with concentration on the conflict between Britain and Spain, English domestic struggles and the Bourbon/Habsburg conflict, the 30 years war and the later rise of Prussia in the context of the Northern war.  And Nazi Germany. Lots of it.

Colonialism was only interesting insofar as we looked at how Spains economy changed as a result of the great amounts of silver mined in South America and how they got into conflict with Britain. British colonialism in Northern America, not really interesting.  I can tell you about the education of the Habsburgs and how that shaped their view of the religious conflict and role of Richelieu, Mazarin and Colbert at the French court, but British colonialism in the 18th and 19th century? Nah, let's focus on why and how the Spanish invasion failed.

 

Had my teenage self been a little more observant and aware, these two years would have made a fascinating anthropological field study...

[Pebble thats Stubby]

History when I was at school.  - I did my GCSE's in 94

we did a bit about the Romans and Boudica,  Alfred the Great, spent 1 or maybe 2 lessons on 1066 and the Norman conquest.  Henry and Elizabeth, Sir Frances Drake Briefly mentioned the slave trade and how terrible it was, and how wonderful it was that We put a stop to it.  English Civil war (might be mainly due to our history teacher being a civil war re-enactor) Very briefly touched WW1 trenches.   Oh we also did guy fawlks - as in the plot itself and not the reason for it other than they where Catholics and didn't want a Protestant King. Then it was options aged 13-14 time where History now became optional.  History at GSCE the optional History was either focused on the Tudors,  or Modern World history which I took.  that was 80% Post WW1 - WW2.  the rest was Cuban missile crisis, assasination of JFK.  and Russia - end of the Tzar's Lenin and Stalin.