British Multiculturalism

[ParkCungHee]

Wait, hold on, does this mean that Quacker's is now pro-Scottish independence? If he's giving up on multi-ethnic states as a Doable Thing, it seems to be implied that he'd prefer England to go it alone...?

England seems like a pretty dubious prospect as a monocultural state.

 

[Traitorfish]

Well, he may have been the most evil man in history but he understood a thing or two about how value systems compete.

How about Franco, then? All the ethnic chauvinism, but without that whole embarrassing "Holocaust" thing to complicate your admiration.

No. I have been careful to never state that multiethnic countries are all conflict ridden or on the verge of Balkanisation. I just said they're more prone to it than nation-states.

That's an interesting movement, there, from "ethnic" to "nation". Was that deliberate?

He has a point. The British national project has generally involved some limited cultural pluralism, however stunted and however deformed by English or Protestant chauvinisms, and your scepticism towards even the most limited pluralism suggests a certain distance from that whole project.

England seems like a pretty dubious prospect as a monocultural state.

That's certainly true. But, English nationalists tend to struggle with that sort of complexity, and I wouldn't want to attribute to Quackers any more thoughtfulness than I can be certain he's comfortable with.

 

[useless]

I'm not sure it's an unfair question Quackers, why can't you answer it? You've made clear your disdain for multiculturalism, why is it a stretch to assume you dislike Britain because of it's multicultural history stretching back to the Picts, Celts, Romans, Saxons, the Norse, Normans, etc? Britain has ALWAYS been multi-ethnic, yet you detest that, so the obivious conclusion is that you take issue with Britain itself.

 

[Oruc]

Quackers literally hates the foundation on which the British Nation was formed.

Inheritance?

I would generally describe myself as a small-c conservative. I don't want anything to do with the Conservative Party. I believe all three parties are very similar, there isn't much choice.

The thing I dislike about MPs is the similarity in backgrounds.
Every other MP I read about has the same career path. Attended a Private school or a grammar school. Went to Cambridge and did Politics, Philosophy and Economics. They than begin a career in a "think tank" which is affiliated to one of the major parties, after a few years they become advisors to a minister. They than fight for a seat in an enemy stronghold and lose it. By the next election they are given a safe seat to win and bam, they're an MP!

We need people who haven't been doing politics their whole lives. They need to have a bit more "real world" experience IMO.

Well I think your views are coming along nicely (not to imply we will end up with the same views).
I think you will need to reject Liberal values in their entirety to properly oppose Multi-culturalism, but that is just me.

 

[useless]

That and a union of four ethnic groups in the british isles as well as many others in the colonial empire.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Inheritance?

Protestant Supremacy?

 

[Oruc]

Protestant Supremacy?

Bribery?

 

[Quackers]

I'm not sure it's an unfair question Quackers, why can't you answer it? You've made clear your disdain for multiculturalism, why is it a stretch to assume you dislike Britain because of it's multicultural history stretching back to the Picts, Celts, Romans, Saxons, the Norse, Normans, etc? Britain has ALWAYS been multi-ethnic, yet you detest that, so the obivious conclusion is that you take issue with Britain itself.

Never said it was unfair.
Still, i dealt with this already. Read my posts.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Bribery?

Cattle Raiding?

 

[Oruc]

I'm not sure it's an unfair question Quackers, why can't you answer it? You've made clear your disdain for multiculturalism, why is it a stretch to assume you dislike Britain because of it's multicultural history stretching back to the Picts, Celts, Romans, Saxons, the Norse, Normans, etc? Britain has ALWAYS been multi-ethnic, yet you detest that, so the obivious conclusion is that you take issue with Britain itself.

The idea that Britain is multi-ethnic changes on what point people are making. Such as when downplaying the Saxon influx, that It was just changing of the elites. They will say Britain has remained largely unchanged since even before the Celts and that the Celts themselves was simply 1 tribe in the south east and a large cultural influence.
I find the ethnic nature of Britain changes with the winds

 

[Traitorfish]

That and a union of four ethnic groups in the british isles as well as many others in the colonial empire.

Only four? What about the Manx and Cornish? And the Ulstermen tend to feel themselves quite distinct. Then you've got the Shetlanders and Orcadians, who consider themselves distinct peoples (and bloody well sound like it). Channel Islanders, who further divide by island and by mother-tongue. You could probably make a case for the Anglo-Irish, too, perhaps even distinguishing the Old and New English. Then there's the various traveller groups, some of whom are totally indigenous, and some of whom have been in the Isles for so long as to be entirely distinct from any continental ancestors. And then you've got more recent immigrant groups who've still been around long enough to develop distinct identities within the Isles, like the Irish-Scots or the Anglo-Jews (Sephardic and Ashkenazi). Scottish identity only really makes sense when placed on a spectrum from Anglic to Gaelic, running geographically from Berwick to Stornaway, and further complicated by immigration and internal migration. And even England, which we take to be an ethnic unity, is actually pretty regionalised, and there's at least a case for a distinct "Northern" or "Northumbrian" ethnicity.

Ethnicity is complex, is the point, even within what we imagine to the borders of a single "nation". Even movements that consider themselves homogenising and exclusionary tend to be, in practice, pluralist on some level, if only those which they've identified (often erroneously) as politically irrelevant.

 

[useless]

Yeah but they're all white so it can't be multiculturalism because [Insert excuse]

 

[Traitorfish]

It's debatable whether the Romanichal are white, sociologically speaking, but they're certainly indigenous. So even on those terms it's more complicated than standard schemas allow.

 

[Dachs]

I used to believe that I was -ok- with multiracialism. Yet, the evidence from history is clear, I think Dachs will agree with me on this. Multi-ethnic countries do not last. They're unstable and conflict is more common. Now, I would like to believe that we can live in a harmonioous multi-racial society, thats what my good heart tells me. Yet a look at the evidence proves it is untenable. Humans have inbuilt irrational distrust, a fear of others who aren't the same as them. Thats how tribalism began at the dawn of time. Now, you can say to me we can overcome our instincts and I agree with you, we can do this with many other things. Yet, i think this may prove impossible beyond a tipping point. As long as their is one huge group, at least 90% of the population than the type of conflict i discuss will be very low and on the whole it will be peaceful. Expand that to four ethnic groups with 25% of the population and such a society will be unsustainable.

There is no causative link between "multiculturalism" and macro indicators of the sorts of things that you would consider to be indicative of "national decline".

There is no causative link between the existence of multiple exclusive ethnic identities in a single state, and political instability. Or between those identities and economic decline. Or between those identities and, uh, I dunno, welfare expenditures or whatever. Those things just aren't there.

There have been plenty of individual instances of ethnic identity politics and warfare fracturing countries in the way that you seem to be thinking about. Sure. But there are also plenty of instances of countries dealing with the same symptoms without possessing obvious areas of ethnic friction. And there are plenty of instances of countries who incorporate loads of different identities and there is no such problem.

Basically, it's exactly what Traitorfish said.

So Quackers has turned into a raging racist and xenophobe? Can't say I'm surprised.

This isn't actually a new opinion on his part, as far as I can tell.

I'm also sceptical that Dachs, a vocal proponent of civic nationalism, is going to come out swinging for your side.

Gold star.

Sometimes the evidence is staring you in the face but you're looking too hard you can't see it. I think this is your particular malady at this time.
Dachs may be a "vocal proponent of civic nationalism" but he is smart enough to agree, at least in part, with my position.

Sooo, now you think I'm stupid?

 

[Tahuti]

Sooo, now you think I'm stupid?

Nah, Quackers has an erotomaniac fixation on you, Dachs! Relish it!

 

[Kyriakos]

It's debatable whether the Romanichal are white, sociologically speaking, but they're certainly indigenous. So even on those terms it's more complicated than standard schemas allow.

Indian people supposedly are linked to 'aryan' or something. The 'Roma' (obvious exonym, and a very later one too) are argued to have been expelled from India due to being of the lowest caste (their name translates to "not to be touched", and obviously there is the current lower caste in India with the same eponym).

Moreover:

Singular:

Scheme (or Schema)

Plural: Schemata

 

[Tahuti]

Indian people supposedly are 'aryan' or something. The 'Roma' (obvious exonym, and a very later one too) are argued to have been expelled from India due to being of the lowest caste (their name translates to "not to be touched", and obviously there is the current lower caste in India with the same eponym).

Well, there are some uncanny genetic similarities between the Roma and the Dalits from India. Though the process when Roma left India was much later, around the 1200s or something.

 

[Domen]

For instance, successfull countries with multiethnic peoples are rare.

Well, just look at the multiethnic British Empire and how it collapsed.

 

[NovaKart]

I don't have any issues with multiculturalism but I prefer when it happens naturally. I don't really care for diversity initiatives and multicultural window dressing. At my university during our orientation we even had a multicultural advisor, I don't know what he actually did.

 

[Tee Kay]

"If you want change don't draw attention to it" line of thinking, I guess. How very Tao.