GENIUS FORUMS

I think one national trait almost peculiar to the Anglo-Saxon people is their exactness, their clarity of thought and expression. John Milton's descriptions of Hell are as detailed as that of a land-surveyor. Bunyan describes the kingdom in Pilgrim's Progress with the exactitude of a natural philosopher. Daniel Defoe had similar propensities. The same is true of English music and art. John Ruskin, the celebrated art critic, is one example. Sir Edward Elgar (composer of such celebrated orchestral works as Enigma Variations and Pomp and Circumstance) is known for his exact and pointed style. Francis Galton, father of psychometrics, was peculiarly Anglo-Saxon in his love for measurement and exactitude in all things. The Anglo-Saxon school of philosophy, called Analytic philosophy, approaches more than any other school of philosophy an exact science, whereas Contintental philosophy (represented by Hedeigger) is known for its semantic obsurantism. The Anglo-Saxons have done more than any other race to advance exact science and promote clarity of thought and expression. They are rivalled in this propensity for clear and exact thinking only by the Jews. Every other race of Europe is inferior to the Anglo-Saxons in this regard.

What do you think? What are the national traits of the English race (whether you think them hereditary or purely cultural, I don't care)?

English music is nothing next to German (or French even).

Other cultures often complain of British mercantalism, so I'd go with that. English is the language of business.

I'm an anglophile myself. Almost all the music I listen to is English, and nearly all my favorite television shows are English. For example, I like "Spaced", "Blake's 7", "The Good Life" and "The Norman Conquests" (with Tom Conti), "Just Good Friends", "7 up" (and sequels), "The Goodies", David Attenborough, Louis Theroux, Monty Python, Celia Green, Billy Connolly though he's Scottish, Oscar Wilde though he's Irish, and for music, English and Irish folk music, Gentle Giant, early Yes and early Genesis. I listen to BBC radio on my Internet Radio player. And for sport, English football, golf, squash and badminton.

I think you're right that the English do seem to show an exactness in the areas you specify - eg, art and poetry, science and analytic philosophy. Language too, as in Shakespeare.

But the Germans have an exactness in the deeper, let's call it "mystic" philosophy - the philosophies of Nietzsche, Schopenhaeur, and Weininger. The Germans also have an exactness when it comes to psychology and technology.

You bring up a good point. English humour. Totally unique amongst mankind. I have never seen anything quite like it elsewhere, and I have spent time in almost all of the civilised countries of the world.

You're living in past times Muremaker. Anti-intellectualism is, by far, a more prevelant national trait of the English than exactitude and clarity of thought, innit!

First, a point about the origins of the British people.

If, despite the evidence to the contrary, the English are predominantly Keltic, it is likely the upper-middle and aristocratic classes of England are disproportionately Germanic. The Anglo-Saxon overclass separated itself from the Kelts by an elaborate system of Apartheid. Subsequently, the Norman race, that other branch of the Germanic family, implemented a similar system in their subjugation of the English. The present British aristocracy is largely descended from these tribes of Germania. I myself (an aristocrat) have traced my ancestry back to the Norman invaders of England.

Now, the Kelts of the British Isles are very much distinct from mainland Kelts. Britain was inhabited by a non-Indo-European people when the Kelts arrived and these people were absorbed by the Keltic invaders. Phoenician loanwords were introduced into the Keltic languages of the British Isles during this period. And there is considerable evidence that these people displaced a yet more ancient people, about whom very little is known, but some people in the scientific community have identified them with the Neanderthals. Interbreeding may well have occurred between between these aboriginal races of Britain, producing a new breed of men, a breed unique to the British Isles. And this race was absorbed by the Kelts. Of course the possibility of interbreeding between Neanderthals and humans is perhaps open to question. But the subsequent racial amalgmation of Nordic-Kelts (Scots, Picts, etc.), Nordic-Teutons (the Angles, Jutes, Saxons, Vikings, Danes, and Normans), Mediteranid-Semites (Phoenicians), and Mediteranid-Latins (the Romano-British) was itself sufficient to produce a race distinct and separate from the rest of mankind.

The separateness and distinctness of Great Britain is reflected in many domains of British life. The fact that the English have their own national church, neither Protestent nor Catholic, but Anglican, is one example. Children's geography textbooks treat Great Britain and Europe as two separate contintents. We feel maligned when foreigners speak of us as Europeans. Only in America is Great Britain unanimously considered "a part of Europe". The English language is also the most isolated of all Germanic languages, separate from the rest of them, a category of its own. It belongs to a certain sub-group of the Germanic languages, the Ingvaeonic family, which comprehends only two langauges, English and Frisian, but the latter is almost extinct. Clearly an island isolationism is ingrained into the English psyche, not as much as it is in certain other Island nations perhaps, but it is there. We English see ourselves, consciously or unconsciously, as entirely separate from the rest of Europe and the rest of mankind.

I shall speak of the popular but mistaken notion of Germans as 'exact thinkers' later. Germans have always been more disposed to adhere to Irrationalist (Romanticist) schools of philosophy than the English. The British have only had one Romanticist philosopher of note, Thomas Carlyle, but he was a Scotsman. The British flirted with Hegelianism for a while, but that was short-lived. Analytic philosophy is more adapted to the peculiarities of the Anglo-Saxon mind than any other school of philosophy.

Oceaxer wrote:surely the amalgmation of Nordic-Kelts (Scots, Picts, etc.), Nordic-Teutons (the Angles, Jutes, Saxons, Vikings, Danes, and Normans), Mediteranid-Semites, and Mediteranid-Latins (the Romano-British), has produced a new and unique race, a race distinct and separate from the rest of mankind.

I'd say the culture is far more important than genetic heredity in marking out any particular population from the whole.

If you're employing a weak definition of race i.e. a tribe of the same stock, then it is a logical necessity that we are a distinct race. If however you are employing a strong definition of race i.e. a taxonomic category, which I feel you are (what with the reference to our genetic heredity), then this cannot be correct as there is only one race on the planet, the human race.

The separateness and distinctness of Great Britain is reflected in many domains of British life. The fact that the English have their own national church, neither Protestent nor Catholic, but Anglican, is only one example.

Again, this is of times past. Nowadays, it is statistically proven that England is the most secular country on the planet, by a very long shot. Perhaps this fact better illustrates your thrust when you talk of the national traits of the English in the present tense.

We English see ourselves, consciously or unconsciously, as entirely separate from the rest of Europe and the rest of mankind.

No question about that, on the whole. It is, of course, an entirely deluded view.

I shall deal with the popular but mistaken notion of Germans as 'exact thinkers' later. Germans have always been more disposed to adhere to Irrationalist (Romanticist) schools of philosophy than the English. The British have only had one Romanticist philosopher of note, Thomas Carlyle, but he was a Scotsman.

As far as I know, the German stereotype is one of efficiency, not exactitude.

Surely you're not going to stick with this whole idea of exactitude of thought being an English trait? I personally live in present day England and nothing could be further from the truth.

DNA confounds exactitude. 60 Y chromosome lines found all over Europe. But only 7 mtDNA, (only 7 survived the hybridization process with Neanderthals) while other regions have scores of mtDNA lines.

There's been too much mixing to ever sort it out. There's the idea that people were displaced, but the DNA says they were assimilated into new ways of life. But different political systems and economics favored some personalities over others. The Germans are, in large part, the descendants of Gauls who would not be slaves to the Romans, and stole enuf food and tools to become yeoman farmers in the forests of Germany.

Gibbon reported the 'Sittones' were ruled by women, and tired of the violence fled, en masse across the Baltic to settle and become what we know of as the 'Swedes'. Which explains a lot about the independence and power of Swedish women in that culture.

More to the point really, is what smart women in the advanced cultures will make of the DNA data and the contribution, or lack thereof, of various Y chromosome lines. Smart career women are already engaged in eugenics, and the results are everything the mothers could hope for. IF these advanced cultures provide fertility clinic services for more promising lines of the Y chromosome, and offer to support the resulting progeny, we will see the more misogynistic minority men do all they can to get their women out of the country to wherever they think they can maintain control over the gene pool.

The *fact* that people from Germany, Britain, Scandanavia, and WASP America can easily move to any of these cultures and adapt to the local customs with their children entirely accepted testifies that the diff in Britain is not genetic but the result of socialization. Much has been made of German engineering, but on a per capita basis, Scotland compares, perhaps surpasses, all others.

The Ashkenazi Jews are remarkable. The history is obscure, but they are not Semites; they came from Sogdia, specifically the Silk Road towns between the Black Sea and the Jade Gate of China. They have been involved in inventory management and capitalism for millennia, only driven out with the rise of Islam, many moving to the "Amber Road" cities like Kiev that were strung out along the rivers between the Black and Baltic Seas.

Christian kings, not trusting their own people because of repression, imported these "Jews" to run their bureacracies, aware that no Jew would be able to pull a coup to replace them. And indeed, many were taken to Britain on that account. The Non-Christian Vikings didnt have the problem, and didnt use Jews in their economies or governments, and therefore never had a "Jewish problem".

There's a lot in England besides the Anglo-Saxons that all got mixed in, and there's no sorting it out. But whatever the line, we have the DNA markers now to identify the most promising lines of the Y chromosome, and the global market will put its money on their progeny.

I shall speak of the popular but mistaken notion of Germans as 'exact thinkers' later. Germans have always been more disposed to adhere to Irrationalist (Romanticist) schools of philosophy than the English. The British have only had one Romanticist philosopher of note, Thomas Carlyle, but he was a Scotsman. The British flirted with Hegelianism for a while, but that was short-lived. Analytic philosophy is more adapted to the peculiarities of the Anglo-Saxon mind than any other school of philosophy.

These comments don't sit well with me, but I don't know enough to destroy what you've said.
I do think the English are more suited to pedantic academic philosophy, that much of analytic philosophy is, and which when taken too far makes people lose sight of the big picture.

Wiki says: In the philosophy, art, and culture of German-speaking countries, German Romanticism was the dominant movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. German Romanticism developed relatively late compared to its English counterpart, coinciding in its early years with the movement known as German Classicism or Weimar Classicism, which it opposed. In contrast to the seriousness of English Romanticism, the German variety is notable for valuing humor and wit as well as beauty.

In any case I don't give the slightest fuck about what people might be clasified as, Germany produced easily the best Western philosophers (and some of the worst) than anyone else, though Britian had some goods ones earlier on.

I know this may not be considered as representative, but still I'll throw this observation. The English produced the best rock and metal bands in the world, and perhaps in popular music in general. And the quality and quantity of them is even more astonishing when we think of the size of the country.

Nietzsche said of the English spirit as the one that systematizes that which it adopts from others, the French refines it, and the German makes it more people-like.

Exactness yes, also maybe the following - formal courtesy, initial reservedness, reliability, and in philosophy clearly not being fond of bold endeavors in the vein of pretentious, all answering systems.


Milos Crnjanski gives some first hand, I think, accounts of an outsiders insight into national traits of the English in his 'A Novel about London'.