Is the UK the greatest country ever?

[Wave your flag]

TWO WORDS, industrial revolution! Started in England and was the first country to do so, it was said as a fact that the industrial revolution made the modern world including factories, railways, capitalism etc.

Japan did a study in 2010 that concluded with 54% of the worlds most used inventions was first made in Britain and by a Briton.

The English Language(Global language of business)
Modern Science (Newton, Darwin, Faraday, Bessemer, Stephen Hawking, Alan Turing), Literature (Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, J.K. rowling {! }), Parliamentary Democracy, Common Law,
the Communications (the World Wide Web, the telephone, television),
Modern nursing (Nightingale),
Modern Sport (football, rugby, cricket, golf, tennis etc),
Music (The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bowie, Adele).

At its zenith, the British Empire stretched over one-quarter of the Earth’s surface and encompassed a third of its population.

Man-eating sharks, killer crocodiles, deadly venomous snakes, poisonous spiders, malarial mosquitos: truly we are an island blessed for not one of these menaces lives here. It’s almost as if God was trying to tell us something about how special we are.

The most important civil liberties document in the world, magna cart, Habeous corpus.There would be no common and modern law without the Magna Carta. Not forgetting the discovery of DNA, the first police force, underground travel system, Oxbridge, Rolls Royce etc.

 

[enkidu_]

I won't say "ever", because it's quite subjective (for instance, many would point out that the British have not been that good in philosophy, painting, architecture or classical music as compared to the two other leading European nations of the recent times, namely the French and the Germans - though they surpassed those in other fields), but objectively, in the modern times, and if you had to give an overall assessment, yes.

That's also why US imperialism is a *******ized version of the British one : at least the latter could boast of being a civilization, spreading Shakespeare and institutions, while the US cultural supremacy is resumed with Hollywood and MacDonald's.

By the way that "Japanese study" I think is a myth.

 

[Cpt. Rishwat]

TWO WORDS, industrial revolution! Started in England and was the first country to do so, it was said as a fact that the industrial revolution made the modern world including factories, railways, capitalism etc.

Japan did a study in 2010 that concluded with 54% of the worlds most used inventions was first made in Britain and by a Briton.

The English Language(Global language of business)
Modern Science (Newton, Darwin, Faraday, Bessemer, Stephen Hawking, Alan Turing), Literature (Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, J.K. rowling {! }), Parliamentary Democracy, Common Law,
the Communications (the World Wide Web, the telephone, television),
Modern nursing (Nightingale),
Modern Sport (football, rugby, cricket, golf, tennis etc),
Music (The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bowie, Adele).

At its zenith, the British Empire stretched over one-quarter of the Earth’s surface and encompassed a third of its population.

Man-eating sharks, killer crocodiles, deadly venomous snakes, poisonous spiders, malarial mosquitos: truly we are an island blessed for not one of these menaces lives here. It’s almost as if God was trying to tell us something about how special we are.

The most important civil liberties document in the world, magna cart, Habeous corpus.There would be no common and modern law without the Magna Carta. Not forgetting the discovery of DNA, the first police force, underground travel system, Oxbridge, Rolls Royce etc.

All of those achievements listed appear to have been in the last couple of hundred years. While it's impressive, it means we are giving the industrial age a tremendous amount of weight compared to the earlier centuries.

 

[TM Riddle]

Its all good and nice but what in gods name is Adele doing in that list?

 

[Asim_khan]

You can add the NHS to that list, Nye Bevan was really onto something with that.

 

[Robert]

I won't say "ever", because it's quite subjective (for instance, many would point out that the British have not been that good in philosophy, painting, architecture or classical music as compared to the two other leading European nations of the recent times, namely the French and the Germans - though they surpassed those in other fields), but objectively, in the modern times, and if you had to give an overall assessment, yes.

.

Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, Berkely, Hume, Bentham, Russell

Hogarth, Gainsborough, Constable, Turner, Hockney, Hirst

Purcell, Handel, Holst, Delius, Britten, Vaughan Williams

 

[Robert]

You can add the NHS to that list, Nye Bevan was really onto something with that.

William Beveridge the Liberal economist designed the welfare state. Bevan enacted it.

 

[enkidu_]

Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, Berkely, Hume, Bentham, Russell

Hogarth, Gainsborough, Constable, Turner, Hockney, Hirst

Purcell, Handel, Holst, Delius, Britten, Vaughan Williams

Of course, you can come up with individual names, but I mean in terms of "tradition" : in philosophy and music, the German tradition is more potent, while in painting the French take the cake.

If you had to make a "top 10 of the greatest philosophers since the industrial revolution", the Germans would take 7-8 places, from Kant to Heidegger and with a banquet in between (Fichte, Hegel, Schelling, Schopenhauer, Marx, Nietzsche), while a "top 10 of painters" from the same period would see a slight French majority (even if I myself prefer the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood to anything produced by French Impressionism, again I try to remain objective - there are few British equivalent to Cézanne, Renoir, Monet, ...)

But taken "as a whole", the British civilization was superior : even when it wasn't first, it was an "honourable" number two, while in the fields it dominated it was well ahead of its immediate German and French rivals (in fact, in science & technology many would say that France has been overtaken in the last century by newly arrived Asiatic powers, Russia and Japan).

PS : no Edward Elgar ?

 

[enkidu_]

All of those achievements listed appear to have been in the last couple of hundred years. While it's impressive, it means we are giving the industrial age a tremendous amount of weight compared to the earlier centuries.

That's the problem of NW Europeans : they think world history began with the moment they began to have an history themselves.

The greatest British scientist, Newton, famously described himself and his colleagues as "dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants", hinting at the fact that modern scientific discoveries are the inheritance of centuries of intellectual labour harvested by other civilizations (the Indian playing a great role) - the Greeks, which are supposed to be the ancestors of NW European civilization (doubtful, as the late English scholar ML West and contemporary German scholar Walter Burkert have shown), themselves disclosed their debt to the Levant, and more precisely Egypt ; Plato, in his famous Timaeus - perhaps the most read work after the Bible during the whole Middle Ages - puts in the words of an Egyptian priest, Solon, something quite explicit : "you Greeks are children, because you have no history !" (paraphrase). This idea of Greece being a spiritual child of Egypt is too widespread to quote the classical authorities, but remember something interesting : the very name "Europe" is that of a princess (taken by Zeus) who happens to come from modern day Syria, and her brother, a certain Kadmos, was hailed to be the one who founded the Greek alphabet... it does put the whole refugee crisis into perspective when you learn that agriculture was also introduced into Europe by migrants from Levant, as per the latest research.

Yet, the modern day NW European, who in fact happens not to be Greek, but the descendants of those "barbarians" who precipitated the end of Rome, thinks that he has the right to genocide populations all over the world for their "lack of civilization" - forgetting that mere centuries ago he'd be justifying his very own demise.

But we shouldn't complain too much, such hubris has always brought the end of civilization.

 

[Napa]

Of course, you can come up with individual names, but I mean in terms of "tradition" : in philosophy and music, the German tradition is more potent, while in painting the French take the cake.

If you had to make a "top 10 of the greatest philosophers since the industrial revolution", the Germans would take 7-8 places, from Kant to Heidegger and with a banquet in between (Fichte, Hegel, Schelling, Schopenhauer, Marx, Nietzsche), while a "top 10 of painters" from the same period would see a slight French majority (even if I myself prefer the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood to anything produced by French Impressionism, again I try to remain objective - there are few British equivalent to Cézanne, Renoir, Monet, ...)

But taken "as a whole", the British civilization was superior : even when it wasn't first, it was an "honourable" number two, while in the fields it dominated it was well ahead of its immediate German and French rivals (in fact, in science & technology many would say that France has been overtaken in the last century by newly arrived Asiatic powers, Russia and Japan).

PS : no Edward Elgar ?

I would put the welfare of those who lived in the British Empire as the first criteria for judging it. The numerous famines in Ireland and India in which millions died when they were part of the British Empire certainly disqualifies Britain as the greatest country ever. Which is not to say that other Empires have behaved better, so we should drop all Empires from consideration.

[MENTION=143460]Wave your flag[/MENTION] "most important civil liberties document in the world" has little meaning when millions of subjects are starving to death. Democracy anyway occurred much earlier in Greece and Rome, and Cyrus' civil rights predated the Magna Carta by about 15 centuries:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrus_Cylinder

No doubt the British have done many wonderful things for civilization but I still would have to go with the US as the greatest country in history. Its contributions to science and technology in the 20th century and continuing are unparalleled, and millions did not die of starvation under its rule. It has its faults no doubt, like the wars it has recently helped start in Ukraine, Syria and Libya (thanks Obama and Hillary) but overall it is still the best though not perfect.

 

[Robert]

That's the problem of NW Europeans : they think world history began with the moment they began to have an history themselves.

The greatest British scientist, Newton, famously described himself and his colleagues as "dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants", hinting at the fact that modern scientific discoveries are the inheritance of centuries of intellectual labour harvested by other civilizations (the Indian playing a great role) - the Greeks, which are supposed to be the ancestors of NW European civilization (doubtful, as the late English scholar ML West and contemporary German scholar Walter Burkert have shown), themselves disclosed their debt to the Levant, and more precisely Egypt ; Plato, in his famous Timaeus - perhaps the most read work after the Bible during the whole Middle Ages - puts in the words of an Egyptian priest, Solon, something quite explicit : "you Greeks are children, because you have no history !" (paraphrase). This idea of Greece being a spiritual child of Egypt is too widespread to quote the classical authorities, but remember something interesting : the very name "Europe" is that of a princess (taken by Zeus) who happens to come from modern day Syria, and her brother, a certain Kadmos, was hailed to be the one who founded the Greek alphabet... it does put the whole refugee crisis into perspective when you learn that agriculture was also introduced into Europe by migrants from Levant, as per the latest research.

Yet, the modern day NW European, who in fact happens not to be Greek, but the descendants of those "barbarians" who precipitated the end of Rome, thinks that he has the right to genocide populations all over the world for their "lack of civilization" - forgetting that mere centuries ago he'd be justifying his very own demise.

But we shouldn't complain too much, such hubris has always brought the end of civilization.

You're very interesting when you're not coming across as angry and resentful.

 

[Cpt. Rishwat]

What's interesting is that in today's Britain there almost always seems to be a mood of anxiety or fear of the future. Why else would you get Brexit or the rise of the UKIP despite this probably being an age where the average person probably lives a better standard of life than in any time in history.

I don't think the weather helps. A few weeks of sunshine a year isn't really enough to lift the gloom and stop the rise of the Daily Mail era.

 

[Robert]

What's interesting is that in today's Britain there almost always seems to be a mood of anxiety or fear of the future. Why else would you get Brexit or the rise of the UKIP despite this probably being an age where the average person probably lives a better standard of life than in any time in history.

I don't think the weather helps. A few weeks of sunshine a year isn't really enough to lift the gloom and stop the rise of the Daily Mail era.

Seven years of no wage rises and crumbling services will do that. The Fail is a cancer in British society. It makes hatred ok.

 

[Cpt. Rishwat]

Seven years of no wage rises and crumbling services will do that. The Fail is a cancer in British society. It makes hatred ok.

Fair point about the crumbling services, not sure we'll ever get a satisfactory answer to higher wages without a rise in inflation to go with it. One thing which has really gone downhill with the modern era is the rise of the call centre. There's nothing as deflating as calling a helpline and knowing you'll be in a queue where if you're lucky you won't get palmed off to some other department overseas. Those guys try their best to give them their due, but it's always nice to deal with someone who can relate locally.

 

[Wave your flag]

I would put the welfare of those who lived in the British Empire as the first criteria for judging it. The numerous famines in Ireland and India in which millions died when they were part of the British Empire certainly disqualifies Britain as the greatest country ever. Which is not to say that other Empires have behaved better, so we should drop all Empires from consideration.

[MENTION=143460]Wave your flag[/MENTION] "most important civil liberties document in the world" has little meaning when millions of subjects are starving to death. Democracy anyway occurred much earlier in Greece and Rome, and Cyrus' civil rights predated the Magna Carta by about 15 centuries:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrus_Cylinder

No doubt the British have done many wonderful things for civilization but I still would have to go with the US as the greatest country in history. Its contributions to science and technology in the 20th century and continuing are unparalleled, and millions did not die of starvation under its rule. It has its faults no doubt, like the wars it has recently helped start in Ukraine, Syria and Libya (thanks Obama and Hillary) but overall it is still the best though not perfect.

How many native Americans were killed?

As for modern 20th century technology. The World Wide Web was invented by a British.

 

[TSA321]

Clearly these guys don't agree:

Cornish separatist terror group says it has a would-be suicide attacker in its ranks as it admits burning down Rick Stein's seafood restaurant after a decade of peace

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4677520/Cornish-terror-group-says-SUICIDE-attacker.html

 

[Napa]

How many native Americans were killed?

As for modern 20th century technology. The World Wide Web was invented by a British.

There are more Native Americans alive now compared to when the Europeans arrived. Not to say that they were not harmed, but every nation has caused harm. It is relative.

World Wide Web invented by a Brit? Don't be silly, everybody knows Al Gore invented the Internet.

Jokes apart, the Internet is a collaborative development with most of the advances coming from the US. Email was already in use back in the 1960s, long before Berners-Lee's HTTP idea of 1989. The idea was very good for sharing information, however it is only one of the many advances which has made the Internet what it is today.

 

[PakLFC]

Perhaps the most "influential" ever but not the greatest.

 

[Pakistanian]

Hell no, the UK is a little nation stuck in the past. The only people that believe in Britain's "Greatness" are English people and Brown uncles from south Asia who like all things English.

 

[ShadabFakhar]

If what you mean by country is a 'nation state'; then yes. Without a shadow of a doubt, but only because it has some of the greatest people on earth(amongst the worst, Blair, Hopkins, etc). There's a reason for Britain's greatness and it's the average Brit's ability to listen and reason with a remarkable level of tolerance before they make up their mind(this is changing due to the influence of gutter press). I'm not talking the far-right, obviously, they're the **** that remains from the distillation process that is British life.

 

[enkidu_]

I would put the welfare of those who lived in the British Empire as the first criteria for judging it. The numerous famines in Ireland and India in which millions died when they were part of the British Empire certainly disqualifies Britain as the greatest country ever. Which is not to say that other Empires have behaved better, so we should drop all Empires from consideration.

I try to dissociate the individual accomplishments of the British from their imperial hypostatic investment into few figures, the so called "élite", especially when many British have been vocal against their imperial glory at the same time when local babus were perfecting the art of licking English boots ; of course, I'm not too naïve, and know that the wealth-capital liberally drained from their colonies is what also cemented the intellectual and cultural life of the UK, considering the economic surplus could be invested in (higher) education and all, but I think we should still struggle against "generalization".

No doubt the British have done many wonderful things for civilization but I still would have to go with the US as the greatest country in history. Its contributions to science and technology in the 20th century and continuing are unparalleled, and millions did not die of starvation under its rule. It has its faults no doubt, like the wars it has recently helped start in Ukraine, Syria and Libya (thanks Obama and Hillary) but overall it is still the best though not perfect.

Oswald Spengler, one of the most read European authors in the first decades of the last century - he influenced a certain Nehru, and Iqbal quotes him preciously in his Allahabad lectures -, said that "Western civilization", which he dissociated with classical Greek-Roman civilization, would not have the same impact as the latter, because it had become "techno-centric" : it stopped producing art and culture, and concentrated upon science & technology. The problem ? Anyone can appropriate technology without the culture producing it : you can us AK47s against its own creators during an Afghan jihad, to sound graphic.

Why did he pen 100s of complex pages intertwined with considerations on history, philosophy, anthropology, ... to distillate such tautology ? To prove that that's what will happen with the West : "someone" will take their science & technology while keeping its own civilization/culture, and he explicitly named the Chinese.

Now, that is my problem with the US : it's not a "civilization", and that's the whole issue ; there's Indian philosophy, Indian literature, Indian music, ... Chinese philosophy, Chinese literature, Chinese music, ... British philosophy, British literature, British music...

The US has produced brilliant individuals in these fields, but don't have a "tradition" of their own ; they do have science & technology - and I do believe they came up with "internet" earlier, you could say Vannevar Bush' concept of memex in the 30s, who was followed by the likes of Douglas Engelbart and Ted Nelson - but S&T is not what defines a "civilization" - that's the reason there's an unanimity that the Romans were inferior to Greeks, because the former were mainly into "practical" aspects like engineering. Yet, at least Romans had philosophy - and Marcus Aurelius, the Stoic emperor philosopher is quite an explicit example - but what do you resume America with ? Hollywood and MacDonald's - the latter becoming an archetypal concept of the US for sociologist George Ritzer.

You genuinely think the US will have the same legacy in Iraq or Afghanistan (what did they leave in Vietnam, apart from napalm on civilians) as the British had on a third of the then world population ?

You could say the British were like Greeks and the Americans like Romans : the former laid down the foundations with some class, and the latter expanded it in a purely quantitative (not qualitative) magma with a provincial mindset but global perspective (the "cow-boy" now sees Indians under all latitudes).

 

[Napa]

I try to dissociate the individual accomplishments of the British from their imperial hypostatic investment into few figures, the so called "élite", especially when many British have been vocal against their imperial glory at the same time when local babus were perfecting the art of licking English boots ; of course, I'm not too naïve, and know that the wealth-capital liberally drained from their colonies is what also cemented the intellectual and cultural life of the UK, considering the economic surplus could be invested in (higher) education and all, but I think we should still struggle against "generalization".

No argument.

Oswald Spengler, one of the most read European authors in the first decades of the last century - he influenced a certain Nehru, and Iqbal quotes him preciously in his Allahabad lectures -, said that "Western civilization", which he dissociated with classical Greek-Roman civilization, would not have the same impact as the latter, because it had become "techno-centric" : it stopped producing art and culture, and concentrated upon science & technology. The problem ? Anyone can appropriate technology without the culture producing it : you can us AK47s against its own creators during an Afghan jihad, to sound graphic.

Why did he pen 100s of complex pages intertwined with considerations on history, philosophy, anthropology, ... to distillate such tautology ? To prove that that's what will happen with the West : "someone" will take their science & technology while keeping its own civilization/culture, and he explicitly named the Chinese.

Now, that is my problem with the US : it's not a "civilization", and that's the whole issue ; there's Indian philosophy, Indian literature, Indian music, ... Chinese philosophy, Chinese literature, Chinese music, ... British philosophy, British literature, British music...

The US has produced brilliant individuals in these fields, but don't have a "tradition" of their own ; they do have science & technology - and I do believe they came up with "internet" earlier, you could say Vannevar Bush' concept of memex in the 30s, who was followed by the likes of Douglas Engelbart and Ted Nelson - but S&T is not what defines a "civilization" - that's the reason there's an unanimity that the Romans were inferior to Greeks, because the former were mainly into "practical" aspects like engineering. Yet, at least Romans had philosophy - and Marcus Aurelius, the Stoic emperor philosopher is quite an explicit example - but what do you resume America with ? Hollywood and MacDonald's - the latter becoming an archetypal concept of the US for sociologist George Ritzer.

The Chinese certainly did not keep their own civilization. The Communist Party grabbed power in the name of Marx, and then Mao tried his best to destroy existing Chinese culture during and after the Cultural Revolution. If anything, today China has gone whole hog into American inspired consumerism.

The Americans are like the Romans, they are practical people. They have indeed created a philosophy for life, it is largely based on the media. The impact that America has on other countries via Hollywood cannot be overestimated.

I think modern American culture is not sustainable and will fail, for the same reason Western Europe will fail, which is demographic decline. But this failure will take a century or more.

You genuinely think the US will have the same legacy in Iraq or Afghanistan (what did they leave in Vietnam, apart from napalm on civilians) as the British had on a third of the then world population ?

You could say the British were like Greeks and the Americans like Romans : the former laid down the foundations with some class, and the latter expanded it in a purely quantitative (not qualitative) magma with a provincial mindset but global perspective (the "cow-boy" now sees Indians under all latitudes).

Via Hollywood America influences almost the entire world. Bollywood has an influence too. The success of Dangal in China means that the Chinese loved its message about what women can achieve. It definitely influences their thinking. Historically, the greatest influence on China and rest of East Asia came from India in the form of Buddhism. Now almost the entire world is buying into the philosophy of consumerism pushed by American media intertwined with messages that women are discriminated against.

I really don't give much importance to philosophers unless they have a tangible effect on the way people live their lives. Saying something confused in a confusing manner to people who want to hear confusing things isn't really productive.

 

[ShadabFakhar]

I try to dissociate the individual accomplishments of the British from their imperial hypostatic investment into few figures, the so called "élite", especially when many British have been vocal against their imperial glory at the same time when local babus were perfecting the art of licking English boots ; of course, I'm not too naïve, and know that the wealth-capital liberally drained from their colonies is what also cemented the intellectual and cultural life of the UK, considering the economic surplus could be invested in (higher) education and all, but I think we should still struggle against "generalization".



Oswald Spengler, one of the most read European authors in the first decades of the last century - he influenced a certain Nehru, and Iqbal quotes him preciously in his Allahabad lectures -, said that "Western civilization", which he dissociated with classical Greek-Roman civilization, would not have the same impact as the latter, because it had become "techno-centric" : it stopped producing art and culture, and concentrated upon science & technology. The problem ? Anyone can appropriate technology without the culture producing it : you can us AK47s against its own creators during an Afghan jihad, to sound graphic.

Why did he pen 100s of complex pages intertwined with considerations on history, philosophy, anthropology, ... to distillate such tautology ? To prove that that's what will happen with the West : "someone" will take their science & technology while keeping its own civilization/culture, and he explicitly named the Chinese.

Now, that is my problem with the US : it's not a "civilization", and that's the whole issue ; there's Indian philosophy, Indian literature, Indian music, ... Chinese philosophy, Chinese literature, Chinese music, ... British philosophy, British literature, British music...

The US has produced brilliant individuals in these fields, but don't have a "tradition" of their own ; they do have science & technology - and I do believe they came up with "internet" earlier, you could say Vannevar Bush' concept of memex in the 30s, who was followed by the likes of Douglas Engelbart and Ted Nelson - but S&T is not what defines a "civilization" - that's the reason there's an unanimity that the Romans were inferior to Greeks, because the former were mainly into "practical" aspects like engineering. Yet, at least Romans had philosophy - and Marcus Aurelius, the Stoic emperor philosopher is quite an explicit example - but what do you resume America with ? Hollywood and MacDonald's - the latter becoming an archetypal concept of the US for sociologist George Ritzer.

You genuinely think the US will have the same legacy in Iraq or Afghanistan (what did they leave in Vietnam, apart from napalm on civilians) as the British had on a third of the then world population ?

You could say the British were like Greeks and the Americans like Romans : the former laid down the foundations with some class, and the latter expanded it in a purely quantitative (not qualitative) magma with a provincial mindset but global perspective (the "cow-boy" now sees Indians under all latitudes).

Solid post. I've been a silent reader on PP for a while. Yourself, Markhor and Cpt Rishwat are posters with whom my own views resonate most. I'd love to get a glimpse of your library. Ever read Toynbee? Seems right up your street.

 

[Cpt. Rishwat]

I try to dissociate the individual accomplishments of the British from their imperial hypostatic investment into few figures, the so called "élite", especially when many British have been vocal against their imperial glory at the same time when local babus were perfecting the art of licking English boots ; of course, I'm not too naïve, and know that the wealth-capital liberally drained from their colonies is what also cemented the intellectual and cultural life of the UK, considering the economic surplus could be invested in (higher) education and all, but I think we should still struggle against "generalization".



Oswald Spengler, one of the most read European authors in the first decades of the last century - he influenced a certain Nehru, and Iqbal quotes him preciously in his Allahabad lectures -, said that "Western civilization", which he dissociated with classical Greek-Roman civilization, would not have the same impact as the latter, because it had become "techno-centric" : it stopped producing art and culture, and concentrated upon science & technology. The problem ? Anyone can appropriate technology without the culture producing it : you can us AK47s against its own creators during an Afghan jihad, to sound graphic.

Why did he pen 100s of complex pages intertwined with considerations on history, philosophy, anthropology, ... to distillate such tautology ? To prove that that's what will happen with the West : "someone" will take their science & technology while keeping its own civilization/culture, and he explicitly named the Chinese.

Now, that is my problem with the US : it's not a "civilization", and that's the whole issue ; there's Indian philosophy, Indian literature, Indian music, ... Chinese philosophy, Chinese literature, Chinese music, ... British philosophy, British literature, British music...

The US has produced brilliant individuals in these fields, but don't have a "tradition" of their own ; they do have science & technology - and I do believe they came up with "internet" earlier, you could say Vannevar Bush' concept of memex in the 30s, who was followed by the likes of Douglas Engelbart and Ted Nelson - but S&T is not what defines a "civilization" - that's the reason there's an unanimity that the Romans were inferior to Greeks, because the former were mainly into "practical" aspects like engineering. Yet, at least Romans had philosophy - and Marcus Aurelius, the Stoic emperor philosopher is quite an explicit example - but what do you resume America with ? Hollywood and MacDonald's - the latter becoming an archetypal concept of the US for sociologist George Ritzer.

You genuinely think the US will have the same legacy in Iraq or Afghanistan (what did they leave in Vietnam, apart from napalm on civilians) as the British had on a third of the then world population ?

You could say the British were like Greeks and the Americans like Romans : the former laid down the foundations with some class, and the latter expanded it in a purely quantitative (not qualitative) magma with a provincial mindset but global perspective (the "cow-boy" now sees Indians under all latitudes).

Very insightful post and it mirrors my own view of the US and it's relatively short history but spectacular history. I am an admirer, but there is something which has always struck me as artificial about the country, whether it's the deliberate mis-spelling of the English language, which of course itself was bestowed on them by the British, or the somewhat desperate flag waving ceremonies in an attempt to fast track a culture which was inevitably missing from a country which is in essence a collection of immigrants.

 

[Cpt. Rishwat]

No argument.



The Chinese certainly did not keep their own civilization. The Communist Party grabbed power in the name of Marx, and then Mao tried his best to destroy existing Chinese culture during and after the Cultural Revolution. If anything, today China has gone whole hog into American inspired consumerism.

The Americans are like the Romans, they are practical people. They have indeed created a philosophy for life, it is largely based on the media. The impact that America has on other countries via Hollywood cannot be overestimated.

I think modern American culture is not sustainable and will fail, for the same reason Western Europe will fail, which is demographic decline. But this failure will take a century or more.



Via Hollywood America influences almost the entire world. Bollywood has an influence too. The success of Dangal in China means that the Chinese loved its message about what women can achieve. It definitely influences their thinking. Historically, the greatest influence on China and rest of East Asia came from India in the form of Buddhism. Now almost the entire world is buying into the philosophy of consumerism pushed by American media intertwined with messages that women are discriminated against.

I really don't give much importance to philosophers unless they have a tangible effect on the way people live their lives. Saying something confused in a confusing manner to people who want to hear confusing things isn't really productive.

Another good post, although I would say it's more a nod to American impact rather than culture. Hollywood itself is a reflection of the myriad cultures drawn from all over the world which reflects it's citizens roots rather than American as of itself.

Does that make America less great? Maybe not, but having a free hand with a new land is a unique position that most other nations wouldn't have the opportunity to replicate. I suppose Australia is similar in many ways.

I agree wholeheartedly on the impact of Hollywood though, and the American entertainment industry in general. It is in a league of it's own.

 

[Slog]

Most evil ever probably.

No self respecting subcontinental origin person should seriously believe this propaganda

 

[Wave your flag]

By the way that "Japanese study" I think is a myth.

It was a study by MITI - Japan's equivalent of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) - which concluded that 54% of the world's most important inventions were British. Of the rest, 25% were American and 5% Japanese.

 

[ShadabFakhar]

Most evil ever probably.

No self respecting subcontinental origin person should seriously believe this propaganda

Read enkidu's post. Articulates it well. The UK today still has that elitist presence but one of the greater unknown aspects of Britain is the Labour movement and people of that ilk which happen to be the grassroots of British society. These are the people who make Britain what it is.
Whether it's fighting in the armed services or working in the emergency services. I knew a servicemen who was stationed in Iraq and he openly said what happened in Iraq was disgusting both to the armed forces and the locals, no mob attacked him for being unpatriotic. You'll find even the far-right saying they shouldn't have gone in to Iraq and Afghanistan. Then look at Pakistan and India where atrocities are encouraged by the people from those countries.

You'll find more people in Britain critical of their foreign policy than others around the world, as enkidu's "babus" term aptly describes. These same people moved towards one of the greatest achievements in modern secular democracies, free health care to the point of use. Minimum wage, workers rights, tackling inequality, eradicating poverty, etc.

You sometimes need to detach modern Britain's achievements from it's colonialist ventures.

 

[Slog]

Read enkidu's post. Articulates it well. The UK today still has that elitist presence but one of the greater unknown aspects of Britain is the Labour movement and people of that ilk which happen to be the grassroots of British society. These are the people who make Britain what it is.
Whether it's fighting in the armed services or working in the emergency services. I knew a servicemen who was stationed in Iraq and he openly said what happened in Iraq was disgusting both to the armed forces and the locals, no mob attacked him for being unpatriotic. You'll find even the far-right saying they shouldn't have gone in to Iraq and Afghanistan. Then look at Pakistan and India where atrocities are encouraged by the people from those countries.

You'll find more people in Britain critical of their foreign policy than others around the world, as enkidu's "babus" term aptly describes. These same people moved towards one of the greatest achievements in modern secular democracies, free health care to the point of use. Minimum wage, workers rights, tackling inequality, eradicating poverty, etc.

You sometimes need to detach modern Britain's achievements from it's colonialist ventures.

Well on the basis of 'modern Britain's achievement,' the country wouldnt break into the top 5 countries ever let alone be the greatest.

Britain's best days are behind it and those days were during the colonialist ventures

 

[Cpt. Rishwat]

Well on the basis of 'modern Britain's achievement,' the country wouldnt break into the top 5 countries ever let alone be the greatest.

Britain's best days are behind it and those days were during the colonialist ventures

Britain still has a massive pull on it's former colonies. Just take the biggest and most watched tv series around the world, Game of Thrones. While it does nod towards the other civilisations as well, it is loosely based on the regional wars fought between dynasties in England. We have a huge thread on it here where our own desi babus wax lyrical on it's merits. Ask yourself why there's not the same global interest on the Mahabharata.

 

[Slog]

Britain still has a massive pull on it's former colonies. Just take the biggest and most watched tv series around the world, Game of Thrones. While it does nod towards the other civilisations as well, it is loosely based on the regional wars fought between dynasties in England. We have a huge thread on it here where our own desi babus wax lyrical on it's merits. Ask yourself why there's not the same global interest on the Mahabharata.

I havent watched more than 2 episodes of the show but I know that Game of Thrones is an American show

Even the writer of the original books is American

Lmao at claiming GoT as British

atleast do a cursory google search before making such claims and coming off looking a bit stupid?

 

[TM Riddle]

Britain still has a massive pull on it's former colonies. Just take the biggest and most watched tv series around the world, Game of Thrones. While it does nod towards the other civilisations as well, it is loosely based on the regional wars fought between dynasties in England. We have a huge thread on it here where our own desi babus wax lyrical on it's merits. Ask yourself why there's not the same global interest on the Mahabharata.

Captain I like the British culture and everything and admire the nation despite its brutal past but now you just sound desperate.
Only connection GoT has with UK is that it's loosely inspired from the war of roses.End of.
And Mahabharata>>>>ASOIAF . Not even a competition.

 

[Cpt. Rishwat]

I havent watched more than 2 episodes of the show but I know that Game of Thrones is an American show

Even the writer of the original books is American

Lmao at claiming GoT as British

atleast do a cursory google search before making such claims and coming off looking a bit stupid?

It's an American show, but it's loosely based on events in Britain, albeit a highly fictional version. The writer you are talking about got his idea for the great Wall from Hadrian's Wall on a visit to Britain. The actors are mostly British as a result. Do you want me to go on?

 

[Slog]

It's an American show, but it's loosely based on events in Britain, albeit a highly fictional version. The writer you are talking about got his idea for the great Wall from Hadrian's Wall on a visit to Britain. The actors are mostly British as a result. Do you want me to go on?

Yes but holding it as a sign of British power of influence is laughable and ridiculous

 

[Enigma_]

Hahaha the title of this thread is hilarious.

 

[Cpt. Rishwat]

Yes but holding it as a sign of British power of influence is laughable and ridiculous

Power maybe not, but influence? I think so. I think this thread needs a Mamoon input at this point.

 

[Slog]

Power maybe not, but influence? I think so. I think this thread needs a Mamoon input at this point.

so you want cheerleaders for Britain now to fight the case considering you're left with Game of Thrones as far as evidence is concerned?

 

[Cpt. Rishwat]

so you want cheerleaders for Britain now to fight the case considering you're left with Game of Thrones as far as evidence is concerned?

What has the rest of the world got in comparison?

 

[ShadabFakhar]

It's an American show, but it's loosely based on events in Britain, albeit a highly fictional version. The writer you are talking about got his idea for the great Wall from Hadrian's Wall on a visit to Britain. The actors are mostly British as a result. Do you want me to go on?

It is largely based on the War of the Roses and beyond. Lancaster - Lancashire; Starks - Yorkshire; North of the Wall - Highlanders(Ginger bearded Scot)

 

[ShadabFakhar]

Well on the basis of 'modern Britain's achievement,' the country wouldnt break into the top 5 countries ever let alone be the greatest.

Britain's best days are behind it and those days were during the colonialist ventures

Okay, give us your top 5 and their achievements.

 

[enkidu_]

The Chinese certainly did not keep their own civilization. The Communist Party grabbed power in the name of Marx, and then Mao tried his best to destroy existing Chinese culture during and after the Cultural Revolution. If anything, today China has gone whole hog into American inspired consumerism.

Lucien Bianco has shown in "Les Origines de la révolution chinoise, 1915-1949" (tr. "The origins of the Chinese revolution") that communism in China was "indigenous" : on the outside it was Marxist rhetoric, but its internal system was "purely Chinese", the product of the May Fourth Movement of dissident intellectuals wedded with the practical guerilla warfare of Mao Zedong, the whole mix cocktailed with virile Chinese nationalism - of course rarely the soldier is aware of the ideological subtleties, but Mao Zedong himself was not an "orthodox Marxist" (the very fact that he gave importance to the whole "agrarian question" - China wasn't as urbanized, thus able to be industrialized, as Tsarist Russia - made him into an "heretic" in the eyes of Stalin, for the sample question that Marx/Engels explicitly said that peasants can't never bring revolution - that's the reason they also supported British colonialism into India, "because their transition from feudalism to bourgeois capitalism will be fastened, and thus their transition from capitalism to communism will be possible").

As for the Cultural Revolution, it was indeed a disaster : Mao Zedong transformed an issue of ego and power fights into a literal "culturocide". But as Mobo Gao said in his "The battle for China's past", the destruction was not intended : the Communists wanted to confiscate the statues, paintings and all (and what an heritage !), but the overzealous, generally teenagers, Red Guards went into berserk mode, destroying anything "Confucian bourgeois", and killing their own teachers and even denouncing their very own parents as "counter revolutionaries".

As for consumerism, yes, I agree, but it seems to sadly be an universal law : look at the "holy places of Islam", where I think it's an Hilton tower which dwarfs the "centre of the world" - the Ka'abah. It's quite symbolic.

The Americans are like the Romans, they are practical people. They have indeed created a philosophy for life, it is largely based on the media. The impact that America has on other countries via Hollywood cannot be overestimated.

Yes, but is that a healthy influence ?

I think modern American culture is not sustainable and will fail, for the same reason Western Europe will fail, which is demographic decline. But this failure will take a century or more.

So you're with Oswald Spengler ? That it will fail and fall, for the reason that it was "technocentric" and no more a "civilization" in the inaugural sense ?

Via Hollywood America influences almost the entire world. Bollywood has an influence too. The success of Dangal in China means that the Chinese loved its message about what women can achieve. It definitely influences their thinking. Historically, the greatest influence on China and rest of East Asia came from India in the form of Buddhism. Now almost the entire world is buying into the philosophy of consumerism pushed by American media intertwined with messages that women are discriminated against.

Bollywood is not representative of Indian cinema as a whole, let alone of Indian culture. How did classical India civilization spread, for instance in South East Asia ? With philosophy, science, arts, ... would you say that promoting the movies of Martin Scorcese - I'm fan of, and let's admit all Hollywood is of the same quality - has the same "value" as promoting the metaphysics of Vedanta, the ethereal teachings of the Buddha or some mathematics ?

I really don't give much importance to philosophers unless they have a tangible effect on the way people live their lives. Saying something confused in a confusing manner to people who want to hear confusing things isn't really productive.

I don't either, esp. not in the last decades (but even at its best TS Eliot famously said that the philosophers of classical Europe "sounded like schoolchildren" next to those of India), but what I meant was the symbol : a British prides himself in Newton or Shakespeare ; a German on Mozart or Nietzsche ; and so on. An American nearly always talks of Hollywood and "liberties". For me the difference is paradigmatic. Probably 99% of Germans haven't read their own philosophers, but the fact that that's what they showcase says something on them as compared to Americans, the same for British or French.

 

[Wave your flag]

Lol mr bean?? Top gear?