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I'm not in Brazil I'm in the capital city of the United Kingdom. The staff in my local tesco and sainsburys do not primarily speak English to eachother, and ha
by mhh__ 1y ago
I'm not in Brazil I'm in the capital city of the United Kingdom.
The staff in my local tesco and sainsburys do not primarily speak English to eachother, and have previously struggled to understand basic questions I've had.
Please tell me in what way I'm entitled by wondering if this is a good way to organise a society? No one wanted it.
The purpose of a nation should be to do great things. How can we do anything with huge cultural questions floating around unanswered?
"What does it mean to be British?" is now a thing, and is in turn completely unanswerable. What are British values? Being nice to people?
This is really only a recent western dalliance too, most of the world's largest cities are actually extremely homogenous because they're in Asia.
- orwin 1y agoWhen did your country started killing regionalism and local dialects? then mid 19th century? Because before that, i guarantee you Common english was not the primary language in London. Nationalism is very recent, and mostly pushed for militaristic reasons. Having multiple languages present in your seat of power used to be a source of pride and a proof of power for kings and emperors, so the change has to be recent. > This is really only a recent western dalliance too Historically, it's the opposite, homogenous populations are a very recent thing.
- mlinhares 1y agoAlso: > "What does it mean to be British?" Doesn't mean much? There's Wales and Scotland right there, you go to Spain and find the catalonians, basque, gallegos. A country is very rarely a single thing, its a mix of multiple people's and trying to come up with a single storyline for it is a very modern thing. People identify with the city and region they're most associated with, I'm Brazilian but first and foremost I'm northwestern, the culture, accent, food, customs and religion there is unlike other places in the country. I see no reason to find an answer to "what does it mean to be brazilian" because different people will have different answers for that but if I meet someone from my region we will quickly connect on our shared experiences.
- mhh__ 1y agoNo one bothered asking this until basically the last ten years. Welsh people are Welsh. Hyphenated British people are...?
- mhh__ 1y agoThe population of Britain has been broadly homogenous for about a millenia
- orwin 1y agoBritain and Japan are definitely the exception, not the rule, and "Homogeneous" does a lot of work here. At least 4 different ethnic group mingled together for a millenia (well, 3 of them did, and the fourth waited 400 years until they were kicked out of Aquitaine and normandy to start). Not taking into account places like Cornwell which is so different from britain. I'm probably closer culturally from an average Cornish than anybody from Essex, York or probably almost anywhere in England not living near the Channel in front of Brittany (unless people in Essex have sea shanty festivals, play cornemuse, play Celtic games, eat blue cheese, and speak a language close to Cornish).