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!

Yep and apologise to someone even if they bump into me.

Is anyone else watching the Last Night of the Proms? During Rule Britannia (which is having its reprise), the Albert Hall is an absolute sea of EU flags.

Which I think is a very British way of saying ‘We can use a traditionally patriotic tradition as a way of signalling we’re not far right racists.’ Good on you, prommers!

I don’t remember when all the migrants forced the pubs to close-when did that happen? Or maybe, just maybe, “culture” does not exist in a vacuum and actually changes all the time regardless of other influences, and most British people (including - shock horror - white British people) don’t enjoy pub culture or gambling or car boot sales? Times change.

And I genuinely couldn’t care less what language is spoken by other people in my vicinity because I’m not arrogant enough to think that the world should revolve around me.

Yes, feminism is definitely one of Britain's greatest achievements and part of our culture we can be proud of.

Yeah you’re right. We are missing the nuance of having thousands of men screaming that we shouldn’t be here and to fuck off. Yeah it’s our fault for missing the nuance. That’s the problem. Nuance.

One of our biggest culture problems in England is that we let Royalty and religion run us ragged for centuries, to the end that much of our heritage was lost or gradually became disparaged by society.

We consider ourselves a Christian country but forget that Christianity was forced upon us. Nobody values the traditions we held dear pre Roman invasion, apart from the few our ancestors refused to give up for major festivals. Many of our festival rituals were co-opted from paganism, particularly Christmas and Easter.

Every year I hear people complaining about Halloween and how it's 'American', but in reality our ancestors celebrated Samhain and All Hallows Eve centuries ago - we just let Christianity tell us these things were 'bad' and we turned our backs on them.

Now we act like all we have is cups of tea and custard creams, but in reality we just need to look further back and know our history.

I love the fact that we now learn Welsh in school. My English great-grandfather beat his wife if she ever spoke Welsh. Apart from that, as you were.

Huge parts of British culture and history I grew up with and which make me proud to be British, all of which I'm passing down:

Women's rights/feminism

Vegetarianism and animal rights

Cooperative movements

The trade union movement

Bill Bailey at the Proms epitomises the best of British culture. As does Auld Lang Syne. All the flags in the Albert Hall - patriotism, not racism.

For me it’s local traditions… brass bands, morris dancing, rushcart etc
Preserving local events and traditions is important and this can be done alongside embracing and welcoming other cultures.

It certainly shows all these claims that "we can't fly our own flag any more" to be complete nonsense.

So which Sharia laws are enshrined by the law of the land over here that you are objecting of?

Nobody has ever been able to define it for me in any way that doesn’t sound like the sort of behaviour decent people display all over the world- but not outside Wetherspoons on Saturday night. Nothing specifically British.

I really appreciate everyone’s thoughts here!

As you might have gathered, I find the ongoing movement of hatred absolutely awful. That’s why I’m trying to find ways to combat this way of thinking in whatever small ways I can- I don’t live somewhere where I can join the counter-demonstrations or any such big shows of support for the diversity of British culture.

Culture is hard to define, and it’s far from exclusive. We share so much culture with all of the countries we have both positive and negative ties to, and so many of our values with our neighbouring nations. I think it’s important to hold that history close, learn from it, and move forward with evolving culture at the same time.

Thanks to everyone who had suggestions! I’m taking notes and thinking of ideas on how to do my best to embody the diversity and inclusivity that I value, and that which actually represents the wide variety of communities within Britain.

I think local culture and history are often really underrated. I come from the potteries, which has had a boost since The Great Pottery Throwdown’s been filmed there, but in earlier misguided years they tore down many of the iconic kilns! So I guess getting involved in your local area as much as you can for any opportunities to preserve heritage.

(Also, I’m sure a lot of the flag wavers are rage baited and small minded, sadly. Flags always have the potential to be patriotic or aggressive, depending on whose hands they’re in.)

What if you don’t like some of those things? Or don’t live in a Miss Marple story?

But you don’t need to communicate with everyone who is walking around you!

So I ask again: what is it that frightens you about hearing different languages being spoken locally?

There are certain aspects of British culture I loathe and would be glad to see disappear.

I Hate:

Laddism
The Sun newspaper
The oafish, ignorant, beer-swilling, moron side to this country
The Royal Family
The philistinism and contempt for art

I Love:

Monty Python
P. G. Wodehouse
Manners
The self-mocking, self-effacing humour

There is a certain type of Britishness that I cherish. It’s hard to define, but I know it when I see it. It’s a mix of refined manners, irony, charm and self-mocking humour. The Chap magazine does a good job of capturing it. You also see it in P. G. Wodehouse and Stephen Fry. I know that sounds very class based, but it appears in all areas of British culture.

Mindless nationalism is ugly and stupid, but there are certain things that really do make me proud. The thing I love most in British culture is the high value attached to humour and manners (and their combination). We take it for granted, and assume all cultures share it, but they really don’t. That deep-rooted belief in manners and humour and ‘gentlemanly conduct’ can make a huge difference to the way people behave. In WW2, Britain came close to being invaded. Not only were the Germans in control of much of the continent, Italy declared war on Britain as well. Once the US came into the war, and British troops were able to occupy Italy and Germany, they could have taken a terrible revenge. In China, the Japanese raped and tortured civilians every chance they got. In Russia, the Germans burned villages and drove the civilians into the snow to freeze. Throughout Eastern Europe, the Russians committed the most horrific mass rape in human history. But when British soldiers came face to face with enemy civilians in Italy and Germany they didn’t commit such atrocities. They just didn’t. They didn’t go into Italian and German villages and rape the women and then burn the village down. To this day, if I was a civilian afraid of being raped or shot by enemy soldiers, I’d rather fall into the hands of the British than almost any other army in the world.

I am a trustee at my local museum. We have dozens of volunteers who do good but also get a lot out of volunteering. I think doing something positive in your community is an excellent way of being British or boasting your Britishness. In fact any volunteering really
I have also watched the Last Night of the Proms. That always stirs me. fabulous.
This year they performed Bohemian Rhapsody - a song written by the Zanzibar born son of Indian parents who emigrated to Britain in his teens.

British values are apparently things such as:

Tolerance
And
Mutual Respect
And
Respect for the rule of law

None of which are on display with the flag waving thugs but I suspect this irony passes them by.

(eta a full stop)

I’m feeling like @CurlewKate has expressed.

I’m not religious, a royalist, a lover of stodgy British food, or interested in the so called traditions listed. I just want to get on with my life in peace without flag waving wankers or fascists disrupting it.

The irony of you saying that humans crave to be with people they can communicate with and at the same time wanting people to not communicate with each other in another language because it makes you feel uncomfortable for some inexplicable reason. Oh the irony.

Are you suggesting that the Bengali and Urdu speakers who live close to you insist on speaking only those languages to you as you interact with them?

I assume, then, that if you and your family were to go on holiday to Iceland, or Italy, you would likewise communicate with your family entirely in the local language any time you were in public, together.

This is true of a lot of Europe though. So much forgotten/unrecorded/suppressed. What I find really sad is that this suppression continued even into my parents' lifetimes ie up to the 1940s/1950s. Both of my parents were punished (as in corporal punishment) for using their (UK) national language at school, as opposed to standard English. I have heard of similar happening with other people of that generation. Now there are words, methods of communication that are lost to us - some Yorkshire dialects, Tyke type, thought to be related to Norse, lowland Scots, for eg, English northeast dialects/tongues too. None of this happened because of immigrants of course. It was our own ruling class that wiped out our native speech.