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By PEM
#14848753


A brand new video!

Europe’s great contribution to humanity is a fact that is undeniable, a fact that Europeans should never have to observe in shame. Europeans can and should be proud of the civilization to which they belong. There is much at stake. It is essential that we find pride in what our societies stand for. Stand up to protect our continent, our culture, and our civilization!

[ http://www.ourcontinent.eu/ ]
By Decky
#14848851
There is no European civilisation, there is British, French, Russian, Italian and Greek civilisation etc. What is European civilisation? I have never heard of it.
#14848925
I love that the video about how great "European civilisation" is, features an aerial shot of an enormous WW1/WW2 cemetery without any sense of irony.

"Look at the millions of pointless deaths we caused over the last century: isn't it glorious?!"

I'm so thankful that we have the Channel to protect us from continental insanity, be it Papism, Bonapartism, Weltpolitik or Nazism. I only wish we'd make better use of it.
#14848926
Decky wrote:There is no European civilisation, there is British, French, Russian, Italian and Greek civilisation etc. What is European civilisation? I have never heard of it.


Of course there are regional differences, but the Enlightenment was a broad European project. There's a lot of overlap.
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By Beren
#14849000
Heisenberg wrote:I'm so thankful that we have the Channel to protect us from continental insanity, be it Papism, Bonapartism, Weltpolitik or Nazism. I only wish we'd make better use of it.

How about Marxism? :lol:

Also, where would you be without the Roman or the Norman conquest?
By Decky
#14849138
A great deal better off.

Anyway the Roman conquest didn't have much effect on us in the long term. You would be better off using the Saxon conquest and the Norman conquest in your question (the fact I had to explain this to you shows how little you know about our history).
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By Wellsy
#14849146
I did have the sense that the enlightenment and it's associated liberal ideals would be framed as the culture of Europe, as this has been a manner in which some have rejected modernism due to it's guilt by association of Europe's colonialism/imperialism.
https://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/malik/not-equal.htm
Enlightenment universalism, such critics argue, is racist because it seeks to impose Euro-American ideas of rationality and objectivity on other peoples. ‘The universalising discourses of modern Europe and the United States’, argues Edward Said, ‘assume the silence, willing or otherwise, of the non-European world.’ [3]
...
The Western tradition is not Western in any essential sense, but only through an accident of geography and history. Indeed, Islamic learning provided an important resource for both the Renaissance and the development of science. The ideas we call ‘Western’ are in fact universal, laying the basis for greater human flourishing. That is why for much of the past century radicals, especially third world radicals, recognised that the problem of imperialism was not that it was a Western ideology, but that it was an obstacle to the pursuit of the progressive ideals that arose out of the Enlightenment.

As Frantz Fanon, the Martinique-born Algerian nationalist, put it: ‘All the elements of a solution to the great problems of humanity have, at different times, existed in European thought. But Europeans have not carried out in practice the mission that fell to them.’ [5] For thinkers like Fanon and James, the aim of anti-imperialism was not to reject Western ideas but to reclaim them for all of humanity.


This is a good piece in discussing how Marx emerges from the tensions of private property in refutation of the idea that Marx somehow isn't a continuation of the 'western' tradition.
E. V. Ilyenkov, 1974 - From the Marxist-Leninist Point of View

Which is in part why we're stuck in a sort of timelessness as we've lost the sense of progress and thus aspiration for something beyond capitalism.
Spoiler: show
https://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/theory/postmodernism/modules/jamesonpostmodernity.html
FREDRIC JAMESON, in his magisterial work, Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1991), has offered us a particularly influential analysis of our current postmodern condition. Like Jean Baudrillard, whose concept of the simulacrum he adopts, Jameson is highly critical of our current historical situation; indeed, he paints a rather dystopic picture of the present, which he associates, in particular, with a loss of our connection to history. What we are left with is a fascination with the present. According to Jameson, postmodernity has transformed the historical past into a series of emptied-out stylizations (what Jameson terms pastiche) that can then be commodified and consumed. (See the next module on pastiche.) The result is the threatened victory of capitalist thinking over all other forms of thought.
...
1) the weakening of historicity. Jameson sees our "historical deafness" (xi) as one of the symptoms of our age, which includes "a series of spasmodic and intermittent, but desperate, attempts at recuperation (x). Postmodern theory itself Jameson sees as a desperate attempt to make sense of the age but in a way that refuses the traditional forms of understanding (narrative, history, the reality obscured by ideology). For postmodernists, there is no outside of ideology or textuality; indeed, postmodern theory questions any claim to "truth" outside of culture; Jameson sees this situation as itself a symptom of the age, which in turn plays right into the hands of capitalism: "postmodernism is not the cultural dominant of a wholly new social order..., but only the reflex and the concomitant of yet another systemic modification of capitalism itself" (xii). Jameson calls instead for the return of history; hence, his mantra: "always historicize!" Jameson pinpoints a weakening of history "both in our relationship to public History and in the new forms of our private temporality, whose 'schizophrenic' structure (following Lacan) will determine new types of syntax or syntagmatic relationships in the more temporal arts" (Postmodernism 6). As Jameson explains, the schizophrenic suffers from a "breakdown of the signifying chain" in his/her use of language until "the schizophrenic is reduced to an experience of pure material signifiers, or, in other words, a series of pure and unrelated presents in time" (Postmodernism 27). Our loss of historicity, according to Jameson, most resembles such a schizophrenic position.

https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/g/r.htm#grand-narrative
And what is this theory about “grand narrative” really about? It is another version of the end of history, another way of saying that bourgeois society is as good as it gets.

Nevertheless, the concept does tell us something about postmodern capitalism. Postmodern society has made the conception of real progress difficult to sustain, meaning is contested and fragmented, and it is difficult to see a way out of the morass. The old conceptions of the onward march of the working class to socialism are no longer convincing. This is the nature of the political terrain in which socialism must find a way forward.

https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/p/o.htm#postmodernism
Postmodernism is the period of bourgeois society from the late 60s/early 70s up to the present, and in particular the cultural aspects of this period, characterised by the marginalisation of traditional (religious, kinship, custom, etc.) practice and belief and a disappearance of the prospect of achieving social harmony.
...
Once capitalism, in the words of the Communist Manifesto “has left no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous ‘cash payment’ [and] drowned out the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation [and] resolved personal worth into exchange value”, then the basis for postmodern society has been laid. Postmodern society is characterised by scepticism in relation to science, all forms of authority and the possibility of an ethical life, by relativism and disbelief in any concept of value beyond 'what pays', while the very ideas of originality, progress and truth seem themselves to be derivative, out-dated and untrue.
...
Any wonder then, in those countries, that idealist, sceptical and subjectivist outlooks became rampant, with writers theorising that “there is nothing outside of the text”. The same phenomena has been exhibited in the periods of decline of earlier civilisations. Especially as the limits on growth which were the root of the Environmental Movement became manifest, natural science lost the mystique it had held since the days of the Enlightenment. Social theory and feminist and marxist ideas in particular were turned to demonstrate the limits of scientific knowledge. (See Jacques Monod's Ethic of Knowledge and Jürgen Habermas's Knowledge and Human Interest).

Even modernist ideals are degenerating and lack substance to sustain them...
http://rickroderick.org/202-nietzsche-on-truth-and-lie-1991/
But in this essay Nietzsche says the following “What then is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonymies, and anthropomorphisms; in short, a sum of human relations which have been enhanced, transposed and embellished poetically and rhetorically, and which, after long use, seem firm, canonical and obligatory to a people. Truths are illusions bout which one has forgotten that that is what they are, metaphors that are worn out and have lost their sensuous power. They are like coins that have lost their pictures – faces – and which now matter only as metal, no longer as coins”.

That’s taken to be one of Nietzsche’s outrageous statements about truth, that its metaphoric, it’s a sum of human relations, deployed in many fields of force, in short; mutually agreed upon fictions, which after long use seem obligatory to a people. And this… I take it to be one of Nietzsche’s stronger remarks about truth. And I think that we can make that clear with the history of our own country.

There are certain things that after long use that have become obligatory for us to believe are true. I have heard, and I have heard it ad nauseam, and until ah, well, ad nauseam. Let me say it in my West Texas way; until I want to puke, I have heard it. That the United States is a democracy. Because after long use, after herd like obedience to this word, we have come to believe it. The most dangerous thing, in some ways, that threatens our democracy is the belief of the overwhelming majority of our citizens that perhaps in some sense we do have one. If we questioned deeply what a democracy is, you know, a government in which the power really does come from a people or whatever. If we question these worn out metaphors, and looked behind… in other words, try to look for their origins in power and who deploys them, it might become interesting to see that this is an illusion about which we have long since forgotten that it is one.

The power of Nietzsche’s genealogy is to look at how important words to us; like truth, good, evil, and in the case I just used, democracy. Not in order to destroy these words forever, or to destroy their deployment, but in order to point out how they become worn out after long use. And certainly, compared to the vibrancy of the word democracy, you know, its earlier – as he said – earlier when the word was used in the dawning of the bourgeois revolutions, when it was used with such sensuous power, with such effect, you know, with little town meetings and public spheres, people fighting things out… vigorous like that… at least as we idealise it, perhaps that was an illusion too. But compared to that, our current democracy does seem – to borrow the metaphor – to be like a coin without a face. A metaphor that is worn out and lost its power.

Now many of you are going to go “Oh it hasn’t lost its power, oh hell, everybody is becoming a democracy, the whole world is” Which may just simply mean, in Nietzsche’s terms, that Nihilism, that threat that I mentioned before that comes along with modern life, along with the spread of the commodity and work as the relation that all humans will be subjected to, it may just simply mean that that will win. That that will win. And if it’s called democracy, it will just be a herd like lie, something we say to one another so that we don’t stand out at dinner parties.
By fokker
#14849151
Decky wrote:A great deal better off.

Anyway the Roman conquest didn't have much effect on us in the long term. You would be better off using the Saxon conquest and the Norman conquest in your question (the fact I had to explain this to you shows how little you know about our history).


Wihout the Roman conquest you would likely be speaking German and living in your ancient homeland of Angeln in Germany :) . Due to migration only few Angeln remained. Wihout the Roman conquest native Brits (that is not you) would have been better able to repel the invasion.
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By Beren
#14849275
Decky wrote:A great deal better off.

Anyway the Roman conquest didn't have much effect on us in the long term. You would be better off using the Saxon conquest and the Norman conquest in your question (the fact I had to explain this to you shows how little you know about our history).

Sorry that I wasn't aware that Anglo-Saxon conquest is considered an alien continental invasion in Anglo-Saxon Britain. :lol:

I picked the Romans and the Normans because they were neither British nor Anglo-Saxon and invaded the Brits and the Anglo-Saxons respectively, and they both had to cross the Channel to make a progressive impact on Britain. I could have mentioned Christianity too perhaps, but Papism was mentioned as a negative thing before, so I wasn't sure.

Now I wonder whether what the fact I had to explain this to you shows.

Also, maybe you would be better off following Heisenberg's example and not responding.
#14849279
Well, real Christianity is fine, but as ever, the European papist dogs perverted it into a pagan cult of nonsense and superstition. Henry VIII's divinely-inspired decision to free us from continental tyranny proved to be the greatest decision in our history.

Also, what was so brilliant about the Norman conquest? Only a continental European could think violent subjugation by a foreign invader, turning most of the population into little more than serfs - something that took centuries to reverse - is "progressive". :lol:
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By Beren
#14849281
Heisenberg wrote:Henry VIII's divinely-inspired decision to free us from continental tyranny proved to be the greatest decision in our history.

Maybe it did, but it doesn't mean that your stupid anti-continental demagoguery is smart or right.

Heisenberg wrote:Also, what was so brilliant about the Norman conquest? Only a continental European could think violent subjugation by a foreign invader is "progressive". :lol:

Sure Heisenberg, it must be a uniquely continental European thing because not any British people believe violent subjugation by the British was progressive all around the world. :roll:

The Normans had a progressive impact on Britain's feudal development, didn't they?
#14849284
Wait, @Beren Beren - are you actually taking my posts seriously? :lol:

For the avoidance of doubt, dear readers, I do not really think Henry VIII was a divinely inspired soldier of Christ, or th at continental Europeans are inherently evil. Jesus Christ :lol:
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By Beren
#14849286
Heisenberg wrote:Wait, @Beren Beren - are you actually taking my posts seriously? :lol:

For the avoidance of doubt, dear readers, I do not really think Henry VIII was a divinely inspired soldier of Christ, or th at continental Europeans are inherently evil. Jesus Christ :lol:

I had doubts regarding the divinely inspired thing, but I completely missed the sarcasm, due to our last exchange perhaps. You played very convincingly. :up:
#14849309
If we can't even mercilessly take the piss out of each other any more, European civilisation is truly doomed :excited:
By Decky
#14849559
Beren wrote:Sorry that I wasn't aware that Anglo-Saxon conquest is considered an alien continental invasion in Anglo-Saxon Britain. :lol:

I picked the Romans and the Normans because they were neither British nor Anglo-Saxon and invaded the Brits and the Anglo-Saxons respectively, and they both had to cross the Channel to make a progressive impact on Britain. I could have mentioned Christianity too perhaps, but Papism was mentioned as a negative thing before, so I wasn't sure.

Now I wonder whether what the fact I had to explain this to you shows.

Also, maybe you would be better off following Heisenberg's example and not responding.


You think the Norman rapists and murders had a progressive impact on the country? :lol:

And you are still supprised we want to be free of imperialist Eurotrash?
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By Potemkin
#14849563
Wihout the Roman conquest you would likely be speaking German and living in your ancient homeland of Angeln in Germany :) . Due to migration only few Angeln remained. Wihout the Roman conquest native Brits (that is not you) would have been better able to repel the invasion.

This is not correct. The Romano-Celts of Britannia only became vulnerable to invasion from Germanic tribes after the Romans withdrew their garrisons in about 400 AD. Rome itself was sacked in 410 AD, so if anything the Romans had left it a bit late; they should have abandoned Britain to its fate about a generation earlier than they did. One of the strategic mistakes of the Roman Empire during its decline and fall was that they tried to hold onto everything they had ever gained, even strategically and economically useless provinces like Britannia. Britannia was only conquered by the Emperor Claudius as a prestige project, to bolster his political position in Rome itself. And if the Romans had never conquered Britain, it would likely still have been invaded and colonised by the Germanic tribes during the Age of Migrations. The residual wealth left from being part of the Roman Empire's trade networks (while those still existed) just made it a more tempting target for takeover, that's all.
#14849569
Europe is a great civilisation but it is unlikely to survive into the next 40 years. By the 2060s it is going to be a very different place. And we will start to see the problems really manifest by 2045. And this is essentially because Europeans are so individualistic and mercantile. It's impossible continue on the current path of extreme liberalism and individualism and think it is somehow going to be sustainble. Therefore by 2065 you will see profound changes have taken place in Europe which cannot be reversed and which will change the continent beyond recognition.
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By Beren
#14849571
Decky wrote:You think the Norman rapists and murders had a progressive impact on the country? :lol:

And you are still supprised we want to be free of imperialist Eurotrash?

The British were the most imperialist Eurotrash, and I wonder whether it could have happened without the Norman conquest.

I'm still a bit surprised indeed that it's so easy to fool the British people.

Now go and hate somebody else, please.

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