What the British—and all of us—have lost

Below, a British conservative reader reflects on the understandable but very regrettable type of hatred that exists in right-wing circles, and how this is both a response to and a symptom of the left’s destruction of the English culture that once was.

The reader writes:

I see what you mean about people on the right making angry or hateful statements about liberals or Muslims or other minorities. It’s the kind of bitterness that is understandable given the enormity of the situation. Yet it makes a terrible impression on those who hear it, and in the end such feelings rarely yield anything positive or useful.

A couple of months ago I went to a local BNP meeting. There was a newish guy there from (enriched) Essex. He really hates Muslims. I mean, really hates them. You know, when someone’s face contorts when they are talking about something they hate? Like the bad-thing even make the words they are using taste bad? He’s like that. In front of a load of people who had never been before, he was talking about a judge that had just given a lenient sentence to an immigrant rapist, and he said “when he gets out, I hope he rapes the judges children.” I told him that was an awful thing to say, but he just thought I was being “soft.”

People on this end of the political spectrum are often deeply embittered, hate-filled people because of what has happened to our countries. It’s tricky. They have every right to be angry, and our movement needs to draw people in, not push them away. But they would make a bad advert for their beliefs if they were to express themselves in this way in public (and of course they do).

If I were an impressionable young man I would be won over far easier by an idealistic, kind hearted Aysha than an angry “kill liberals” rant from an angry patriot

Of course, it is worse for Americans as you have no party you can use to turn your anger into constructive action.

The reader continues:

-Actually, on further reading, the fact that it was a BNP meeting where this guy said that would look bad—even though people say these things all the time in real life, and it isn’t our fault. It’s sad, and all very un-English. We didn’t used to be like this. We were so long untouched by ethnic or racial conflict we had become very stable as a society in our emotions, a very gentle culture with few violent swings or outbursts of violence. All gone now. This is how it must begin in places like the Balkans where they have lived side-by-side with hostile neighbours for centuries. It is quite a cultural legacy to leave.

LA replies:

That’s a devastating thing you’ve just said and it brought tears to my eyes. I’ve never seen the transformation and ruin of Britain captured and summed up like this.

The reader replies:

Funny you should say that, when you asked me about films I was going to say that sometimes when I watch old British films from the ’60s and older they almost make me cry, they have such a strong effect on me. I have experienced nods of appreciation from friends and family when I have described the scenario, so I don’t think it’s just me. I was watching an old horror flick, “The Day Of the Triffids,” from the early 60’s a little while ago. The scenes in London were so obviously unlike the London I know it may as well have been another world. It was so achingly, obviously, blatantly a kinder, more civil, friendlier place that I cannot imagine any British person would be able to watch the film sitting with an ethnic minority without guiltily feeling the elephant in the room staring him in the face (neither could the minority, come to that). In one scene where there is a mad panic at a railway station (so laughably restrained and civilised) I said to my friend “if that was London today…”, but I just couldn’t finish it, it gave me a lump in my throat. The reality of today is too unbearable and the scenes were almost unwatchable for me, like a disabled man watching footage of when he could still walk or a feeling akin to that. I have tried to think of terms to capture this feeling, because I am sure that this will become a feature of growing up for other British people—the curious mix of nostalgia, longing, and loss which you know you are not allowed to feel that you nevertheless feel when you see England as it used to be. It’s the kind of feeling that would fit one of those German compound words.

- end of initial entry -

Mark Jaws writes:

I can sympathize with your conservative British reader. I am old enough to remember the great ethnic white neighborhoods of New York City which were long ago obliterated by the federal government. Since I speak German fluently (I studied at a Goethe Institute in Germany back in the 1970s), I can offer some help with the German compound word that the British reader seeks to describe:

“the curious mix of nostalgia, longing, and loss which you know you are not allowed to feel that you nevertheless feel when you see England as it used to be.”

How about Heimatsverlierschaemung? Which translates as the shame one has in losing his homeland (and not being mensch enough to fend off the invaders).

LA replies:

I note that Herr Jaws is using mensch in its Yiddish not its German sense.

James P. writes:

On the one hand, we have the type of hatred expressed at the BNP meeting—and this level of emotion is surely held by only a tiny minority of the population.

On the other hand, we have ample evidence that the vast majority of the British population is emotionally dead—they respond to the destruction of their race, nation, and culture with a shrug (“oh well, too bad, what can one do?”).

I’d personally like to see more people in Britain get angry, because only anger is going to produce any sort of effective counteraction to the negative trends. Your reader contends that anger and hate “rarely yield anything positive or useful,” but how can anything positive or useful possibly emerge from the current level of sheer apathy that prevails in Britain? The notion that “idealism” and “kind-heartedness” are going to bring Britain back from the dead seems hopelessly naive to me. Emotion alone is not enough, of course, since emotion must be linked to an intelligent program in order to be effective, but an intelligent program that doesn’t inspire a strong emotional reaction (including anger) isn’t going to work either.

LA replies:

I wasn’t aware that the British reader had said that idealism and kindheartedness are going to bring Britain back from the dead.

James P. replies:

He said, “If I were an impressionable young man I would be won over far easier by an idealistic, kind hearted Aysha than an angry “kill liberals” rant from an angry patriot”, so obviously he thinks idealism and kindheartedness are the winning approach that will “draw people in”, while anger will just push them away. We may note that liberals seem not to fear that their righteous anger against traditional Western society (which is racist, sexist, imperialist, etc etc) is going to push away potential supporters.

LA replies:

For him to say that he would find an idealistic and kind hearted person more appealing to him than a person filled with hatred, does not mean that he’s saying that idealism and kindness will win back Britain.

December 23

Andrea C. writes:

I too feel that way—what your British correspondent wrote. And for about two years or so have felt that it was no longer right to say, “We are heading in this direction” but that “We are already here.” And it came to me most strongly after a movie, too—the first time I saw The Best Years of Our Lives. Now when I see it I feel like I just want to live in that movie. And I’ve been thinking that maybe I need to start researching the history of the end times of Rome and how those who knew what was passing survived. I started learning the piano a year ago so that I can have music in the future. I read a lot more fiction now too. I feel like we will be in a civil war and living in tents by 2050. Sorry if that’s alarmist but I have very dark visions of the future. A friend and I just agreed recently that we will someday have to be like 1st Century Christians.

But this is why your blog is so valuable. It is valuable and deeply humane. Thank you for staying on the McGee case. It’s so heartbreaking.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 22, 2008 12:04 PM | Send