Don't Be Patriotic

[bluemonday]

Clicky

 

History and citizenship lessons should stick to the bare facts rather than encouraging loyalty to Britain when covering subjects such as the Second World War

So winning WW2 ( yes with assistance ) was 'morally ambiguous'

Well I thought it was about stopping the Nazis...........

 

What next? Ban Remembrance Day in case anyone dares to feel proud or acknowledge the sacrifices of the armed forces and others?

[Lonan3]

The report criticises the current drive to use citizenship lessons as a way of promoting pride in being British and developing a sense of belonging. It said: “To love what is corrupt is itself corrupting, not least because it inclines us to ignore, forget, forgive or excuse the corruption. And there’s the rub for patriotism.

 

“Countries are morally ambiguous entities: they are what they are by virtue of their histories.”

 

Or....

 

The report criticises the current drive to use citizenship lessons as a way of promoting pride in being British and developing a sense of belonging. It said: “To love what is ridiculous is itself ridiculous, not least because it inclines us to ignore, forget, forgive or excuse theridiculous . And there’s the rub for education.

 

“The Institute of Education researchers is a morally ambiguous entity: they are what they are by virtue of idiots taking notice of their pathetic theories.”

 

Oh, and by the way, isn't it time the British issued an apology to the Romans for resisting their well-meaning attempts to introduce civilisation to the country. I mean, simply because she was flogged and her daughters were raped, surely that was no reason for Boudica to take up arms. When will people realise that two wrongs don't make a right?

[Jimcalagon]

You need to remember that there might be some neo-Nazis in the classroom. We wouldn't want to offend them by pointing out how evil the original Nazis were, would we?

[bluemonday]

Oh, and by the way, isn't it time the British issued an apology to the Romans for resisting their well-meaning attempts to introduce civilisation to the country. I mean, simply because she was flogged and her daughters were raped, surely that was no reason for Boudica to take up arms. When will people realise that two wrongs don't make a right?

In that case we'd better say sorry to the Vikings for making a fuss when they arrived at Ramsey.......

[VikingRaider]

In that case we'd better say sorry to the Vikings for making a fuss when they arrived at Ramsey.......

 

Apology accepted.

[VinnieK]

Clicky

 

History and citizenship lessons should stick to the bare facts rather than encouraging loyalty to Britain when covering subjects such as the Second World War

So winning WW2 ( yes with assistance ) was 'morally ambiguous'

Well I thought it was about stopping the Nazis...........

 

What next? Ban Remembrance Day in case anyone dares to feel proud or acknowledge the sacrifices of the armed forces and others?

 

I'm not sure that's totally fair. The language used in the story is a bit strong when coming down on patriotism, but that doesn't change the fact that history is about trying to achieve an objective analysis of the past, and in that sense there's no room for patriotism in the subject.

 

That's not to say people shouldn't be patriotic, or that partiotism is inherently bad. People are free to declare their patriotism, and to celebrate it, but it shouldn't be actively promoted in schools. I also doubt the validity of extending the principle to Remeberance Day as you have. Rememberance Day is about paying our respects to the dead and acknowledging their individual and collective sacrifice, not about jingoism or celebrating Britain or the supposedly unique qualities of the British people. This is especially the case given that many who died on behalf of the British in many of our wars, and without whom British victory would in many cases be unimaginable, were not British (East European pilots in the battle of Britain, for instance, Europeans fighting for the SOE in World War II, and commonwealth forces in both the European and Asian theatres).

[bluemonday]

K I'll play

I also doubt the validity of extending the principle to Remeberance Day as you have

I did not extend the principle per se, I used that as an example of what could/might conceivably come next.

Should a uniformed Military presence be reconsidered next because it draws attention to Armed Forces and might/could be construed as jingoistic or endorsing the use of military force? No marching because it's military etc.

This is especially the case given that many who died on behalf of the British in many of our wars, and without whom British victory would in many cases be unimaginable, were not British (East European pilots in the battle of Britain, for instance, Europeans fighting for the SOE in World War II, and commonwealth forces in both the European and Asian theatres).

Thanks for the history lesson - see my post viz

with assistance

, for the sake of brevity I chose not to name everything.

 

but it shouldn't be actively promoted in schools.

Why not?

Is there nothing left to be proud of, that cannot or should not be belittled or revised to bland conformity with the new pc mantra?

 

Your argument regarding the

the supposedly unique qualities of the British people.

is flawed. Consider that for a goodly period, Britain stood alone after the most of Europe had gone and the US sat on it's arse. That is in part due to the British character. People of all colours and religions fought for and under that ethos. It was good enough at the time. And it certainly worked at the time.

 

I attend Rememberance services with a deep sense of gratitude and a sense of pride as well. Being told that it is wrong won't wash with quite a few.

 

When I see the flags, I feel proud and I reckon quite a few people do as well.

Hard luck.

[VinnieK]

I also doubt the validity of extending the principle to Remeberance Day as you have

I did not extend the principle per se, I used that as an example of what could/might conceivably come next.

Should a uniformed Military presence be reconsidered next because it draws attention to Armed Forces and might/could be construed as jingoistic or endorsing the use of military force? No marching because it's military etc.

 

and it's precisely this suggested progression that I'm challenging. Rememberance Day is just that, a period of rememberance dedicated to individuals, not a celebration of the nation state in its abstract form, and people have a choice whether or not they wish to participate in it. As such it couldn't be further away from the idea of deliberately using history to reinforce national myths and encourage a sense of patriotic fervour in all children. There well may be some people who want to do away with Rememberance Day, and I wholeheartedly disagree with them, but the point is that teaching history in an objective unbiased way (one way or another: I also disagree with the principle of teaching children to be ashamed or feel national guilt for their country's less savoury historical moments) does not lead to getting rid of things like Rememberance Day. Hell, it doesn't even necessarly lead to forbidding actual demonstrations of patriotism like St. George's: The point is that kids can be as patriotic as they like, and parents can raise them to have as much national pride as they want, but school, an institution that's supposed to be dedicated to education, has no place taking part in this.

 

but it shouldn't be actively promoted in schools.

Why not?

Is there nothing left to be proud of, that cannot or should not be belittled or revised to bland conformity with the new pc mantra?

 

Because school is about education and providing children with the knowledge and analytical skills to prosper and make informed decisions. It's not about indoctrination and presenting them with ready made ideas of patriotism and what they should and shouldn't be proud of. This doesn't mean "there's nothing left to be proud of" - the curriculum doesn't and shouldn't determine the lifelong values of an entire nation - it just means that children, and Britain, would be better served by being taught the facts, how to analyse those facts, and then left to make up their own minds.

 

Your argument regarding the

the supposedly unique qualities of the British people.

is flawed. Consider that for a goodly period, Britain stood alone after the most of Europe had gone and the US sat on it's arse. That is in part due to the British character.

 

No, it's due to Britain being an Island, having the largest and most powerful navy at the time, and being in possession of a vast empire, all of which allowed it to hold out and resist whilst it lobbied for support from the U.S. (A luxury that was in part aided by the German estimation that containing and starving the UK would be the most practical measure to take given the Nazi party's determination to spark a day of reckoning between Germany and the U.S.S.R.).

 

I attend Rememberance services with a deep sense of gratitude and a sense of pride as well. Being told that it is wrong won't wash with quite a few.

 

Who said it's wrong? Not me.

 

When I see the flags, I feel proud and I reckon quite a few people do as well.

Hard luck.

 

Oh no! My ploy to undermine British pride has been thwarted! Drat and curses!

 

I never said you, or they, shouldn't feel pride. Feel as proud as you want; the point is whether or not school is a place for encouraging national pride, and I never suggested here that people should be prevented or chastised for patriotism.

 

Suppose you're right, and history lessons should be used to encourage patriotism in the young. That's fine. Let's all be proud of things like our ancestors' stoic resistance during world war two. The only problem is what do we do with those pieces of history where we perhaps shouldn't be so proud of? Take the Amristar Massacre, the slave trade, the concentration camps of the Boer War, or initiating a war with China just so we could force our opium onto their markets. Now, if we're to teach kids national pride, then we're implicitely suggesting that the British have more to be proud of than feel shame about, and the whole subject of history turns into either a one sided portrayal of national virtue, or a meaningless exercise in determining historical amounts of guilt and praise.

 

I think that Britain would be better served, and would have more to be proud of now if its children were taught to think for themselves instead of being presented with a consensus view of their nation's virtues and told and taught what to feel.

[La_Dolce_Vita]

K I'll play

 

but it shouldn't be actively promoted in schools.

Why not?

Is there nothing left to be proud of, that cannot or should not be belittled or revised to bland conformity with the new pc mantra?

 

Your argument regarding the

the supposedly unique qualities of the British people.

is flawed. Consider that for a goodly period, Britain stood alone after the most of Europe had gone and the US sat on it's arse. That is in part due to the British character. People of all colours and religions fought for and under that ethos. It was good enough at the time. And it certainly worked at the time.

 

I attend Rememberance services with a deep sense of gratitude and a sense of pride as well. Being told that it is wrong won't wash with quite a few.

 

When I see the flags, I feel proud and I reckon quite a few people do as well.

Hard luck.

 

But why should be we be proud of being British? I think pride in a nation's achievements is a silly concept, people seem to be patriotic mainly because they are indoctrinated to be. If you can find things to be proud of in being British you can easily find enough to be quite shameful of. It also implicitly calls forth idea of a supposed superiority of one nation over another. I used to be quite patriotic but the more I think about the reasons for it the less point I can see in being patriotic.

 

 

That fact that Britain stood alone probably has almost everything to do with an assessment of the country's prospects of 'riding it out' for some time. Britain's prospects for continuing the war were far greater than France's, and the US had no reason for entering the war until it did formally declare war. I personally do not think Britain standing alone in the early part of the world reflects unique qualities at all, not in the way of an ethos. The only unique qualities were those of Britain's economic situation, geography, grand strategy etc, that were the major influences on the course of the war.

 

Nobody is saying that it is wrong to feel gratitude on Remembrance Day but it can be argued that there is nothing to be proud of.

 

 

Patriotism has strong links with warfare in that in a lot of warfare the civilians support and back their nation to win. They did so during WW1 and WW2 but I do not believe encouraging loyalty to one's own nation should be encouraged at all.

[bluemonday]

This reminds me of a time about a dozen years ago when I was helping out a met in a pub a friend owned. A young guy worked there as well. He'd had a troubled childhood and ended up living alone in a flat whilst he finished his exams at School. It was a quiet post lunchtime and we were talking about WW2 as he was covering that period in his history course.

 

There was only us and four old guys who came in most afternoons in the place. Anyway, cutting a long story short, he told me that the reason the evacuation at Dunkirk was such a success was that the Germans had totally run out of fuel and could not attack in anyway. I countered this with what I had been taught - Hitlers intent being to thrash the evacuation as much as possible but still hold out a possibility of an accord with Britain. The logic being that the thrashed British would lose their motivation.

He rubbished this and stated his version was right and that the evacuation was a success because the Germans were out of fuel.

I asked where he got this from and he said his History teacher. He said he knows the truth. How old is he I asked and was told about thirty.

 

I heard a couple of glases being put down on the old guys table and it transpired that three out of the four had been at Dunkirk. For about half an hour, he was gently but graphically told what actually happened to the extent of being shown some old battle scars aquired as a result of being straffed. on the beach.

 

At the end he knew from first hand account what had happened as opposed to his teachers revision.

 

You can change what you say happened and how it should be remembered but you can't change what actually happened.

 

That's one of the few reasons why I like Americans, a really mixed pot but when they play their national anthemn, they all stand hand on hearts.

They're not scared to be patriotic.

 

Each to his own.

[La_Dolce_Vita]

I heard a couple of glases being put down on the old guys table and it transpired that three out of the four had been at Dunkirk. For about half an hour, he was gently but graphically told what actually happened to the extent of being shown some old battle scars aquired as a result of being straffed. on the beach.

 

At the end he knew from first hand account what had happened as opposed to his teachers revision.

 

You can change what you say happened and how it should be remembered but you can't change what actually happened.

 

I don't really understand the point you are trying to make here.

 

I do not doubt that these men were at Dunkirk but the fact that they were on beaches during the evacuation does not mean that their beliefs as to why the evacuation was a success are facts, simply because they were there and experienced it. In determining why Dunkirk was a success there are many factors to be taken into account, much of this information could not obtained from those on the beaches. For example, the soldiers on the beaches would not be aware of Hitler's decison making and reasoning behind his decisions. The British on the beaches would have been unlikely to have been able to determine why the Germans stopped at all. A thirty-year old teacher, teaching much later on, would have had access to the work of historians who have made efforts to look at the varying affects that made Dunkirk possible. Nevertheless, I do not understand why this is relevant.

 

 

That's one of the few reasons why I like Americans, a really mixed pot but when they play their national anthemn, they all stand hand on hearts.

They're not scared to be patriotic.

 

Each to his own.

 

It is not about being scared to be patriotic. Why do you think that? In my case I am not patriotic because I have no good reason to be. But yes, each to their own.

[Pragmatopian]

What Samuel Johnson said over 200 years ago is still true today: "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."

[Skeddan]

I think that Britain would be better served, and would have more to be proud of now if its children were taught to think for themselves instead of being presented with a consensus view of their nation's virtues and told and taught what to feel.

 

Is this also true for education in Manx schools?

[VinnieK]

I think that Britain would be better served, and would have more to be proud of now if its children were taught to think for themselves instead of being presented with a consensus view of their nation's virtues and told and taught what to feel.

 

Is this also true for education in Manx schools?

 

Of course. History at school should teach two things:

 

1. the basic analytic skills of the discipline, and the most important philosophies of history;

2. the basic histories of some of the important events that have significantly influenced the fate of the world, upon which the skills and schools of thought of 1 are put into practice, and providing the international and/or larger regional historical context necessary to persue further study (professional or at leisure) of things like local history and specific eras or regions.

 

In other words a basic history of the classical world, the renaissance, the industrial revolution and the age of empire, the crisis of liberal democracy and the world wars, and the cold war.

 

If parents wish their children to have a greater appreciation of their own history, or wish their children to be exposed to a more overtly patriotic interpretation of history, then they can take them to local museums, buy them books on the subject, and the like.

[Skeddan]

I think that Britain would be better served, and would have more to be proud of now if its children were taught to think for themselves instead of being presented with a consensus view of their nation's virtues and told and taught what to feel.

 

Is this also true for education in Manx schools?

 

Of course. History at school should teach two things:

.....

 

 

What I was asking is whether in Manx schools children are presented with a "consensus view of their nation's virtues and told and taught what to feel".