Monday 3 August 2020

Why it's best to be English

I take it that being English is the best thing to be - since the mass media regard it as so shameful. The rule in mainstream culture is Anything But English - much as spirituality is Anything But Christianity.

If I was a celebrity; I would call myself Irish - and would years ago have obtained an Irish passport on the basis of my Granny's birthplace; just as I would say I was spiritual but not religious, with a particular interest in Zen - or, even better, Sufism. I would play-up all non-English (exotic, victim-status) aspects in my history as happens in almost every celebrity biography on Wikipedia.


(Exaggerating, inventing and lying-about one's origins and ancestry to claim victim-status is regarded as acceptable; since it displays agreement with the prevalent moral framework, and accepts the validity of our dominant paradigm.)


Since the mass media are puppets of Satan (to put matters succinctly); this hostility tends to suggest that if you are - like me - an English Christian; this might just be the best possible thing to be - simply because the worst kind of people regard you as their prime enemy.

I know this isn't conclusive; because even the most evil people have some good in them; and it might be that there is indeed something especially evil about the English - but on the whole, I take the prevalent anti-Englishness on the part of the most loathsome of persons and institutions as a big compliment!


But why should it be that there is enforced a perpetual Open Season on the English by people who are themselves deeply subservient to the agenda of evil? My understanding is related to what I call Romantic Christianity - and that there was some divinely-required work of this kind that the English were supposed to do, from around 1800-ish...

This Did Not Happen; and instead the English abandoned Christianity and the spiritual; invented such (over the long-term) blights of leftism as radical atheism, the sexual revolution, abolition, pacifism, feminism and socialism; to make modern England among the worst examples of anti-Christian, morally-inverted, soul-crushing, bureaucratic, nihilistic, materialist and despairing nations.


But, apparently, something about the English is still feared by the powers of evil; as was evident after the pro-Brexit vote: there followed a shock wave of (almost incoherent) terror through the Global Establishment, apparently because they feared that the English might awaken to their destiny...

Well, it did not happen, and now shows no sign of happening. To all appearances, the current English are abject in their embrace of the new Globalist, self-loathing, before-'other'-abasing totalitarianism.

But the Establishment remain uneasy, and intend to ensure that the English are pressed-down; and stay on the ground, sprawling and grovelling...


For such reasons, I think it is still - despite everything - best to be English (assuming you are English); and I shall not be trying to pass myself off as anything else.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am an English Christian and delighted to be so! However, I have always felt that Scotland and the border county is my spiritual home (of course the lines on the map have changed somewhat over the centuries). Perhaps this is because I am the namesake in several of the famous adventure stories for boys penned by Robert Louis Stevenson and set largely in the Highlands. That aside though, there has always been something about ancient Celts and Britain's that draws across the millennia with a sense of nostalgia and longing that I seldom feel about any history. A previous incarnation perhaps?! More sinisterly though, I must confess my surname traces back to a French origin prior to its lowland Scottish one...still, no one is perfect I suppose.

David

Karl said...

For he himself has said it, and it's greatly to his credit that he is an Englishman.

Adil said...

For me, "English" is synonymous with the man who set sails and cast light over the world. The white man is he who has been able to step out of himself, make the world his oyster, and become a global citizen. White man is he for whom the planet is a playground of opportunities. White man is liberal and adventurous in his essence. This is what reactionary nationalists misunderstand. They become upset that minorities are encouraged to embrace their group identity and culture, and demand the same for white people. But the truth is there is no "white" people. White man has stepped out of himself, and made the world his oyster. White man is the generic, wandering, homeless phenotype of the American marketplace. The world has become his culture. The liberal mindset of embracing multiculturalism and globalism is just the continuation of the colonial Western mentality of viewing the world as a eurocentric attraction. A smorgasbord of interesting cultures and places. So to counter the liberal, one must remind him that his universal xenophilia has turned into a spoiled bourgeois excess. The right way is not to become like the pagan brutes or barbarians, because it doesn't suit Western man to be a tribalist. In this sense, the rules for white man and for the world truly are different. White man does not have the luxury to retreat into tribalism, for he bears the great responsibility of carrying the world on his shoulders. He must bear the burden of humanity, but by abandoning Christ his civilization must go under in his own liberal excess.

Bruce Charlton said...

@Eric - Not my view. Like Tolkien I regard Empire as hostile (ultimately lethal) to Englishness.

Dave said...

Being of mostly English descent myself, I was going through my late aunt's papers and discovered an old obituary that mentioned that my great-great-grandfather was "said to be of Mohawk descent". Aha, I thought, now I know what ethnicity and haircut to wear to my next job interview at Harvard!

But seriously, I know envy when I see it, and I'm glad to be of an ethnicity that inspires such envy in others.

Michael Dyer said...

I think there’s something similar in America. Founding stock, WASP is usually the bad guy, their food is bland, probably bigoted, no fun, lazier than immigrants, boring, no style, etc. Backbone of the American populace for the first two hundred years, but somehow simultaneously less American than literally anyone who’s been here five minutes. American is an ethnicity, it appears my family has been here for nearly 400 years for example, I’d say we’re pretty invested.

I remember seeing a British journalist writing that at least Barack Obama wasn’t “of Anglo-Saxon” descent, guess he didn’t know his mother could qualify for the Mayflower society as I recall. It’s also funny because you can be a WASP without being wealthy, wholly Anglo-Saxon (the Roosevelt family for example), or Protestant (William F. Buckley).

Bruce Charlton said...

@Michael - Not sure whether you know that I have a long term interest in RW Emerson and his circle - and it is striking to realise that most of the Americans in the early 1800s were something like fourth or fifth generation - it was an 'old country'.

a_probst said...

"The English, the English, the English are best
I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest!"
--Flanders & Swan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=o6nRT2EWXkk

Mister Quigg said...

non Angli sed angeli
sometimes a name is significant

Avro G said...

Have you ever read William Cobbett’s A History of the Protestant Reformation in England and Ireland? After reading it I felt that so much of what we think of as best in the English was suppressed or distorted at this time. It was not only a putsch against the social order but against the spiritual one as well.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/William-Cobbett-History-Protestant-Reformation/dp/B00NBKI6NO/ref=mp_s_a_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=william+cobbett+reformation&qid=1596917329&sprefix=william+cobbett&sr=8-5

Bruce Charlton said...

@AG - No, although I read Cottage Economy and Rural Rides as a mid teen. I have mixed feelings about the Reformation. Much was indeed lost - Henry VIII destructions, theft and murder were perhaps the worst events after 1066 (at least, until recently); but there were a lot of benefits too.

Bruce Charlton said...

@AG - We need to note that Cobbett wasn't (so far as I remember) a Christian (or, at least, not seriously so) - so his interpretation of the Reformation was 'sociological'; must miss out that element so crucial to the people of that time.

Avro G said...

He was C of E as I recall so probably not any sort of enthusiast. But he beautifully rendered the charm and charity of England pre enclosure and pre destruction of the monasteries. He said no traveler in those days was ever more than (I think) six miles from a monastery where he could receive free food and lodging. This was a time when the church was a potent defender of the people against the crown.