Posted on 10/15/2011 10:04:59 PM PDT by Cronos
Yes, Spielberg’s made a movie out of it. But he’s already complaining that real horses do not have the same intelligence as puppets (War Horse the play uses gigantic puppets). Duh!
From what I have observed as I have been in England from time to time over the past fifty years, what he says is true. Yes, there was always the likes of White Chapel, and to see how England actually was while Edward was kind, but read the life of Charlie Chaplain or Keir Dulie, the socialist. But in general. Halevy had to right. Evangelicalism worked a revolution in English manners and mores, and Prince Albert was an examplar of it.
At this rate, how long before not molesting your kids is seen as abnormal?
No drinking at Hogwarts School unless it is a magic potion... but isn’t that almost always the case with teens and alcohol. A magic potion.
Thanks for the thread. Theodore Dalyrmple is a good essayist.
I’ve actually found the Brits to be quite polite. Maybe not so much in London, but they sure were in Birmingham.
If she needs to sleep it off, I have room.
Worked with some Brits a few years ago in Dallas. Wonderful people, I thanked them for supporting us in Iraq. On the last day they were done early and wanted to go on a road trip to see “real Texas”. They wanted to drive to El Paso for the afternoon.
I mentioned that El Paso was 700 miles away. They could leave now and, God willing, get there tomorrow. They struggled to understand the distance between places in Texas, then decided the Alamo was more their cup of tea: only 320 miles.
We drove down to San Antonio at a high rate of speed. We were stopped by a small town police officer in BFE after we rolled through an off-ramp stop sign. I told them “Do NOT try to bribe the police officer”, since Texas peace officers would likely take offense if you thiought they were for sale. Nevertheless, the british instructions were to bribe all provincials. With some effort I got them to keep their wallets in their pants. At one point my British guest began arguing with the officer. I said “Walter, this man is just doing his job.”
The police officer, looked at me for a second, then took me aside and said “Son, I appreciate what you said. You do not seem impaired. You drive. Keep the Limeys quiet. Have a safe trip.”
Thank God for the Texas Rangers.
You’re right about Halevy being right, which means Dalrymple’s chronology is off. The changes began happening in the late 18th c.—Wilberforce’s campaign against slavery, the prison reform movement, founding of missionary societies, etc.
It’s interesting that an earlier poster said his wife told him that reading Jane Austen made him more polite but less sincere. Yeats’ brother told him the same thing, after he’d read Castiglione’s The Courtier. Which suggests the stiff upper lip values go back to the Renaissance, which means they come from Cicero and Stoicism.
The English managed to meld this aristocratic, non-Christian outlook w/ Evangelical/Methodist piety and reforming zeal. That’s quite an achievement.
As in his take on the London riots, Dalrymple manages to ignores the effect of mass immigration—tho’ the corruption of English manners and morals is probably as much a cause as well as a consequence of the invasion.
Are they taking craps on police cars in the old country too?
British people reaching for their wallet first. Now that’s a story I’m going to remember!
I’ve been reading the Brit newspapers on line from the beginning. They have slowly turned over all their news to stories on America. You sometimes have to hit “British news” to get British news from their online editions. The hard copies are quite different.
If you read the comments section, they generally say that it is because of all the Americans coming to them from Drudge. Some - rightfully, I think - resent the fact that their newspapers are more about us than them.
Why are we surprised at the decline and fall of Brit morals? We have witnessed the near-total secularization of English society, the vanishing of church attendance, and the suffocating political correctness of the flaccid Anglican church.
Victorian England, which had standards of decency, is mocked by the intellectual elite. The nation has come a long way from the Ten Commandments of the Bible (which condemns yob drunkenness and chick sluttiness).
Meanwhile “puritan” America, thanks to liberals and stupid conservatives acting as liberals, is not far behind.
I thought this was the most telling line: It was instead an existential, almost religious, modesty, an awareness that he was far from being all-important.
There are people who know they are not the center of the universe, and there are people who think they are. The latter are awful to be around, and absolutely catastrophic in large groups.
I know very little about what you are saying. All I know is that I’ve been going to London for about 40 years now (usually 2 times a year) and this lager loutishness is nothing new. They simply like to drink themselves out of their skulls.
I love your phrase: beau ideal run amok. So funny!
Considering the source, a high compliment!
George IV reminds me of Bill Clinton, with a bit more class but worse medical care.
Thanks for posting, Chronos. I hadn’t seen this and I do try to read everything by “Dalrymple” (real name: Anthony Daniels) that I can find.
All my DNA is British and I grew up in America thinking “Upstairs, Downstairs.” When I went to live there for a couple of years I found, to my dismay, that “Clockwork Orange” (or even worse) was the norm.
One point that Dalrymple-Daniels fails to note is that in addition to the yob culture that has taken hold, immigration has also changed Britain. As John Cleese (Basil Fawlty) recently pointed out, London is no longer an English city.
A few years ago I got off a wrong “tube” stop in London and I thought I was in Nairobi - not a single person in view whose DNA was remotely connected with the British isles.
Yes, the British are polite.
You of all people know Britain is just not England or London. The Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish are well known for their friendliness. And English friendliness grows the further north you go.
Please try going north of Watford. You might be surprised.
Well, poor George was also saddled with an awful wife, wasn’t he?
Didn’t he have to have a shot of whiskey when he first saw the wretched Caroline of Brunswick? These are the stories that keep me coming back to the history of Great Britain. So human, so strange.
Have you ever seen the Royal Pavillion?
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