Mar 30 2007
Are the British “British”?
Not according to a recent YouGov poll.
Less Than A Third Of Brits ‘Feel British’
Thursday, 29th March 2007, 07:19Fewer than one-in-three Brits regard themselves as British, reveals a new survey.
And young people in particular are turning their back on the Union Jack by having more loyalty to their county than their country.
Meanwhile only one-in-25 Britons (four per cent) believe themselves to be in any sense European, according to the YouGov poll of 2,300 people.
Overall only 30 per cent said they were British with almost as many (29 per cent) putting their kingdom - England, Wales, or Scotland - first.
And more than a fifth (22 per cent) had turned their back on any form of national flag – instead defining their loyalties to their county or their village.
But the importance placed on local communities is not being driven by the older generation - those perhaps that can remember the “good old days” of local life with a plentiful supply of local shops, post offices and milkmen.
It’s the “digital” generation of under 25s that have grown up with the global reach of the Internet, text messages and an impersonal call centre culture that are driving a return to the local community.
The over 55s are those most likely to define themselves as British (36 per cent) or English (33 per cent) whereas the under 25s are those most likely to be loyal to their village, town or county (29 per cent) - compared with only 17 per cent who define themselves as British.
You can read the rest here.
I see this development in British psychology as a good sign that they’re not diving headlong into a globalist European Union. Far from it. Instead, they’re introverting by focusing on their immediate surroundings. The county, their village, their immediate home.
And the shocker is that the iPod, cellphone, internet generation is driving the change!
Many would see this reversion to locality as a return to tribalism. This could very well be the case since it is the case throughout most of the world, even here in some parts of the United States, but this can also be the start of a renewal in the British people.
One of the most virulent diseases of our age is how people reduce humanity into ideologies and utopian schemes. Communism, Fascism, Socialism, Environmentalism, etc. are all abstract ideologies that focus on the distant and neglect the local. By straining to reach the distant, you almost invariably trample on what’s just right next you, as though the people in front of you are so much cement to be shoveled around.
The British young, however, are beginning to turn that around.
Peter Lock, who commissioned the survey, said:
“People want their community and identity back. With the nation’s youth driving the move back to localness the future of local community traditions and values seem in safe hands.”
There is hope for the Brits after all. Hopefully they’ll be proud of their city and their country.
It does seem like a return to parochialism and factionalism. When the domestic insurgency here in the US really got going, I wrote about factionalism and how it destroys civilizations. It is a political fracturing that results from a loss of confidence in the greater unified power or system. Iraq’s a good example of the power of tribes and the US is the best example of Unity (even with the Left).
It is to be expected I think. As more people lose confidence in the federal government to protect them, the more local militias will be built up. What this means, is of course unclear, because it can go either way. We can have a balkanization or we can have a more just and fair rule by locals. (American Revolution example)
America at the end of our Ameri Revo war exhiled and otherwise got rid of the Crown loyalists and saboteurs (British sympathizers) by shipping them off to Canada or elsewhere. This created a lot of stability and enforced the ethics of war. (the ethics of war is something America specializes in, war which is both good and beneficial to Americans and our enemies)
Britain will have to do something similar. You cannot co-exist, this is no Hollywood movie.
Thom, your point about the insidiousness of EU totalitarian thought is accepted by me, but I have to also caution the flip side of what the FFs warned. Lack of unity also means lack of common defense against external enemies. There are good arguments to be made that unity with some government oppression (federal government vs confederacy) is better than simply groups of people who hang by themselves.
[…] Now, dealing with the Islamic Jihad in Europe is also a question of decay. Thomas has an interesting article here about Britain. I would quote Melanie Phillips but I’m time constrained. Suffice it to say that civilizations thrive by fighting against entropy, through building up stores of energy, food, knowledge, technology, and progress. The Left and their allies seek to overthrow, through subversive and revolutionary means, all the gains that humanity has made. And they are not above using the fruits of Western civilization, law, international accord, and so forth to help them. Beware the Left, for their lies sound as honey and their lips leak with the blood of the unborn. […]
This article reminds me of our own culture and how conservatives tend to accept the rule of their state governments much better than that of the federal government. So in light of that, the theme of the article is a good thing.
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