Where the foxes caper unmolested, the government packs your school lunch, and “There never was an England”.
Patriotism should be avoided in school lessons because British history is “morally ambiguous”, a leading educational body recommends.
History and citizenship lessons should stick to the bare facts rather than encouraging loyalty to Britain when covering subjects such as the Second World War or the British Empire, the Institute of Education researchers said. Teachers should not instill pride in what they consider great moments of British history, as more shameful episodes could be downplayed or excluded.
The slave trade, imperialism and 20th century wars should be taught as controversial issues while students are deciding how they feel about their country, the report says.
Three quarters of teachers felt obliged to tell students about the danger of patriotism. The survey suggested neither pupils nor teachers wanted patriotism endorsed by schools.
h/t Texas Canuck
Europe is Dead. England is the icing on the cake.
I hope to have a good 40 years ahead of me yet. Just hoping that I get through it and am gone before the US and Canada hoist the green flag of the Caliphate.
Didn’t the Royal Navy end slavery? (At least outside of muslim countries.)
so when england subsides to being a non-descript vague pudding, what will fill it up??
it will be an interesting read in 200 years ..
I imagine that a new ingredient will spice up the future blandness..
This is a joke right?
A nation that has contributed so much to the world including our sense of justice and government is committing suicide. Fin de siecle….
OH GREAT
I’m waiting for Winston Churchill’s five volume “History Of The English Speaking People” to be burned any day now.
And while we’re at it how about Shakespeare and yes Bacon… Oh and don’t forget that Britian only subjugated its empire and never provided any technological,judicial nor governing/organisational skills to so much of the world.
Mankind truly has the brains of a microbe in that he never learns by his own history and therefore is doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over.
ENOUGH…Go for it Britain…toss yourself on the dung heap of history…lemmings of the sea unite!
musings of an old ex-brit
Correct me if I wrong but didn’t Karl Marx expect Britain would embrace communism. If he did it looks like his time frame was a little off but better late than never.
Any way we could send Taliban Jack or the Liberal lights over there to speed up the process. Of course with no right of return.
Everyday more lefty rats eat away at the foundations of civilization.
Obviously a leftist, agenda-driven “report”.
“Three quarters of teachers felt obliged to tell students about the danger of patriotism. The survey suggested neither pupils nor teachers wanted patriotism endorsed by schools.” I question that. Loaded questions, push polls, distorted statistics … I suspect that large numbers of mainstream teachers, students and parents aren’t quite so leftist as this “education institute” purports to show.
Unfortunately, given the leftist nature of the BBC and most of the British MSM, we’ll almost certainly not hear of any negative reactions and efforts concerning this “report”
More justification for Home Schooling.
The authors added: “It is hard to think of a national history free from the blights of warmongering, imperialism, tyranny, injustice, slavery and subjugation, or a national identity forged without recourse to exclusionary and xenophobic stereotypes.”
This is a textbook example of attempting to make the perfect the enemy of the good. I think that the authors exaggerate in their descriptions; however, not so much that a student of history is unaware of what they are attempting to state. The problem is that British History needs to be compared to the histories of other great nations and the contrasts demonstrated. These authors also need to point to an example of a nation’s history they approve of – by the above quote, it appears they believe no such nation has ever existed.
Stephen Harper:
“Now I know it’s unfashionable to refer to colonialism in anything other than negative terms. And certainly, no part of the world is unscarred by the excesses of empires. But in the Canadian context, the actions of the British Empire were largely benign and occasionally brilliant.”
I think I might change “occasionally brilliant” to “often beneficial” but other than that it sound great to me.
“Are countries really appropriate objects of love? Loving things can be bad for us, for example when the things we love are morally corrupt. Since all national histories are at best morally ambiguous, it’s an open question whether citizens should love their countries.”…..Dr. Hand, co-author of the report.
Want to bet there are some mommy issues going on with Dr. Hand.
In a saner age, when people had autonomous minds, this kind of crap scholarship would have been laughed into oblivion, let alone ever make it to some pinhead politician for consideration.
The saddest part, as with every insane British nanny state directive, the sheeple lift their grazing heads for a minute, sniff the wind for a minute, then resume their oblivious grazing until the next ludicrous edict.
We could be ten years behind them. Never surrender.
Amazing how many years ahead that some people can see.
‘Suicide of the West’ is a good read and incredibly accurate considering he started it in 1959.
‘Liberals, unless they are professional politicians needing a vote in the hinterland, are not subject to strong feelings of of national patriotism and are likely to feel uneasy at patriotic ceremonies.’
‘Patriotism and nationalism, too, are non-rational and discriminatory. They invidiously divide, segregate, one group of men (my group) from humanity, and do so not in accord with objective merits determined by deliberate reason but as the result of habits, customs, traditions, and feelings inherited from the past. Patriotism and patriotic nationalsim thus come under liberalism’s logical taboo.’
Good read on where ‘liberalism’ has been taking us.
Well I guess the title pretty well tells us eh?
PS
That is ‘Suicide of the West’ by James Burnham.
Cold, too cold, starting to lose control of faculties, need more anti-freeze.
Well ok, coffee will do.
America Alone says it all.
but check this out. – it aint just the UK ,
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/article3283690.ece
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“because British history is “morally ambiguous”
yeah… that must be why everybody’s beating
down the doors to immigrate to africa.
*
Perhaps the “ambiguous morality” of political correctness, DDT bans,coddling of terrorists and the damage wrought by the Labour Party, could also be added to the curiculum.
Here’s a thought – teach history, warts and all, without the presentism bias and revisionism about the evil industrial revolution (also known as Marxism). After all, socialism has delivered such prosperity to citizens.
It could be called “Revisionist British History – the New British Disease.”
And do remember to include a section on the Islamic slave trade, which began in Africa long before the Magna Carta and continued well after the abolition in the UK.
I don’t actually mind this. History should not be propaganda or indoctrination, but an honest and objective description of what has gone before. Questions of right and wrong, pride and regret, are best left for the students to decide – if they even choose to do so.
But this also goes for the opposite type of indoctrination – that is, turning history into an extended rant against “white imperialism”.
So far as warning students about the “dangers of patriotism”, that is not the teacher’s job. It’s also ludicrous – doesn’t anyone believe that mindless nationalism is a big problem in modern-day Britain?
I don’t actually mind this. History should not be propaganda or indoctrination, but an honest and objective description of what has gone before. Questions of right and wrong, pride and regret, are best left for the students to decide – if they even choose to do so.
But this also goes for the opposite type of indoctrination – that is, turning history into an extended rant against “white imperialism”.
So far as warning students about the “dangers of patriotism”, that is not the teacher’s job. It’s also ludicrous – does anyone believe that mindless nationalism is a big problem in modern-day Britain?
“Everyday more lefty rats eat away at the foundations of civilization.”
Well said, Dave.
When sharia law is established in Europe and Canada in 20 years, we will all be saying:
“First, they took away the history, but I was not a(n)historian ……….”
Look out! Warren is upset!
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/02/01/warren-kinsella-an-open-letter-to-the-liberal-party-of-canada.aspx
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funny… these guys aren’t doing too much whining about colonialism…
“Government forces and rebels in Chad have been clashing northeast
of the capital N’Djamena, prompting the former colonial power France
to send in reinforcements to help the army.”
“Rebels say they want to overthrow President Idriss Deby if he does
not accept a power-sharing deal.”
*
I’m proud of my Scot/Irish/English background and saddened for those trapped in the hopelessly PC EU. If we had greater control of our own country I would suggest we open the borders to the political refugees from British Empire to come to the U.S. Unfortunately we are only an election away from the same Hell.
Sounds like the sort of education program the British tribes would have come up with so as not to offend the Saxon settlers. Don’t see too many Celtic place names in England these days do you?
Too funny “morally ambiguous”. Forget patriotism. Just allow the students to compare and contrast the the worlds countries. Compare arts, science, freedom, literature, health, life spans, wealth, war, peace, religious and cultural evolution etc. The students would quickly come to their own conclusions as to nations and cultures ranking.
How very sad.
Canada will be next. The Northwest Mounted Police, Vimy Ridge, Billy Bishop, the RCAF, the Medak Pocket… All will be ignored in Canadian classrooms.
Very sad.
Finally, someone is going to take that whole morally ambiguous, “Defend yourself from invasion by the Nazis” thing and put it in it’s proper context.
Won’t this also make some forms of Holocaust denial possible? After all if the British are now just as bad as the Nazi’s and Britain’s part in ending Nazism is now not to be celebrated, doesn’t the other side of that coin mean the lamenting of Germany’s defeat?
Or are they just going to do what Canadian schools have done to WWII and just talk about mistreated Japanese Canadians and Women in factories?
My, this is certainly more direct than the weasels of multi-culti collectivism usually get. Amazingly similar to the mindless bleatings of the Afrocentric school supporters in Toronto.
Just keep all this in mind for the next election, eh?
We’re only a few years behind Britain on this. I’m sure Richard Warman and others like him believe that patriotism, like freedom of speech, is an American concept. Those on the Canadian left are, I’m sure, keenly aware of the “dangers of patriotism”, if only because those contemptible Americans are such a patriotic lot. Again we see that any form of indoctrination is strictly forbidden, unless in the name of religion, in which case it’s beyond reproach.
Actually it gets worse. The EU has intentions of increasing its own power at the expense of nation-states.
Under the personal leadership of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the EU breathed life into the rejected constitution, which contained the building blocks of a United States of Europe. The new treaty will shift power from nation-states to Brussels in critical areas of policymaking–such as defense, security, and energy–where the United States finds more traction on a bilateral basis. It will restrict the sovereign right of EU member states to determine foreign policy and poses a unique threat to the Anglo-American Special Relationship. Above all, it is a treaty that underscores the EU’s ambition to become a global power and challenge American leadership on the world stage.
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Europe/wm1789.cfm
Kate: Just a suggestion. You might want to follow this throughout 2008 at SDA. Thanks.
I think this is about the perversion of the word “nationalism”. Because of their horrible wars, the Europeans have themselves convinced (as does a lot of academia in North America) that nationalism caused the World Wars. It didn’t. Fascism did. But they think if they can remove national identity and become transnational, then all will be well, wars will be prevented.
I agree it is a bit silly to go around like Paul Martin and the Librano$ used to do during elections saying “I love Canada … but Stephen Harper does not love Canada”.
It is indeed silly to love a country or the company you work for. Love should be reserved for your family. But it is OK to love liberty and the freedom it gives you to choose who you work for. The sovereignty of Canada makes liberty possible for us to make the necessary compromises to occupy this land and keep the evil forces of fascism out. Therefore Canada represents the liberty we love for our families and that’s how we end up saying “I love Canada”.
In that context, “loving a country” can be a debatable point on semantics. But semantics is not what these transnational utopians are lecturing to the poor Brits. They are saying because corruption exists in Britain and things are not perfect, therefore they must attack the whole country’s morals. That’s like a Dr. cutting off your head to get at a pimple.
Why don’t we deport all the west’s leftards to North Korea and shoot them if they try to come back?
News Flash!
7.2 earthquake felt in the area of the British Isles and North-west Europe.
Warning: Those living along the coast advised to move 100 miles inland.
Scientists suspect cause is the cumulative effect of 115,000 Canadian war dead turning over in their graves.
Every day, the lefties do something that just increases my hatred and contempt for them. I simply cannot comprehend why anyone with a smidgen of intelligence would go alone with garbage like that. Is socialism truly the doctrine for mentally retarded individuals?
Warwick, its because the shipping would be too expensive.
This is a cross post:
I bring up the “Apartheid High” issue here because, if anyone—Colby Cosh at the National Post today—thinks “Afrocentric” schools won’t be hot beds of revisionism to downright lies, as well as incubators for radical Muslims, who will, among other subversive things, be studying Arabic as an “international language”, is naïve to the nth degree. As I’ve noted before, I don’t believe there are enough authentic educators, versus the legion of PC impostors in the system, with either the brains or integrity to make the correct pedagogical and moral choices needed to provide the kind of schools ALL of our children deserve, let alone those with pathological problems.
I’ve spent some time in “Afrocentric” schools—those with large populations of black students—where far more emphasis is put on Martin Luther King—an American: what irony!—and any number of others with dark skin than Canadian history, the product of which is the free society in which these black students and their families enjoy all kinds of privileges and perqs. (For many of them, welfare recipients, this is on the back of the rest of us: by omission to propaganda—for one thing, check out Canada’s history textbooks—our public school systems basically allow, even encourage, black—and all other—children to dismiss and hold in derision the host culture.)
Many teachers in such schools are politically motivated, lefty cheerleaders with mushy brains. A sense of proper order and adult authority, and the lack of intellectual rigour in these (and, BTW, most other public) schools is often palpable. The administrators are by far the worst: political correctness is both their religion, and the altar on which they’re prepared to sacrifice any teacher of integrity, who’s actually colour blind re matters of accountability and discipline. (I’ve been the victim of this travesty myself and know countless colleagues who share the same, demeaning, dangerous-for-all-of-us experience.)
As a society, as a civilization, we’re committing suicide.
Most people here know that I’m a committed Christian—very used for the past 15 years to keeping my opinions off the public record. (Now, why would that be?) I believe entirely that our “death wish” has everything to do with the fact that we’ve become a secular society—very fertile ground for multiculturalism and its twin, moral relativism.
As a British-background (family here for over 200 years) Christian, who’s lost just about everything of my cultural identity in the public square—thanks, Trudeau—I have a pretty firm idea not only of where I come from and who I am, but of how I feel about that: damn proud!
I know one does not have to be either Christian or descended from British stock to feel the way I do. But, I posit, that, in Canada, as the respect for both the political and judicial institutions the British, including members of my family, bequeathed to this country, and the Judeo-Christian foundation on which they were built, has dwindled, so too has the sense of a strong cultural and personal identity, which is not prey to the sinewy, deadly tentacles of political correctness.
That’s my take on it. I believe the Christian part of the puzzle is accurate for—ironically !—Britain as well as the non-British West. What do others think?
Why has the West so colossally lost its integrity, pride and guts?
Phantom,
Send them in the leaky boats. If they sink mid-way, humanity would be better off.
As someone who can (similarly to Citoyen Dion) claim British citizenship it is saddening to realize that England has become the most politically correct nation on earth.
Every week brings a new absurdity. Only Mark Steyn could bring humor to this sad spectacle.
But Canadians should not be smug. Imagine a couple of years of a Dion government propped up by the contemptible Jack Laydown.
Pray for England.
Well, lookout, I certainly agree with your post. I think I could actually write a book about that topic. Here a just a few thoughts.
I believe entirely that our “death wish” has everything to do with the fact that we’ve become a secular society.
I think if we were to look at the American example we can remember that what worked was when the theists (primarily Christians) and the deist humanists agreed as much as possible to be non-sectarian rather than secular.
I think one other large change was a factor. Today the term separation of church and state primarily means that if anything can be traced to a Christian influence then it must not affect public policy in any way. (I used to think it applied if it could be traced to any theistic belief but we are seeing more and more Islamic influences.) The original idea meant something else. I think we all know that the original American idea was intended to be a restriction on the state creating its own church and an attempt to not repeat the European problems. However, it also meant something else. It meant that the church had a role in society – and it also meant a limit to the state in some other institutions. I am referring here to the idea, particularly, of schools. It is a relatively recent idea that schools are the domain of the state – they used to be the domain of non-state actors such as parents, churches, or private organizations. These non-state actors still operate in this domain, of course, but the state actor dwarfs all others combined.
Well, like I said, I could write a book on this. My wife and I have home-schooled our children for about 15 years now.
What do you call a thousand Lefties at the bottom of the ocean, Warwick?
(Not that I could ever counsel such a thing, to channel Richard Warman for just a moment.)
Brent Weston, we’re on the same page.
Of course, Canada has no doctrine of separation of church and state: the lefties, if they weren’t so ignorant, might be very displeased to know that they revere an AMERICAN doctrine! This doctrine also, does not mean, as you point out, freedom FROM religion, as it has been erroneously interpreted by activist American judges and, in Canada, by the functionaries of our public institutions.
I altogether admire you and your wife for home schooling your children: a very wise choice. I hope this option won’t be banned at some point. As you know, the state keeps an eye on this movement, and, like the Internet, would be all too happy to reduce its influence.
When the rigours of home schooling are behind you, Brent, write that book!
It’s just like the way schools in Canada stress the Japanese internment rather than the bravery of our soldiers.
But why do they do it? One simple reason. If you can show that our nation’s history is not valuable because it is bad, then we have no reason to rely on past morals or values to dictate how we should act today. We have a blank slate and don’t have to abide by the regular rules of conduct that our forebearers thought were necessary.
It’s just another way to throw off all the moral shackles that some members of our society wish we didn’t have.
If, on the other hand, our history is something to be proud of, then the people who lived a century ago may have known something important and acted well, and we should emulate them. And since the people who lived a century ago tended to be religious, tended to believe there is a right and a wrong, tended to believe that responsibilities must be met, then we must at all costs discredit them so we can recreate society the way we want.
I don’t think people consciously think that way; it’s just what happens.
SheilaG, I altogether agree with you. Thanks for your thoughtful posts.
“By 2050—earlier, probably all real knowledge of Oldspeak will have disappeared. The whole literature of the past will have been destroyed. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron — they’ll exist only in Newspeak versions, not merely changed into something different, but actually contradictory of what they used to be. Even the literature of the Party will change. Even the slogans will change. How could you have a slogan like “freedom is slavery” when the concept of freedom has been abolished? The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.”……Orwell, from “Nineteen Eighty-Four”.
Poor Orwell, when he described the totalitarian state fashioned on the Nazis he never dreamed his beloved socialism would be what has destroyed Britain so thoroughly. Oh, the irony.
If you spend time at wikipedia looking up Orwell, there are plenty of idiot lefty academics postings that still don’t get the paradigm shift.
When one reads online Brit newspapers that are overflowing with examples of PC insanity, and combines that with the (apparently unprecedented, except perhaps for the 1950s exodus), outpouring of native born Brits, (primarily English), heading to Australia, NZ, Spain, etc, it’s evident that ‘Great’ Britain ain’t.
Poor Orwell, when he described the totalitarian state fashioned on the Nazis he never dreamed his beloved socialism would be what has destroyed Britain so thoroughly. Oh, the irony.
Now that’s a key point. I wonder how many know that Orwell was a socialist.
The most striking thing I ever read from Ludwig von Mises was that socialism mutates into fascism because the socialists don’t have the stomach to actually do what needs to be done to bring their programme to fruition.
Er, reader tip: Don’t be a fool like me and read Hayek’s The Constitution of Liberty in the morning and watch a Dem debate. Truly mind-blowing experience. Actually, same deal with listening to McCain!
This is really sad…and SheilaG — right-on!
Time for an update to the song:
“Drool, Britannia! Britannia drools away! Britons e’er will be slaves.
The nations once so blest by thee,
Shall n’er in their turn to tyrants fall;
While thou shalt fade as reason flees,
To be dread and pitied by them all.”
It is best to note that the British commoner has little voice in anything these days that goes on in Britain; they are being run into the ground by Leftards and political correctness gone amuck. The British certainly do not like what is going on, but until they light the fire in their bellies and unite as one, they will be sucking up this crap.
Lookout and Brent. Our death wish comes from becoming a secularist nation? Give your head a shake.
Every leftist I know goes to church. Mickey mouse beliefs don’t help anyone develop the critical thinking skills necessary to stay away from the PC crap coming out of Britain.
The conservative side of the political spectrum might have a little more success in numbers of people if we could shed the religious wing nuts.