How England Sees Itself

IdleRich

IdleRich
"maybe more in the middle or even closer to the former. Because the Romans did not come at all close to setting up elaborate exploitative machinery on other continents designed to work for many generations, generating wealth for Romans while depleting and impoverishing the colonies"
They definitely did set a Roman ruling class in place in countries to the South, East and West of Rome. They ran these countries for their own benefit and if it didn't last as long as they planned it to then that wasn't cos they had a sudden change of heart.

"Romans did not engineer their CITIES to specifically keep dark skinned citizens in quarantine, with no jobs/schools/hospitals, and full of narcotics; etc. etc. etc."
Well obviously they didn't have the same access to narcotics but I think it's pretty clear that if you were a non-Roman from a protectorate you didn't have the same status as a Roman citizen - a rule that was systematically enforced.
I don't think that Rome invaded and conquered Britain cos they were afraid that the people there might have different shaped faces.
 

zhao

there are no accidents
none of that matters. i've stated what the much larger, contextual point is. please see previous page.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
That is the greatest post you have ever written on this forum, Zhao.

This post was so unexpected I've taken zhao off ignore (for now) to see what prompted it.

Right.

Zhao, I'm going to say a few things about you and your worldview, at least some of which I think you'll agree with. I suppose (though I could be wrong) that Craner said you were racist because your posts seem, at a superficial level, to display a conviction that there is something fundamentally and uniquely awful about white people, something not shared by people from other parts of the world, no matter how unpleasantly this or that non-European nation may have behaved towards its own people or another nation or race. You've said that this isn't the case and I'm prepared to believe you. I think what you have a problem with is what I might as well call 'modernity', although 'the West' is probably equally appropriate. Either way, it's a shorthand for a whole spectrum of things, including but not limited to: rationality, objectivity, science, materialism, atheism, capitalism and consumerism. Robert Pirsig, in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, calls it 'a blind monster, a death force':

Other things fit in too. They talk once in a while in as few pained words as possible about "it" or "it all" as in the sentence, "There is just no escape from it." And if I asked, "From what?" the answer might be "The whole thing," or "The whole organized bit," or even "The system." Sylvia once said defensively, "Well, you know how to cope with it," which puffed me up so much at the time I was embarrassed to ask what "it" was and so remained somewhat puzzled. I thought it was something more mysterious than technology. But now I see that the "it" was mainly, if not entirely, technology. But, that doesn’t sound right either. The "it" is a kind of force that gives rise to technology, something undefined, but inhuman, mechanical, lifeless, a blind monster, a death force. Something hideous they are running from but know they can never escape. I’m putting it way too heavily here but in a less emphatic and less defined way this is what it is. Somewhere there are people who understand it and run it but those are technologists, and they speak an inhuman language when describing what they do. It’s all parts and relationships of unheard-of things that never make any sense no matter how often you hear about them. And their things, their monster keeps eating up land and polluting their air and lakes, and there is no way to strike back at it, and hardly any way to escape it.

Somewhere along the line, I apparently volunteered for the position of Avatar of Modernity, so I act as a grounding rod for your rage towards it. And you like to see everything you hate in the world neatly bundled together into modernity, so you decide, for example, that 'science' is part of the problem when it comes to modern-day racial inequality. It's true that, for a while, it was popular to misuse Darwinian evolution to attempt to justify white colonialism and imperialism, but this was very much a post-facto justification. On the Origin of Species was published in 1859, 350 years after the trans-Atlantic slave trade was established and 50 years after slavery had been abolished in British territories and the United States. And it became universally taboo in mainstream scientific circles after WWII, less than 100 years later. Would there be any less racism in the world today if no-one had ever thought to use a scientific theory of evolution as a basis for a pseudoscientific theory of racial supremacy? Maybe, I don't know. But it certainly had nothing to do with millions of slaves being shipped across the Atlantic in the 17th and 18th centuries. (FWIW, I agree that this particular period of slavery has had more of an part in shaping the modern world than, say, the slavery of other European peoples by Romans. This is because of the extent of the trans-Atlantic trade, in both the number of people enslaved and the distance they were taken; the relative recency of it, ending around 200 years ago and only 150 years ago in the former Confederacy; and the fact that - unlike Italians vs. Germans, for example - people of mainly European and mainly African ancestry can be easily distinguished at a glance, which of course has made it easier for prejudice and inequality to be perpetuated.)

Now the reason I mentioned slavery by Arabs, Egyptians and others in pre-modern times is not - as you persist in claiming - to 'justify' anything at all, but just to point out that the European involvement was a continuation of an institution that had existed since antiquity. A tradition, you might say. Now you're a big fan of tradition because it exists in opposition to modernity, so to call something 'traditional' is the next thing to saying it's good. You project this prejudice onto me and end up concluding that I think slavery is 'good'! Or at worst, regrettable but basically unavoidable, and therefore not something worth getting too worked up about. I don't know how many more ways I can think of to say "that's bullshit" other than "that's bullshit", but it is. Just because a problem is very old does not mean it's not a problem worth fighting and it does not mean it can't be solved. Look at smallpox: it killed and maimed for thousands of years and then at some point in the 20th century, thanks to an enormous concerted effort, it was eradicated. Traditions change and can disappear; some traditions are good so when they disappear, it's sad, but others are shit and when they're finally ditched, it's a good thing.

And nowhere have I ever said, or even implied, that 'might is right'. Might is mighty, that's all. When it's wielded by people motivated only by personal gain, atrocities are bound to occur.

For some reason, any attempt on my part to provide some historical context on how and why Europeans in the early modern period did what they did is turned into an alleged 'justification', which seems to stem from your belief that modernist slavery is somehow qualitatively worse than any other kind of slavery. To me this sounds like a fallacy, like people who will seriously argue that when a fascist regime murders a million people it's a worse crime than when a communist regime murders a million people, or vice-versa. It's the modernity of the people doing it, rather than what was actually done, that makes it so particularly repugnant.

You also seem to have got the idea that I'm some sort of cheerleader for capitalism, which does make me wonder if you actually read any of my posts or just see the username 'Mr. Tea' and mentally replace all the text with 'yay, capitalism!'. It's perfectly fucking clear that the world is a shocking mess and that capitalism is playing a huge part in this, and that it's imperative that we try to find alternative ways of living. However I do not go as far as to say that the world we're living in is the worst possible world and therefore *any* alternative to capitalism is preferable (since, for example, I think feudalism, theocracy, national socialism and Stalinism are all self-evidently worse). This is of course not remotely the same thing as saying 'capitalism is the best system we have, so deal with it', although it may look like that to anyone who insists on viewing the world in an infantile monochrome. This with-us-or-against-us attitude leads to the fallacy of my-enemy's-enemy, which you demonstrate time and time again - like when you call Kat Bigelow a modern-day Riefenstahl, but want to read bin Laden's poetry. Hey, he may have murdered thousands in an attempt to drag the world back to his imaginary ideal of the 7th century, but he stood up to 'the West', to the Anglo-Euro-(Judeo)-American Great Satan, so credit where credit's due!

I could go on, though I'm not sure there'd be any point. All I'll say in closing is that it's remarkable, for someone who rails against modernity and everything to do with it, that you seem to be pretty happy being immersed in it and enjoying all the benefits it brings. You live in a secular, liberal society and take full advantage of all that that offers to the lifestyle hedonist, but constantly rail against those awful, soulless atheists. You approve of religion in a very general way without subscribing to any one particular faith, because all that praying looks a bit of a drag and anyway, most of them would require you to give up something you enjoy doing. You excoriate capitalism and consumerism while working as a commercial graphic designer...eh, I'm not even gonna go into that one. Maybe it's not so remarkable at all. Maybe that's what postmodernity is all about: retweeting a blog post about the evils of sweatshops on an iPhone made in a sweatshop...but plenty of people here could talk about this more articulately than me, so I'll leave it there.

Zhao, I think you owe me an apology for calling me a pro-slavery white supremacist. I hope I've managed to convince you why that was an unfair slander on me.
 
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D

droid

Guest
This post was so unexpected I've taken zhao off ignore (for now) to see what prompted it.

Always a mistake, though I am tempted. I wonder if he's the most ignored poster on Dissensus?

...

Not to emphasise the personal dimension that seems to have encroached here, but even though Tea is cast as the Dissensus everyman whipping boy (and its occasionally deserved), I've met few people who are willing to take the kind of abuse he's suffered over the years (often from myself), and bounce back without any trace of bad humour and a willingness to enter back into dialogue with the same people who throw shit at him.

That takes real generosity of spirit, and if I had to chose who to be stuck in a lift with I'd take Tea over Zhao any day.
 
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zhao

there are no accidents
lol Droid. all of your animosity, and i mean ALL of it, stem from that 1 single episode, in which i found a comic strip racist, and you called me names because of it. because there were not any friction between us, and even many good exchanges, before that point.

how someone can be so harboring of negative emotions as to let a single relatively inconsequential disagreement like that make them full of hate for ever after, is entirely incomprehensible to me.

oh well, i hope you realize one day that it's pretty silly, but chances of that are slim to none.

in this regard, i agree with you, Mr Tea does deserve some props. and Tea, thanks for the lengthy reply, i'll get back to you shortly, if my day's schedule allows.
 

zhao

there are no accidents
but first, thread needs some color:

screen-shot-2012-08-17-at-19-37-58.png


i'll edit it out later, don't worry.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Always a mistake, though I am tempted. I wonder if he's the most ignored poster on Dissensus?

...

Not to emphasise the personal dimension that seems to have encroached here, but even though Tea is cast as the Dissensus everyman whipping boy (and its occasionally deserved), I've met few people who are willing to take the kind of abuse he's suffered over the years (often from myself), and bounce back without any trace of bad humour and a willingness to enter back into dialogue with the same people who throw shit at him.

That takes real generosity of spirit, and if I had to chose who to be stuck in a lift with I'd take Tea over Zhao any day.

Cheers droid - lol at "occasionally deserved", can't say fairer than that. :)

Still, I'd rather this didn't descend into an online popularity contest...perhaps it's a bit late for that, I dunno. I'm sure 99% of people here are ultimately on the side of humanity, even if they have different ideas about how to pursue that agenda. There's a ridiculous amount of bad blood between people who agree about most important things.
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
I suppose (though I could be wrong) that Craner said you were racist because your posts seem, at a superficial level, to display a conviction that there is something fundamentally and uniquely awful about white people,
I assumed it was the misty-eyed Jack-Kerouac Uncle-Tom's-Soundsystem romantic racism. Although I guess that's the flipside of the same thing.
 

zhao

there are no accidents
This post was so unexpected I've taken zhao off ignore (for now) to see what prompted it.

Right.

Zhao, I'm going to say a few things about you and your worldview, at least some of which I think you'll agree with. I suppose (though I could be wrong) that Craner said you were racist because your posts seem, at a superficial level, to display a conviction that there is something fundamentally and uniquely awful about white people, something not shared by people from other parts of the world, no matter how unpleasantly this or that non-European nation may have behaved towards its own people or another nation or race. You've said that this isn't the case and I'm prepared to believe you. I think what you have a problem with is what I might as well call 'modernity', although 'the West' is probably equally appropriate. Either way, it's a shorthand for a whole spectrum of things, including but not limited to: rationality, objectivity, science, materialism, atheism, capitalism and consumerism. Robert Pirsig, in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, calls it 'a blind monster, a death force':



Somewhere along the line, I apparently volunteered for the position of Avatar of Modernity, so I act as a grounding rod for your rage towards it. And you like to see everything you hate in the world neatly bundled together into modernity, so you decide, for example, that 'science' is part of the problem when it comes to modern-day racial inequality. It's true that, for a while, it was popular to misuse Darwinian evolution to attempt to justify white colonialism and imperialism, but this was very much a post-facto justification. On the Origin of Species was published in 1859, 350 years after the trans-Atlantic slave trade was established and 50 years after slavery had been abolished in British territories and the United States. And it became universally taboo in mainstream scientific circles after WWII, less than 100 years later. Would there be any less racism in the world today if no-one had ever thought to use a scientific theory of evolution as a basis for a pseudoscientific theory of racial supremacy? Maybe, I don't know. But it certainly had nothing to do with millions of slaves being shipped across the Atlantic in the 17th and 18th centuries. (FWIW, I agree that this particular period of slavery has had more of an part in shaping the modern world than, say, the slavery of other European peoples by Romans. This is because of the extent of the trans-Atlantic trade, in both the number of people enslaved and the distance they were taken; the relative recency of it, ending around 200 years ago and only 150 years ago in the former Confederacy; and the fact that - unlike Italians vs. Germans, for example - people of mainly European and mainly African ancestry can be easily distinguished at a glance, which of course has made it easier for prejudice and inequality to be perpetuated.)

Now the reason I mentioned slavery by Arabs, Egyptians and others in pre-modern times is not - as you persist in claiming - to 'justify' anything at all, but just to point out that the European involvement was a continuation of an institution that had existed since antiquity. A tradition, you might say. Now you're a big fan of tradition because it exists in opposition to modernity, so to call something 'traditional' is the next thing to saying it's good. You project this prejudice onto me and end up concluding that I think slavery is 'good'! Or at worst, regrettable but basically unavoidable, and therefore not something worth getting too worked up about. I don't know how many more ways I can think of to say "that's bullshit" other than "that's bullshit", but it is. Just because a problem is very old does not mean it's not a problem worth fighting and it does not mean it can't be solved. Look at smallpox: it killed and maimed for thousands of years and then at some point in the 20th century, thanks to an enormous concerted effort, it was eradicated. Traditions change and can disappear; some traditions are good so when they disappear, it's sad, but others are shit and when they're finally ditched, it's a good thing.

And nowhere have I ever said, or even implied, that 'might is right'. Might is mighty, that's all. When it's wielded by people motivated only by personal gain, atrocities are bound to occur.

For some reason, any attempt on my part to provide some historical context on how and why Europeans in the early modern period did what they did is turned into an alleged 'justification', which seems to stem from your belief that modernist slavery is somehow qualitatively worse than any other kind of slavery. To me this sounds like a fallacy, like people who will seriously argue that when a fascist regime murders a million people it's a worse crime than when a communist regime murders a million people, or vice-versa. It's the modernity of the people doing it, rather than what was actually done, that makes it so particularly repugnant.

You also seem to have got the idea that I'm some sort of cheerleader for capitalism, which does make me wonder if you actually read any of my posts or just see the username 'Mr. Tea' and mentally replace all the text with 'yay, capitalism!'. It's perfectly fucking clear that the world is a shocking mess and that capitalism is playing a huge part in this, and that it's imperative that we try to find alternative ways of living. However I do not go as far as to say that the world we're living in is the worst possible world and therefore *any* alternative to capitalism is preferable (since, for example, I think feudalism, theocracy, national socialism and Stalinism are all self-evidently worse). This is of course not remotely the same thing as saying 'capitalism is the best system we have, so deal with it', although it may look like that to anyone who insists on viewing the world in an infantile monochrome. This with-us-or-against-us attitude leads to the fallacy of my-enemy's-enemy, which you demonstrate time and time again - like when you call Kat Bigelow a modern-day Riefenstahl, but want to read bin Laden's poetry. Hey, he may have murdered thousands in an attempt to drag the world back to his imaginary ideal of the 7th century, but he stood up to 'the West', to the Anglo-Euro-(Judeo)-American Great Satan, so credit where credit's due!

I could go on, though I'm not sure there'd be any point. All I'll say in closing is that it's remarkable, for someone who rails against modernity and everything to do with it, that you seem to be pretty happy being immersed in it and enjoying all the benefits it brings. You live in a secular, liberal society and take full advantage of all that that offers to the lifestyle hedonist, but constantly rail against those awful, soulless atheists. You approve of religion in a very general way without subscribing to any one particular faith, because all that praying looks a bit of a drag and anyway, most of them would require you to give up something you enjoy doing. You excoriate capitalism and consumerism while working as a commercial graphic designer...eh, I'm not even gonna go into that one. Maybe it's not so remarkable at all. Maybe that's what postmodernity is all about: retweeting a blog post about the evils of sweatshops on an iPhone made in a sweatshop...but plenty of people here could talk about this more articulately than me, so I'll leave it there.

Zhao, I think you owe me an apology for calling me a pro-slavery white supremacist. I hope I've managed to convince you why that was an unfair slander on me.

alright maybe you're not a member of the EDL. but you must see how in a thread about injustice, anyone who keeps banging on about "it has always existed, in every corner of the world" sounds like he is saying "shrug. get over it."

that is exactly the sort of thing "might is right" people say, you DO realize: "Anyone who CAN murder and rape, WILL. So stop blaming Europe."

my bad for bringing all the other "modern/liberal/capitalist" stuff into it, i shouldn't have since it has not much bearing on the topic at hand. so i'm not going to address your own incredibly reductive and simplistic view of my positions here.

and yes modern racism is exponentially worse than previous "racisms", if they can be called that at all. in ways i have already outlined.

anyway, lets move on.

this logo for a German cafe gets under my fucking skin in a big way every time i see it:

"come try our good wholesome coffee made by the salt of the earth natives, hard working but happy slaves, brought to you fresh, all the way from Haiti or where ever."

04e18c4d43.jpg


if any of you have ever been to Germany, you know that it's not very diverse like London or Paris at all. So in the context of a uniformly white demographic, this logo.

i refuse to buy coffee from there.
 
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Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
alright maybe you're not a member of the EDL.

Ahh, sweet redemption!

but you must see how in a thread about injustice, anyone who keeps banging on about "it has always existed, in every corner of the world" sounds like he is saying "shrug. get over it."

Maybe it sounds like that to you. We'll probably never agree on this but let me try and explain one more time. Take the smallpox example I used earlier. If the "it's always existed, shrug, get over it" attitude had prevailed, the disease would still be killing and maiming millions of people every year to this day. It had always existed, until mass vaccination programmes in the last century eradicated it. Something that has existed for a long time does not necessarily last for ever, and is certainly not justified in continuing to exist just because of its antiquity.

Of course a disease is a different thing from human behaviour and attitudes but behaviour and attitudes can nonetheless be changed. Hell, rape is 'natural' if you define anything 'natural' as something non-human animals do, and it certainly has a venerable history; is that any reason not to try and prevent it happening? Of course it's fucking not.

Really, I think this just goes to show the fallacy of dividing things into 'natural' and 'unnatural' categories - and it certainly explodes the prejudice that anything 'natural' must therefore be good or at least unavoidable.

04e18c4d43.jpg


if any of you have ever been to Germany, you know that it's not very diverse like London or Paris at all. So in the context of a uniformly white demographic, this logo.

i refuse to buy coffee from there.

I agree this sort of thing is pretty crappy. On the subject of coffee specifically, I've heard some depressing things about how little different most so-called 'fair trade' brands really are from other brands in terms of how much money the growers actually receive.

I dunno about Germany being 'uniformly white', there's well over 3,000,000 Turks living there, for one thing. Though I guess there's a lot fewer black people than in Britain or France, granted.
 
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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
It's a pretty crap shop. Some of them have those awful fucking self-service checkouts now.

On the very rare occasions I go into WHS nowadays (usually to see if they have a copy of the Wire), I get flashbacks to the '90s, when I and my friends would routinely go in there to browse magazines and books, buy records etc - when it still seemed to have a clearly definable role. Seems like a different age really.

As to the article on London, it doesn't really go deeply enough into the atmosphere here, I don't think. I certainly haven't noticed a souk-like atmosphere in any stores...

" The aisles of Waitrose, let alone Marks & Spencer’s food section, are disturbingly quiet. Taking a taxi practically requires taking out a mortgage." - Just not true. There are still a hell of a lot of rich people here. In fact, sometimes it's perplexing just how full restaurants/bars/etc are all the time, and how there is still that much money about.
 
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mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
What a Sad Little Empire Britain Has Become
by Janine di Giovanni Mar 22, 2013 4:45 AM EDT
Already chocked by austerity, England released its 2013 budget this week to howls of outrage. Janine di Giovanni talks to the struggling citizens of dreary, depressed London.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/22/what-a-sad-little-empire-britain-has-become.html

is this accurate, you think? hard to tell from afar.

No, it's not accurate. Certainly the Waitrose and Sainsburys (which are more upmarket supermarkets) I've been in recently havent been anywhere near empty. The writer is overemphasising something which is a definite feeling, however London is a metropolis. The recession isn't nearly effecting everyone here as much as it is in other parts of the country.
 

hucks

Your Message Here
No, it's not accurate. Certainly the Waitrose and Sainsburys (which are more upmarket supermarkets) I've been in recently havent been anywhere near empty. The writer is overemphasising something which is a definite feeling, however London is a metropolis. The recession isn't nearly effecting everyone here as much as it is in other parts of the country.

This is spot on. The difference between London and other parts of the country is huge now. This article could have been written really easily and accurately in, say, Hull, or Newcastle. London's a global city, so there's loads of foreign money sloshing around even if the locals are skint
 

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
This is spot on. The difference between London and other parts of the country is huge now. This article could have been written really easily and accurately in, say, Hull, or Newcastle. London's a global city, so there's loads of foreign money sloshing around even if the locals are skint

I was down in Folkestone a few weeks ago and the local papers are talking about it becoming the new Margate, it's in real trouble.

For people outside of the Uk, Margate has changed somewhat but for a while I would say maybe 80 percent of its shops were closed, it was like a ghosttown.

Also for fashion fans, the kids on the street corners of Folkestone appear to have taken to wearing one-piece animal onesies. So you can now buy your smack off a guy dressed as a tiger. It's quite scary.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"I was down in Folkestone a few weeks ago and the local papers are talking about it becoming the new Margate, it's in real trouble."
I went on a little holiday to Folkestone at the start of January. Had a really good time but it was like a ghost town, streets deserted and it felt like maybe midnight or something but you'd suddenly realise it was three in the afternoon (it was getting dark by then). I assumed that that was cos it was 3rd January but maybe it's like that all the time. I love the scenery and the charity shops and the old faded hotels that the king used to stay in but you can afford to drink in - it's a shame if it's really struggling.

"Even humor, the usual respite of the British, seems to be flagging in the wake of an unusually grey winter."
What about Miranda?
 
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