Quote: (09-04-2014 01:49 AM)TonyManero Wrote:
Your feelings about that, focused on the aussies, canadians, americans,etc who have been to the UK ( you could also include Ireland here), how do you see the social dynamics going on up there, the attitudes of people,gaming women.. etc Do you think the UK is more like the rest of europe (Or even western europe alone) or do the things just work the same way as they do in Australia, US, Canada,NZ..
My curiosity about that subject, It seems like the UK does not really belong to Europe culturally wise (at least in terms of people's mentality), or even western europe in terms of dating, meeting women and interacting with locals, and that you have to play the same games as you do in the rest of the english speaking world...
Any ideas?
Does anyone still read Anthony Sampson to learn about British politics and culture anymore? My old University of London (actually, London School of Economics and Institute for United States Studies) profs made us do so.
Perhaps the most famous (London) Times headline ever is this one:
"'Floods in Channel, Continent Cut Off'. This slight variation on a legendary headline in the London Times [see below] exemplifies Britain's notoriously insular view of the world." Or so goes an introduction to a lecture on the geological formation of the British Isles.
And so crow the pro-EU types, intent on condemning British insularity! Instead, I think it speaks to British independence of mind and culture, perhaps reviving under Nigel Farage and UKip. And something which led to the American founding as an independent nation, which other colonies followed and Britain compromised over.
At any rate, the famous headline sometimes gets spoofed or played upon (as above) or even ripped-off directly, such as in this more recent opinion piece headline from The Spectator:
"Fog in Channel - Continent Cut Off"
"The Anglosphere Challenge: Why the English-Speaking Nations Will Lead the Way in the Twenty-First Century" by James C Bennett (2004), posits that the harmony of cultural, linguistic, and political values enhanced by the internet age makes it likely that Anglophone nations will lead the new world order in the post-Cold War world.
That is, the UK, USA, Canada and Australia - with smaller nations like New Zealand and South Africa following - to be joined by the billion plus ex-colonial India, whose disparate nation is bound together by the English language, to shape international political system. In other words, The Anglosphere will lead and shape the world system.
Obviously, Obama dissents from this conception of positive and exceptional Anglo-American identity. Leftists like him are anti-nationalists, and their stance has been dubbed trans-national progressivism, or
"Tranzi", believing in the dissolution of nationality and nationalism as the best direction for world politics this century.
In other words, egalitarianism for all, everywhere, without exception - something that smacks of classical Marxist-Leninism to me. (The Soviet Union claimed that mantle, and obviously failed to do so, given the fall of communism.)
It is a stimulating underlying debate.