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The Saxon Immigration Debate

Postby Hennessy on Mon May 28, 2012 7:07 pm

The Cellar Bar wrote:OK - so let's have a go at the rest of this - and I'll type slowly for (hopefull) ease of comprehension .....

1)
Which is more arrogant, me distinguishing cultures by their relative achievements or you lumping them together as "invaders"?

Simple answer - you for presuming that you can speak for a population 2,000 years ago on whom you impose your view that "Romano-Britain Good, Saxon Bad". Your proof of that fantasy? The subject of the discussion was the debate over the alleged "uniqueness" and/or "indigenous" nature of the "culture" you felt was under threat. With the fundamental presumption that it was "native" to that end of the islands and derived inside the bounds of the islands. As opposed to the rest of us who are more conected with reality and pointed out that invasion is invasion. It subsumed the original and took over a position of primacy. You are the one arrogant enough to believe that it is possible to "defend" one invasive imposition of a foreign occupying power in a country over another because somehow you have reached the conclusion 2,000 years later that one was superior to the other.
The other point in all of that is your view of the Saxons themsleves. Some of us have been the object of this miscegenistic fantastical gibberish for decades. The fundamental basis of it being the apparent "watering" down of the brave sturdy plucky White Anglo-Saxon culture to which Engerland apparently belongs. You take that one step further!! You actually go out of your way to declaim the virtues of Anglo-Saxon society in the place in favour of the one which previously occupied a position of supremacy! That's some going. In one fell swoop, you have attempted to undo the work of Little Engerlanders over the centuries and their perceived superiority over lesser cultures.

And this? h....this is a real beauty for historians to fret over

I implied cultural apprehensiveness which caused indecision which led to downfall and the dark ages


By Christ - are you seriously implying that the arrival of the Saxons and other inferiors in Britain (home of the French Bretons) and the accompanying "social apprehension" of the Romano-Britains actually led to the pan European Dark Ages??? "Wassup Bolloxtorix?" ..."well to be honest I'm a tad socially apprehensive, Suxondix"....oh bastard there goes the culture!!! Holy Crap my friend you really need to get pen and paper together and flesh that out because to date most historians recognise it as being the result of the foreign invading Empire and its withdrawal from areas whose population it could no longer control. Like through the efforts of presumably terroristic anti-Romano-British forces like the Iceni and others who led constant guerilla wars against your favoured buddies because they wanted their lands back! Great British heroes like Herward the Wake (Scandinavian) and Alfred the Great (Breton)

2) Nice going. I said
none of the points which you chose to highlight in bold about cultural differences is original and existed long before you had them identified for you as being the "new threat" to your "Britishness".

What I said was that none of the cultural traits you claim to be "British" were extant before an invading foreign power arrived. Somehow you manage to misunderstand that point entirely and somehow manage to talk up the later contributions of "English" society. Still apparently utterly incapable of understanding that that "English" culture is a bastardised mish mash of at least 10 invasions and at least 20 cultural influences in the process. Yet still you seem convinced there is something essentially "British" about what did emanate from there as if it possessed some unique traits not present in any other culture and owes nothing to those cultures influences in the islands.

3) Even better. In an amazingly duplicitous fashion, you suggest that you agree with something I have said - and then have the audacity to put words in my mouth by misquoting what I said. And persisting in this obsessional take on others who have arrived here. I made no mention and made no suggersion that current problems are related to housing, overburdened housing or welfare programs(sic) which inevitably leads to you taking the opportunity to return to your "Pakis-to-blame" Thesis.
When I said
Our "society" is threatened more by its denizens and their social attitudes than anything that you might perceive as being a threat from abroad.

what I was alluding to, for example, was the growing fact of teenage pregnancies, 35 year old grandmothers, binge drinking, padded bras for 8 year olds, a growing drugs dependancy problem among teenagers and an almost obsessional, culturally based anti intellectual view on life which over the centuries of English culture has produced real beauties like "he's too clever for his own good". No other society I know has anything like that view of knowledge and education. In English culture it's a matter of faith. Along with "he was a good neighbour....kept himself to himself" Most other cultures would be confused by the notion of a good neighbour not relating to others. With you lot again - it's a matter of faith.
Those were the problems I was referring to. Overall the essential anarchistic, non-planning, binging related society that offers no messages of moral behaviour or of raising one's head above the gutter and planning no further than the next weekend.
You somehow don't see it that way. Trust me - other cultures and other countries look askance at the way in which "the English" raise their kids, their views on family and the basic overall moral structure that produces some of the kids we see. And all of that was well in place long before any "illiterate Kashmiri" turned up to dilute the supremacy of Anglo-Saxon....sorry Romano-British...culture.

Essentially and overall, I see and know of nothing before the invasion of the Romans that you can designate as being "british" and which has survived to this day. Name me three just for the intellectual exercise. All of the major contributions to what passes for culture start from then and were the effects of foreign invading cultures of one kind or another. But like I said, I'll welcome any three uniquely "British" cultural contribution to civilisation that were extant before the Romans arrived and which have survived since. Best of luck.

And in the process, the English (from the Angles) culture's religion is from the Middle East, the language is majoritively Germanic with a large smattering of Romance and Sanskrit contributions, it has failed to produce its own monarch for nearly 1,000 years but has depended - has had foisted on it - a series of French German Norwegian and Scottish families and essentially can point to no original indigenous unique contribution for what exists now.

And yet you seem to live in a fantasy world where "it needs protecting from the ravages of incomers and foreigners to preserve its fundamental individuality. These islands have been multi-cultural and multi racial for more than 3,000 years. What makes you think itwould even be possible to find a basis for this fantasy.....let alone protect it from the ensuing 3,000 years of influence? Even your own moniker reflects that - it's Celtic FFS!!!!!!
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Re: The Saxon Immigration Debate

Postby Hennessy on Mon May 28, 2012 7:07 pm

Before I start I'd like to note again that reading your stuff is like wading through a low muddy swamp of words. Please use spellcheck or attempt parsing your sentences. It's all very well getting into a proper internet strop but I have to navigate the mire afterwards. Please link as well, I'd be fascinated to read your sources for some of these most enlightening positions you've taken on the history of England.

Also, when you're replying to a list of points I've made, it isn't usually kosher to insert what you said and then reply to that because it's easier than replying to what I actually wrote. Immensely important and noteworthy as I'm sure your views are (and they are certainly quoteworthy)

On other rhetorical points, watching you beat a succession of straw men into submission has been most rewarding, as has watching you fall repeatedly into logical fallacies by assuming a lot about my character, education, birth and political philosophies. Hence my returning the favour by wondering out loud if you were ever educated, anywhere. Quid pro quo, I suppose (do you need a link to a translation?)

Now, let us try to penetrate that swamp! All aboard!

"Romano-Britain Good, Saxon Bad". Your proof of that fantasy?




Yes I realise that's a little flippant, but you were halfway up the garden path already. How about Gildas? You know, Gildas? Wrote a book called De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae (English: On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain). Also happened to be just about the only significant contemporary source we have from the early Saxon invasion period, because after it, nobody was writing much. What does that tell you?

that's some going. In one fell swoop, you have attempted to undo the work of Little Engerlanders over the centuries and their perceived superiority over lesser cultures.


You've got such a warped little view haven't you? Everyone but the English is the plucky underdog, automatically. That's a fishy odour.

You seemed to have tied me into a narrative in your head of English perfidy about the past (you've seen some of Mel Gibson's other films I hope, Apocolypto is a personal fave). You've even extended that conspiracy to cover my views about Sub-Roman Britain so you could hit me with the stick of being a cultural fascist. I do have strong views about what our current culture should preserve, such as democracy and the rule of law, but that hardly makes me part of an evil Sassenach tradition, does it? Plus you were just accusing me of being too anti Saxon. You've (a) used the wrong stick, and (b) hit yet another straw man, and (c) managed to hit yourself with the stick. It's like watching a rhetorical car crash.

By Christ - are you seriously implying that the arrival of the Saxons and other inferiors in Britain (home of the French Bretons) and the accompanying "social apprehension" of the Romano-Britains actually led to the pan European Dark Ages???


I'm getting mildly disenchanted with watching you fling accusations every second sentence, entertaining though it is. No the Saxons didn't cause the European Dark Ages, Yes they were major factors in the breakdown of the social order that led to a Dark Age in England. I mean, how hard is this for you? They arrive, attack the locals, renounce the use of all of those Roman benefits Monty Python lists above, people go back to living on the land, literacy hits the floor and stays there for hundreds of years, life expectancy goes into a nosedive, the population collapses and the archaeology becomes rather difficult to find because everyone is living in houses made out of pigshit and timber

Complicated? No.

The rest of your argument I can and will get back to you on. You swing so wildly from branch to branch I need to reframe my response because all of a sudden we're back in the 21st century and somehow this has something to do with the Saxon invasions. I mean my example was, as I stated, a bit of poetic licence that sparked an interesting discussion about how civilisations rise and fall. You've built a complete fucking historical perspective and causative narrative out of it, that I apparently represent and seek to further because I am an evil moustache-twiddling Flashman character who, when I'm not keeping a jackboot firmly on the neck of "inferior peoples" and voting Tory, beats innocent locals for fun.

I do hope slamming your visor down and tilting at those particular windmills was good fun to write....
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Re: The Saxon Immigration Debate

Postby Hennessy on Mon May 28, 2012 7:08 pm

The Cellar Bar wrote:What I would suggest is that if you don't want to be vexed by the process of having to read another's contribution against your thesis, then the best advice would be not to introduce the tendentious bullshit in the first place. Don't come running here with complaints of being hauled through the annals of history when it was in fact you who saw fit to allude to some apparent Golden Age of British which yousomehow use as a "connector" to the ills you seem to see around you know.

But nice try with the Monty Python sketch. Now do me a favour and go back and read the nature of the "challenge" I set you. I didn't ask you for a list of "what did the Romans do for us" ....I specifically asked you to name just three contributions to that culture which can be specifically identified as being "British" in origin. If I'd wanted you to tell me "what did the Romano-British do for us?" then I would have couched the question in such a way. It's kind of ironic that when asked such a straightforward question, you actually come back with an answer which confirms that there is no identifiable strand of Romano-British culture that owes its existence to being "British".

And still you persist with a ridiculous take on history that distorts the reality. You have - happily - moved away from the notion of "social apprehensiveness" on the part of the Romano-Britains - aka native population in the thrall of an Imperial occupying power- and moved on to the interesting notion that
They (the Saxons) arrive, attack the locals, renounce the use of all of those Roman benefits Monty Python lists above, people go back to living on the land, literacy hits the floor and stays there for hundreds of years, life expectancy goes into a nosedive, the population collapses and the archaeology becomes rather difficult to find because everyone is living in houses made out of pigshit and timber

Complicated? No.
....(how's that for allowing you to "hear" the sound of your own voice again?)

An argument which is replete yet again with the implication that the condition in which the native population finds itself is attributable to the arrival of a new force. Rather than drawing the conclusion that every other historian would draw from the facts that it was in fact the withdrawal of the Roman Empire and its absence that led to those circumstances. And "renounce the Roman benefits"? - you make it sound like it was some kind of intellectual debate from which a conclusion was reached. You seem to be quite seriously suggesting that, pre-Saxon arrival, that the majority of the "people" didn't do anything aws uncultured as live on the land but presumably in towns and cities, that literacy was at some previously unachieved high, that Roman Britain did indeed exist in a Golden Age of betogaed intellectuals, living a long and healthy life and that the vast majority of the population lived in stone built villa splendour and were only reduced to living in "pigshit and timber" after the arrival of the Saxons From whence do you draw a notion of such intellectual civilised wonder? Because if you aren't suggesting any such thing, just as you aren't now suggesting "social apprehensiveness" was the cause of the pan-European Dark Ages, then do us all a favour and stop wasting our time making us read it in the first damn place.

I've got news for you - the vast majority of the population before during and after the Roman presence in Britain already lived in such conditions. We don't find any great array of Roman villas either which would lead archaelologists to support the view that the majority of "Romano-Britains" all lived in such conditions. The simple fact is that an Imperial power occupied that part of the country, drew from it what they required, introduced foreign elements of civilisation that didn't previously exist, found "placemen" to do some of the work for them and when they had done with the place.....left. Leaving the native population to its own devices. A native population which from your description of matters after withdrawal, seemed incapable of maintaining those standards of civilisation themselves despite being "Romano-British" and therefore presumably imbued with all the talents required to do just that. You said yourself, I seem to recall, that the "Roman" presence was a relatively numerically small contingent. So what happened precisely to the indigenous population after withdrawal that it seemed to be incapable of sustaining this culture? Here's a suggestion - they couldn't because they weren't particularly involved in it. Like every other subdued occupied population, the average "Romano-Britain's" experience of such niceties would have been when they were called upon to clean them, rebuild them or empty them. Very few domiciles of the native population would have been stone built with hot and cold running water, under floor central heating and saunas on tap when required. And if that isn't your contention - then yet again - don't waste our time by implying it in the first place!

Put as simply as possible for the hard of thinking - Britain - and the rest of Europe - didn't fall into a period of "Dark Ages" because of the arrival of another power. It happened because of the disappearance of the previous one - and an apparent failure on the part of a dependant population - the "British" - to maintain "standards" by their own efforts.

But the whole point of this nonsensical enterprise on your part is to somehow draw parallels between that Roman-British Golden Age and the present day as far as I can make out. For Romano-Britains read (not to put too fine a note on it) White Britons. For Saxons read Pakistanis. And what you are trying somehow to imply, through the most tendentious and pathetically weak historical analogies, is that what you see as the impending collapse of this particular "civilisation" is all due to the presence of a foreign influence in our midst. Again - if that's not the point of all your ranting - say so and stop wasting our time.

And it's bullshit. You make no effort to address the issues I raised which I believe are far more salient and relevant arguments as to why this country is experiencing a social dislocation and stress on the social ties that bind us......but somehow seem happier to blame it all on foreigners and their baleful influence. You've yet to bring up the hoary old chestnut of how "we are a friendly welcoming race who are now suffering at the hands of that decency by seeing our own culture being overwhelmed by ungrateful incomers" - but that's only a matter of time. Been there, heard it....laughed like a drain every time it was belched forth.

Like I said, your "Romano-British" culture is a frikkin myth. There was only ever one element to it, only one element that saw the emergence of advance of any kind - the Roman part. Again, show me one single uniquely "British" contribution to what you describe as "Romano-BRITISH" culture. Various populations have arrived here, been dominant for a while, been overrun by a new incoming influence, merged with it, learned from it....survived in spite of it. That's the whole point. And yet despite the fact that we are faced with all sorts of social challenges now because of social change and economic crisis and social mores being corrupted from within.....you're happy and almost delighted to identify a minority part of the population and blame it all on them. Always the fault of the minority, always damn foreigners spoiling what was once a fine and dandy "civilisation" before they came over here with their "foreign ways" etc etc et....frikin yawn...cetera.

And the biggest irony of all? Throughout this effort on your part to rewrite "Romano-British" as some sort of halcyon experience before the arrival of damn foreigners, the one basic, monumental element that you deliberately choose to overlook is the fact that the Roman Empire itself was the most cosmopolitan of "cultures", of "societies". Anyone and everyone was accepted as part of that Empire, as a citizen of that Empire. The only basic rules were that you paid your taxes, followed the local laws and conducted official business in Latin. That was it. Beyond that, you were free to practice your own religion, speak your own language in company, wear whatever you chose to wear if a toga didn't happen to be at hand and eat whatever "foreign muck" you wanted and keep and maintain the traditions and practices of the culture from which you derived.

Without demur from others. Without suggestions that it would lead to the end of Empire as we know it. Without being held to blame for the loss of any particular campaign or the diluting of a once fine culture. Without being identified as being a threat because of the colour of your skin. Without being seen as a creeping threat intent on overthrowing "Rome" by infiltration and deliberately having large families to increase your power over the local population.

And out all of that....comes you!! Bemoaning the loss of a culture that owes nothing to the "local" population for any significant contribution to it and in fact denying by your opinions probably the most fundamental of all Roman Empire principles - those of tolerance and acceptance of differences. The only "Romano-British" things you appear to be in favour of are "democracy" and the rule of law" Democracy - a Greekpolitical principle that has no root in "British" culture and "the rule of law" - a Roman principle. The closest this part of the world has by way of contribution to "democracy" are the Long Houses of the time...a Scandinavian contribution from those damn Saxons and their relatives. Yet those virtues of tolerance and acceptance of difference are the very things that in fact allowed the Empire to exist for as long as it did. By "the centre" - Rome itself - tolerating Romano-Britains. Just as it tolerated Romano-Gauls and Romano-Syrians and Romano-Jews and Romano-Germans and Roman-everyone else who managed to survive under that Imperial umbrella.
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Re: The Saxon Immigration Debate

Postby Senethro on Mon May 28, 2012 7:16 pm

didn't bother to read all that to find whatever subtle changes were made - summary pls
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Re: The Saxon Immigration Debate

Postby The Cellar Bar on Mon May 28, 2012 11:35 pm

Christ - I'm still trying to work out why s/he would even bother to regurgitate it all courtesy of cut and paste - rather than actually applying something to answering the points. Which is maybe THE point - to avoid answering it by deflecting it out of the original context.

Tricky dodge

Apologies for any inconvenience which certainly didn't come from any effort by me.
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Re: The Saxon Immigration Debate

Postby jequirity on Thu Jun 14, 2012 10:01 am

A Saxon appreciation thread? Engage!

Image

Image

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqgCjeddPvE
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