the anglosphere

to provide some answers to the initial terms

i) those anglosphere proponents are all singularly dreadul, sentimentally retrogade people who misunderstand realpolitik and how the usa uses the 'special relationship' and its bargaining power with the other ukusa signatories

ii) the obama administration's reorientation of american power to the pacific rim, the renewed emphasis on relations with germany and to a lesser extent france, the lessened need for ukusa to support war coalitions, australia's reorientation towards china etc....these and various other factors render the traditional ukusa alliances less important

iii) india, nigeria and other increasingly powerul former anglo-colonial nations see themselves more in terms of local/economic kinship (such as brics) rather than in terms of belonging to the engish speaking world; they might share certain institutional legacies with the anglo project nations but their alliances with them are realpolitik rather than sentimental

iv) the 'anglosphere' exists mostly as a delusory identification of the right in the uk who believe it represents an alternative value system to that of continental europe (even though broadly liberal or neoliberal ideas retain prominence in much of the eu) and who believe the 'special relationship' describes anything other than fealty

i was a Midlands Methodist for a part of my early teens, it didn't feel counter-establishment in the ways i understand it to have expressed itself in the Celtic fringe

tribal influxes into these islands over the 2000 years or so before the Norman Conquest are pretty muddly and don't code on racial lines as far as i understand it, maybe better to think of linguistic/cultural communities?

point iv sums the reality of this thing up quite neatly

the broader acceptance of neoliberal ideas across the entire west show the 'shared values' claims to be essentially rosy eyed and superficial

weber was quite dismissive of claims that the particular development of the westminister system and the common law rendered the english speaking nations conceptually distinct from continental europe in any essential way once capitalism had developed

I think a lot of Brits would like to see themselves as part of a nation conceptually closer to the Nordic countries than the modern US, despite the broadly separate path to developing systems of government and law.

i only ever see this term used by rightists and as shorthand for unbridled capital and imperial nostalgia, yeah.

Sorry, should have been more specific about "Methodism" but I was typing on an iPhone while avoiding the shops.

Methodism specifically as an expression of Cornish and Welsh identity. Linked to notions of national/cultural/linguistic identity. Methodism as seen as a specifically Welsh/Cornish rejection of the Church of England. (The Church of England had been hated in Cornwall since the 16th Century Prayer Book Rebellion - seen as the imposition of a foreign *language* (English as opposed to Cornish) through a foreign religion. It was seen - quite rightly - as an attack on the Cornish language, Cornish culture and the Cornish people by an assertion of English control and English dominance. Though that specific rebellion - and the crushing of the Cornish language that followed - was the culmination of at least a century of Cornish rebellions.)

Interested in ways of thinking about Methodism (not just in Brythonic areas) but as Dissenters, in terms of rejecting English centralisation and the dominance of London and a ruling class. (This doesn't only have to happen on a right-wing basis. Or is there an analogue between the right wing rejecting "Europe" and the parts of Britain that reject "London"?)

The muddy 2000 years of pre-history don't code on 'racial' lines because obviously Race as we're talking about is something that was invented later (it was invented during the Colonial period) - so even the people fighting in the Prayerbook Rebellion wouldn't have thought of themselves as "The Celtic Race" but they would have thought of themselves as a nation distinct from The English. But it's kind of a chequered history of who, exactly the "English" that they were fighting *were*. They're called English (or rather, Saxons/Sassenachs/Sowsneks) but the Anglo-Saxons drew a border and stayed on the other side of it. It took the Anglo-Normans, in the course of installing Feudalism, to expand the borders of their kingdoms over the rest of the island and invent Englishness as we know it. That really, there is no such thing as "Englishness" except in opposition to the other peoples of the isle, with their strong identifications of "Not That Lot". Or maybe the other way around, the "Celtic" identities were formed in opposition to 'English' invasions and 'English' imperialism on land that formerly belonged to Picts and Cumbrians and Cymru and Kernewek and whoever...)

I had a point, but I've lost it. Sorry.

I guess it's not that "but this conception of race isn't real, it's a fantasy" is not an adequate dismissal. These fantasies were invented by someone, and to serve a specific purpose. Dismissing them as fantasies or pure conceptions is a way of obscuring the purposes that they serve.

sorry i wasn't intending to dismiss, i did start to have some thoughts about Celticness that you've articulated there, the idea of it as a response to English nationalism, in part. because obviously "Englishness" as a coherent "us and them" identity comes along pretty late, and most of the mixing of peoples across the islands has happened long before then, including but not limited to groups variously identified as Celtic, Belgic, various Anglo-Saxons, Danes and assorted "Vikings"...

i don't know exactly where this leads me either except that most of the island's identities feel like deliberate political choices made at some point a good way after general patterns of settlement - inasmuch as people stayed relatively still - were laid down?

I think a lot of Brits would like to see themselves as part of a nation conceptually closer to the Nordic countries

― Wristy Hurlington (ShariVari), Friday, 31 October 2014 15:57 (6 minutes ago)

this is evident in the amount that those people seem to know about the nordic countries beyond similarly rosy-eyed fictions that don't acknowledge eugenics, oppression of local minorities, marginalization of immigrant minorities and so forth

the nordic countries and the netherlands are significant here as countries where the english language is understood by virtually all educated people and whose commercial classes, cultural practitioners, academia etc are significanty oriented to the uk, even if this is less often acknowledgef in the uk

in thinking about it the purpose of this particular bit of right-wing imagined community is to differentiate it from other conservatisms: not catholic, not royalist, not 'national,' not fascist, not sentimental (but kind of being all those things thru the back door).

"we're just calm rational efficient managers, you know, not like those other people who want to stride the earth for crazy reasons! you could only object to our rule out of superstition, resentment or laziness"

the broad left seems like the 'far enemy' to this idea

there is something to be said for the united states pursuing 'the anglosphere' as one of many supranational communities through which to pursue its interests largely at the expense of the other countries within them

the uk right is incapable of seeing beyond ancient blood kinship and common language as the foundation for supranational affiliation

'the anglosphere' represents the affixing of the vestigial imperial project to the settler project and manifest destiny, the means by which the uk pursues the delusion of empire long past the historical juncture which rendered it a secondary power

the uk's interests are conflated with that of the united states, the historical trauma of having been superseded by the next superpower is elided; the crushing war debts, the final clipping of its wings at suez

the azores summit immediately preceding the second iraq war is illustrative -- three former colonial powers offered symbolic fealty to the united states, even as rumsfeld made clear that it could win the war by itself and that the uk was merely lending its second rate military hardware for decorative purposes

what did scooter libby say at one point, "the brits are a high maintenance ally" or some such?

there was some anxious murmuring on the british right when obama was elected, since his published views on the uk extended to describing his grandfather's experiences as a menial for a british officer during the second world war and then a detainee during the mau mau rebellion during which thousands of people were tortured, castrated, executed and so forth

that period of late colonial pretention encompassing the particularly unpleasant malayan emergency and various minor skirmishes is very seldom mentioned by the empire queens but it provided an initial template for the vietnam counterinsurgency

harold wilson's terribly apologetic unwillingness for not joining in that folly being one of the few unalloyed british foreign policy successes of the postwar era, again seldom mentioned by the liberal internationalists who reflexively support american follies of this century

Those Kenyans that fought against Hitler without any wage other than sustenance and then got put into British gulags that were easily as murderous as Stalin's Kolyma camp, for having the temerity to expect a life in their own land. They can stick this fucking "freedom" up their arseholes.

As I've said in other contexts, one should never mistake being an anglophone for being an anglophile.

surprisingly good new statesman article about this

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/02/rise-anglosphere-how-right-dreamed-new-conservative-world-order

is there a good precis of what harper has been doing in canada

for some reason new zealand feels like a bit of a stretch compared to the other 4

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nations_of_Nineteen_Eighty-Four#Oceania

Though not well known in the Anglosphere, Ms Konstantopoulou is being touted among some Syriza members and MPs as a potential figurehead for opposition to the coming deal.

this is a v good thread and i’m bringing nothing to it other than

The Anglosphere does indeed exist... 🧻 https://t.co/8TKLN6YXdU

— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) March 8, 2020

love to see irish broken down (insert eu troika joke)

ive a feeling we've been lumped in there

Sorry guys, but…

It appears history is to blame

History is a nightmare from which I am trying to buy cake