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Comment by deltarholamda | Hacker News Reader

His point of high church vs. Protestantism is a good one. We in the US practice a kind of competitive Protestantism designed--at least partly, if not mostly--to make the adherents feel good about themselves. There is a distinct difference between submission and proselytizing.

There is also something to the state of empire as well. The British empire had been in steady decline for a very long time before Adams or Fry started making people laugh, whereas the American empire has been ascending quickly since WWII. This sort of gestalt is hard to ignore and will certainly influence things. For example, would a 'Blackadder' sell as well in 1890? This is around the same time 'King Solomon's Mines' was selling briskly, and Haggard's story is instantly recognizable by any modern Hollywood writer.

On some level Americans are British people time-displaced by a couple of generations.

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"On some level Americans are British people time-displaced by a couple of generations."

At a certain level I don't think the UK ever recovered from WW1.

I think there is a lot of truth in that. It led to the death of patriotism (which is now considered embarrassing outside of sport), national purpose, institutions, empire, and coincided with the decline of heavy industry (which only happened much more recently in the US).

EDIT: Saying that, there is still a strong positive national identity. We're just too embarrassed to express it strongly (see patriotism), because of our fall from grace.

Going by the variety of flags i see people flying I'd say there is quite a lot of patriotism about - just not for the UK.

To be clear - I'm in Scotland and the flags I see are the Scottish flag and the EU flag (often combined). I know there has been a spate of flag flying for other reasons but I haven't actually seen that myself.

When I visit the UK, it strikes me, the number of British flags and symbols. Perhaps most so on supermarket products. We have none of that here.

I also think there is a breaking point, and we're seeing the resurgence of right wing parties in the UK and across Europe as a backlash to anti-patriotism and praise for everyone except those with a long history in their own nation.

"Anti-patriotism" doesn't really sum up the sense that many among Europe's owning and intellectual classes would prefer to "dissolve the people and elect another" via immigration. The example that shocked me, as an American, was when a story came out that certain schools in the UK had stopped teaching about World War II and the Holocaust because (second-generation, in many cases) immigrant parents objected to their kids being preached-at about the history of someone else's country. This was presented by, IIRC, the Guardian or the BBC, as a fairly reasonable objection.

To my American mind, for everything wrong with our country, come on, if you're an immigrant to the USA, it's your country. Taking on American history as your history is what it means to be part of the common civic project, and insisting that "the Allies beat Hitler and built the liberal international order and then we saw off Stalinism too" is somehow insulting to your family because those Allied soldiers weren't your blood ancestors sounds outright treasonous.

The history curriculum is (like nearly everything else) nationally set. The content of the leaving exams is also not set by the school (but by the national boards). It's possible that one school has decided to do something daft, but honestly not likely.

The story reads like ragebait, TBH. Brits are absolutely as keen on extolling WW2 heroism as anyone else.

"In England, by law children are to be taught about the Holocaust as part of the Key Stage 3 History curriculum; in fact, the Holocaust is the only historical event whose study is compulsory on the National Curriculum. This usually occurs in Year 9 (age 13-14)."

https://www.het.org.uk/about/holocaust-education-uk

So not Province of Northern Ireland, Scotland or Wales. Note that WW2 is not a statutory requirement in any of the key stages although it does feature in the examples (which are non-statutory). And a reminder that history is a required subject only to Key Stage 3, so many students won't take it after they are 14 and won't study for an exam.

Reporting on education in the UK does tend to be rage-baity and most situations are more complex when you look at them a bit closer.

(I have never taught history and never taught in the school sector)

>"dissolve the people and elect another" via immigration

This is happening almost everywhere in the West, just at different rates.

Americans lying about Europe is common disease. That being said, right wing people lying about everything is basically a pandemic now.

I would really like to see the source of that because as mentioned elsewhere in the replies the Holocaust is a compulsory part of the National Curriculum and has been at least since I was in high school in the 1990s.

To the extent that the Holocaust is part of British and American history it is that we knew very well what was going on in 1930s Germany and strictly limited the number of Jewish refugees because of domestic concerns over the level of immigration.

WWI "coincided with the decline of heavy industry" ? I can't think of any UK-based heavy industry that didn't dramatically expand between the end of WWI and say, 1958.

The UK dominated the world in coal production, shipbuilding, factory machinery and textile mills before WW1, and went into steady decline post-war.

E.g. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mikael-Hoeoek/publicati...

A large portion of the UK hasn't really accepted or internalized the fact that the British Empire is no longer a thing, and they're not the most powerful nation in the world, nor anywhere close to it.

(...And yes, that does sound like what it looks like is coming for the US, though it's not quite there yet.)

I do know the type of person you are talking about and I don't think it's the Empire as such (which is long gone) but the lingering on of the kind of exceptionalism that was used to justify the Empire. Wonderful sayings like:

"Remember that you are an Englishman, and have consequently won first prize in the lottery of life." Cecil Rhodes

Mind you - perhaps I'm just bitter because I'm a Scot ;-)

That's quite true. On a recent trip I got talking to a girl from somewhere in Europe. She spoke perfect English, of course. At some point she remarked, rather bluntly, "It must be strange for you guys because you used to rule the world." I made a joke but internally I was reeling: used to? I'm almost 40 and still hadn't realised this.

Later I was talking to another 20-something, British this time, who didn't know Dr Martens were British. I asked where he thought they were from, "I guess I assumed they were American". Sigh...

I visited London several years ago, and in the house we were staying was a relatively short book describing, for lack of a better term, "British exceptionalism", and it resonated with me as an American. I don't recall that much, but I do remember the idea, for example, that the European Union was seen to be a good thing in the eyes of the archetypal Brit "for the continent", and not for the British isles. Always exempting themselves from international cooperation/norms/laws, etc. I think America inherited a lot from the British (certainly not an original idea of mine).

Yes Minister explains it nicely:

"Minister, Britain has had the same foreign policy objective for at least the last 500 years: to create a disunited Europe. In that cause we have fought with the Dutch against the Spanish, with the Germans against the French, with the French and Italians against the Germans, and with the French against the Germans and Italians. Divide and rule, you see. Why should we change now, when it's worked so well?"

> the European Union was seen to be a good thing in the eyes of the archetypal Brit

It wasn't, hence Brexit. We were dragged in via a Customs Union against the will of the British electorate at every turn.

Read the rest of the sentence.

For a small island nation, Britain has had an outsized influence. Culturally, politically, technologically, etc. There are many reasons for it, some accidental (like geography) and some purposeful, but it remains that Britain has punched above its weight for a very long time.

America has followed a similar tack, and for many of the same reasons. High-minded ideas like "international cooperation" sound especially good to those nations who are not sitting at the top, but for those that are it does seem less than ideal. I.e., I'm sure that Montenegro is big on international cooperation, but China will justifiably ask "cui bono" (but in Chinese).

And yet... TFA

Totally agree, WW1 is really the root cause of all of Britains problems.

Victory wasn't worth the cost. It would've been better to give the entire empire to the Germans to maintain peace. It'd be lost anyway in a short amount of time. Even forcing King George and Kaiser Wilhelm to marry would've been better for them than German Republicanism and the British Royals becoming Kardashians with crowns.

and that's a very good thing. I only recognise our nation from 1945 onwards, establishment of the welfare state, the idea the government cares for its people. The idea that victims matter. While it wasn't just overnight and was many years in the making, there was this element of cruelty, a survival of the fittest, seen in the victim blaming of street urchins with rickets in the early 20th century.

In 1966 there was an industrial disaster where a school was submerged in coal waste and 116 children died. The coal company offered £50 per child as compensation. There was a national outcry that marks the change in attitude and the compensation was increased tenfold to £500 (quite a lot back then). Did we see this in Flint with the polluted water, or in Ohio when that train derailed with all the chemicals?

There's something about having absolutely everything in the world and then pissing it all away in an enormous own goal of world wars that is extremely humbling and I'd like to think that plays a key part in the British psyche and I think its for the better.

My grandparents were the war generation I knew, having lived through the blitz, and all they wanted was to sit in the garden and have a nice cup of tea. They didn't want to be the best or were looking externally for validation. Just a nice sit down and a chin wag and I think that's a positive way to be, as opposed to what I imagine was the driving force of the Imperial era in always wanting more and trying to prove how "great" our nation should be. We proved how great we are in two of the most destructive wars in the world's history where the entirity of Europe lost. We suck.

> pissing it all away in an enormous own goal of world wars

in what sense were WWI and WWII British "own goals" ?

Britain won, but it cost them pretty much everything. And while a lot of pride is connected to winning them, neither were wars Britain really had to fight.

WWI was caused by every European power thinking they could benefit from a war, leading to powder keg that blew up from a completely inconsequential event. For the British one of the motivations was getting Germany's African colonies that were in the way of building the Cape to Cairo Railway, which ended up never being completed anyways.

WWII at least had a clear villain. But it was a villain that made every indication that he didn't actually want to fight Britain. Maybe that was a ruse and Hitler would have attacked Britain after securing the continent, maybe it wasn't and a British and German empire could have coexisted. We will never know. What we do know is that fighting WWII required Britain to bleed its colonies dry, followed by losing most of them in the years after the war

I'm not going so far as saying Britain shouldn't have fought the world wars. At least WWII had justification beyond what can be seen on map. However without participation in those two wars Britain would have had a shot at continuing to be a wealthy empire

I don't mind the rationale for WW2 so much, I think the idea that Britain "didn't have to", doesn't scan. What the Third Reich was doing meant it would always be an existential threat that would ultimately result in conflict. So it was better for Britain to fight the Nazis than stay neutral.

I would however suggest that the two wars are basically the same war with just a big ceasefire in the middle, that's why I would treat them as the same mistake.

Britain mostly bankrolled WW1 and was broke by 1916. If you consider the British position prior to the war and after the wars, its an extroadinary failure. Especially considering how all the monarchs of Europe were directly related and had ample opportunities to prevent the wars. They were conflicts of hubris, over-confidence based on mostly fighting the developing world and never having to appreciate the horrors of modern artilery against their own ranks. If you look at the opening battles of the first world war the quantities of casualties are absolutely staggering. They were not prepared and under-estimated what it would take to fight these wars.

All that wealth and power wasted on turning Europe into a wasteland and sacrificing generations of young men.

In Japanese culture the failed hero is also revered, but in a solemn rather than comedic way.

Minamoto no Yoshitsune, Kusunoki Masashige, The Standing Death of Benkei, Saigo Takamori (the last samurai), the Kamikaze pilots, even Yukio Mishima...

What's interesting is that unlike the British fatalism, Japanese failed heroes are driven by duty and honor and tradition above all (even at the cost of themselves). To an outsider they are foolishly stubborn and unwilling to accept an imperfect or changing world. But in Japan that is something to be admired.

Many of those are not failed heroes. They are heroes who found success by dying honorably. "Death before dishonor" is something now known only to the criminal classes in the West, but was the norm for any feudal society (ie, Japan before being conquered by the US).

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