How to actually preserve British culture and values?

[constantcycle]

Seeing all of the flag-flying and marches in the name of "preserving British culture" and "promoting British values," I was wondering if anyone has any advice on how to actually do these things rather than stoking division and hatred?

I already support museums, visit the National Trust sites and national parks whenever I can, and buy from local businesses as much as possible. I love listening to British music and attending events with local artists. I do my best to buy local produce, and I love a good farm shop when I can afford them! I also take lessons in my local language, one of the several dying British languages people are doing their best to conserve. I'm thinking maybe I should find some volunteering opportunities too.

Is there anything more I could be doing, or that others may not have considered? I'd love to see this sudden surge in patriotism used for the good of British society and all of the diverse communities within it!

Teaching at least the basics of ancient and modern British languages (Old English, for example, Celtic and Garlic languages) as well as Latin and Classics (essential for any umderstanding of the last few hundred years' culture); an understanding of the history of British philosophy and its influence on law and economics; learning about British history of working class movements, protests, land, rights (and loss of land and rights).

Looking at how folktales, legends and nursery rhymes, poetry and song are connected to our land and seasons.

Highly important: learning about sustainable agriculture and ecosystems across Britain.

Teaching children the names of flora and fauna, bird and sea life.

Reading at least the classics of English literature.

Learning aboit the British Empire, colonialism, and its effects on us and others, both positive and negative.

I do all of these with my family (piecemeal, when occasion arises) and have always loved my English culture and my country, while being very happy to live among and welcome immigrants.

Do you also feel that other faiths like orthodox Jews should not have their laws laws that they follow?

Like the London Beth Din?

Invading other countries and imposing your culture on them?

Culture can’t be maintained in any of these forced and false ways. And cultures invariably change with shifts in behaviour, how people live, and what they do.Running about and flying a flag and buying British food doesn’t make anyone British. It definitely supports local industry-which I’m very pro-so it should be done for that reason.

i’m never quite sure of which aspect of British culture people are trying to save. Is it the rampant class system and peoples accents and how they behave in relation to their class? Is it traditional food? That’s definitely dying a death. Is it things like Morris dancing which has its quirky little followers?

could you even define what you’re trying to preserve?

I wrote this on another thread when someone asked about English culture and traditions so for me it's drinking tea, afternoon tea, roast dinner on a Sunday, fish and chips, football and cricket, village fetes, the royal family, changing of the guard, trooping of the colour, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, Easter, November 5th and Guy Fawkes, our pubs, moaning about the weather, queuing, morris dancing, maypole dancing. Then you have traditions that certain towns and villages will carry out every year usually based on history. Scotland and Wales will have their own traditions and culture.

The people who support Reform should read about what happened in 1930s Germany. The same is happening again.

British culture means:

showing respect
valuing tradition
working hard
being good role models for our children
knowing right from wrong
supporting the Royal Family
enjoying a democracy
fighting Wars - not escaping them
respecting our environment
courtesy (having to queue 😃)

Funfairs. Harvest.

My contribution to British culture:
I’m a communicant Anglican.
I believe in fairness and tolerance.
I am even tempered and like civility and good manners (not fake sneery middle class snobbery - just good old fashioned decency).
I am interested in British heritage and the royal family (not sycophantic though).
I value that we bond over piss taking and we don’t like to take ourselves too seriously.
I love British regional food and that most definitely includes curry, as well as fish and chips and scones and cream.
I love pub culture.
I value our beautiful and diverse landscape and cities.
I’m a fan of good quality British made films and tv.

When I lived overseas I missed:
The good humoured piss taking and the stoic, non hysterical approach to miserable or challenging situations.
The seasons.
Quality tv and news.
Church steeples emerging from the trees when you go through the countryside.
Good natured political debate (although that’s disappearing here now sadly.)
Marks and Spencer food.

I think in the UK we should all follow UK law. People can have their beliefs but they should not be enshrined by law of the land.

Oh I am. At local council elections I'm hoping Labour will fall so the community centre can be used by all people in the community and not just 1 group, and let out at commercial value.

Stand nicely and uncomplainingly in a queue for as long as it takes.

Drink tea.

Be faux modest and self depicting.

Judge any and everyone whose in a different class bracket to you. Although that one might be more exclusive to MN!

Stop following whatever hairbrained ideas are coming out of America would be a good start.

Some of us are not linguists. Some of us can't learn Urdu and Bengali and the other various languages spoken locally.

Humans are social creatures. We crave to be with people we can communicate with.

Culture is not static, it evolves and often from other cultures. Otherwise we'd be stuck with the same things for centuries.

Migration will get worse, much worse with global warming. What they really need to do is focus on the economic impact and find a way to ensure that migrants can soon become economically Independent as well as contributing to society through labour, paying tax, bringing skills etc.

It's such a shame so many ay Brits don't adhere to these, mind.

I don't know op, but Ealing comedies are the epitome of Britishness.

I guess OP we could enter this debate. You'd need to define your terms (what is culture?) and parameters (how will you measure success?) though.

Or, we could just tell the fascists that they're chatting shit, that they don't get to deflect attention from their exclusionary tactics by dog whistling nebulous and emotive slogans. We could direct them to give concrete, objectively documented material examples of cultural attack and, if they can come up with any at all, we can decide what to do about those specific discrete matters.

British values are taught in schools and have been for years.

Please enlighten me as to what it is then from your point of view…

None of these things are unique to Britain. And one of them (the royal family) is German.

I queue a lot, complain a lot and drink lots of tea..

@Donttellempike , you know there are definitely some people flying their nation’s flag who are concerned about conserving British culture. I grant you there are racists among the flag raisers, there are always racists unfortunately.
You should try and embrace nuance and then you might fight your way to partial understanding but that would all depend I suppose on a certain willingness from you to have the emotional intelligence to try to view the situation from a different perspective.

Definitely! Britain has a brilliant comedy tradition to be proud of.

Non-British friends also talk about how much they love the British use of irony, which is seen as an especially British trait.