Here's a map you won't see very often: global literacy levels. That has to be the key map to understanding how developed and civilised a country is. The colour coding hides quite a lot: for example hard to see but North Korea is 100% while South Korea under US occupation is only 98% (which is what we would expect). Under US occupation UK literacy rates are falling too at only 99% now.
Now why has US such low literacy rates? Well one obvious reason is that it is a capitalist country. The government does not see it as its responsibility to educate people, who must seek and pay for education themselves as part of an investment in themselves and their employability and careers. Essentially the slaves in US must work hard to increase their saleability and price at slave auction.
Meanwhile the rest of the world sees education as a collective cultural and social thing. Parents teach children to speak, read and write and follow the culture and customs of their community. My child does not speak "my" language, they speak the language my "community". There is no universal culture, when we teach children we teach them our culture. In the UK that may be how to succeed at a job interview, but in the Australian outback that might be how to find water. There is a huge difference between parents introducing kids to their community and just teaching them my culture. This expands into modern national organisation as a responsibility of one generation to equip the next with all the things they will need for happy and successful lives, and that becomes brokered through the government selected by parents to take charge of the affairs of the country. In recent centuries that sentiment has become collected together into a National Socialism* where parents seek not just to enrich their own children but ensure a welfare and success of the entire nation. It makes sense: there is little to gain from enriching your own child and then setting them out into a country that is inhabited by unskilled and unsuccessful people. Little point in being rich in a country where you can't even find a good plumber, or where you need massive security gates because the country is ruled by a mob of unsuccessful poor who have no means to enrich their lives but crime like you see in America.
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Section on the problem of National Socialism
* Now famously National Socialism runs into a problem captured perfectly by the German NAZIs. To protect your own culture and society at the national level it is necessary to prejudice against other cultures and societies. This perhaps sounds shocking, but its actually quite logical. Jews were hugely effected by this German National Socialism yet today they argue for exactly the same principle to protect Jewish ethnicity. Israel is a National Socialism and in fact supports all NAZI principles it just works to protect Jewish ethnicity rather than German ethnicity. Realising this is very important because it means that the problems of National Socialism have not gone away and we have not solved them.
Israel demonstrates that in fact we need National Socialism to protect ethnic groups, and in fact the Germans do need National Socialism. The defeat of the NAZIs was more political it seems to me. The British Empire simply took an opportunity to do what it did best destroy and take over another Empire.
Peak of German Empire: 2,440,222 sq miles
Peak of British Empire: 13,700,000 sq miles. It should have been easy for the British to defeat the German Empire but in fact it was a complete failure and Britain had to ask the US to win the war which sealed the fate for the British Empire. It was the biggest defeat in British history and lost us everything. To save face a story was concocted that we have a "special relationship" with our colonial rulers but it is paper thin. This I suspect is the real politics, and NAZIs were a distraction. But this does not progress the problem of National Socialism as epitomised by Israel.
Blog becoming long. The truth like with most things is probably in the middle. It is quite national for Old world countries to have a dominant common ethnicity, culture and history. For example in the UK we celebrate Christmas which is an amalgam of very ancient customs surrounding Mid-Winter (which includes Stone Henge) and customs brought in with missionaries and Romans around 2000 years ago. Our days of the week are named by Saxon colonisers. Being an island everything here has comes from overseas. But the pace of change and identities have evolved gradually and communities have had a chance to develop and evolve. It makes sense then for government even in the modern era to behave similarly with respect and sensitivity for the communities that exist in the country. The problem with Modern living, especially under US and Capitalist influence is that there is no respect for anything historical: it is all about profit. In the US where a genocide removed the Past people have this idea of "clean slates" and "radical change." But the rest of the world does not think like this. If you are a minority in a country then you obviously are a minority in a country this can never become your interests being a majority concern. The irony I always think with "Black" people or "Jewish" is that while complaining that their rights are not be protected, they are simply building up the wall of the need to protect rights. and if we have equality then the rights of the majority obviously outweigh the rights of a minority: that is simply called Democracy. All legislation is just to ensure that no minority is persecuted but there is a big difference between keeping Black slaves like in the US and telling a employee that no they can't have a day off to mark some religious observance. In the UK Christian missionaries moved their observance days to match the local customs: it seems so obvious for other religious groups in the UK to do the same. So National Socialism is quite logical and when you move to a country you should expect freedom from persecution, but you cannot expect to erased the customs of the majority to make an isolated niche for yourself. Its an idea that has been pushed into the "racist" bag, but there is some sense in saying to immigrants if you do not like the customs here then perhaps its the wrong country for you. I mean people may leave the UK because they don't like the weather, why not leave because you do not like the culture of animal welfare?
So there is no real problem with National Socialism. Jews make very clear that all ethnicities and communities have culture that need preserving. It makes sense therefore for communities to organise their governments around this culture. This can happen without harmful prejudice to other communities. And it does not stop majority communities absorbing ideas from minorities and overseas. But it does stop minorities expecting to ignore cultural majorities, and it does stop the government having to attend to every wish of minorities.
One of the great achievements of the UK is our successful integration of minorities and majorities. Returning to the top the US is a perfect example of a complete failure to do this. Despite supposed "liberalism" the US is peppered with isolated communities and ghettoes that do not integrate or take part either culturally or economically with the main government and culture. The US is very careful to portray the wealthy parts of LA or New York in their media and hide the outside world from the truth of widespread poverty and illiteracy in the US. Meanwhile in the UK we have a country designed around integration and inclusion where almost everyone really does have opportunity, and where all voices are heard. However modern attitudes are afraid of National Socialism and there is a risk of binning the established culture of the UK which is precious and has developed over 1000s of years and which is also irreplaceable. There is no where else in the world where you can get the English culture but England with all the wisdom and attitudes embedded in it. If British governments do not respond to the dominant cultures of Britain then they will actually commit a far greater crime than ignoring the interests of minorities.
But this also becomes an issue of Empires. Even if a National Socialist government emerges that democratically protects the interests and culture of the majority in Britain there is also the threat from the Imperial centre of America. Education has always been central to British culture. 2500 years ago in Britain the Druid class of our society would teach its children until the age of 33 before they were ready to take over the cultural, informational and literary responsibilities of the culture. But the US does not have this culture preferring the sales of "junk" for short term goals like profit. A National Socialist Britain would need to protect the people of this island from enforced cultural injection from powerful outside influence like America. I know for example that to protect regional music in France in the 1960s the Beetles were banned in France. Authoritarian that may sound but it meant that French people in the 1990s would still know the songs and identities of their regions that would be completely lost otherwise. If we turn nihilist and say the past is the past we should just let it all go and move on. Celebrate the Beetles and ignore old fashioned local songs. Then we need take that argument to the Jews and Israel and say why not just let go for being Jewish and join the future? We need be careful our ignoring the Past and role it plays in our understanding of the world and ourselves.
Thanks to the work of a few composers most notably Vaughan Williams some of the rich musical history of England was preserved in the early 20th Century. For example this piece contains local melodies he had collected:
While we may say well there you go we don't need a government to preserve this it has been done. But the problem is the culture that existed around this music has now been lost forever. Anyone can listen to this suite, but few can now call it their own. There is a loss here for the meaning of this music analogous to the loss that accompanies illiteracy. If we are not careful we are drifting into a future where nothing means anything anymore. America is already lost as the genocide of Indian removed the past, but the rest of the world can still salvage this situation by collectively teaching our children our history and culture.
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