John Cleese attempting to refine his dog whistle (comments about London being less 'English' these days)

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glenn1

Lifer
Sep 6, 2000
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It is the people who are determined to defend Cleese from every possible angle that are being overly sensitive.

Defend him from what? He's saying the same thing as people quoted in the article who celebrate London's "diversity" and "cosmopolitan" nature but in the inverse language. "More diverse" means "less English" the same way "hotter" means "less cold." It would be the same thing as saying more whites living in Hawaii nowadays means Oahu is more diverse than it was in the 1700s but is also less Hawaiian because native Hawaiians aren't the 100% demographic they were back then. This isn't a trifling concern when American culture and corporations are doing their damnest to homogenize the entire planet with a Starbucks and McDonald's being put everywhere except perhaps some isolated Amazonian tribe.
 

Veliko

Diamond Member
Feb 16, 2011
3,597
127
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What John Cleese said has racist undertones.

Celebrating diversity does not.
 

hal2kilo

Lifer
Feb 24, 2009
24,222
10,877
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He would probably disagree. While born in the US, the majority of his life has been spent in the UK. He went Brit back in the 60s or 70s. Gave up his US citizenship awhile back.
I was wondering if he would do that. Yea, he's been anglafied for quite awhile. Just a dumb joke.
 

Starbuck1975

Lifer
Jan 6, 2005
14,698
1,909
126
Why did you ignore my earlier question?
Sorry, I missed it. Cleese answered this very question in a subsequent tweet:

“I suspect I should apologize for my affection for the Englishness of my upbringing, but in some ways I found it calmer, more polite, more humorous, less tabloid, and less money-oriented than the one that is replacing it.”
 

Vic

Elite Member
Jun 12, 2001
50,422
14,336
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Sorry, I missed it. Cleese answered this very question in a subsequent tweet:

“I suspect I should apologize for my affection for the Englishness of my upbringing, but in some ways I found it calmer, more polite, more humorous, less tabloid, and less money-oriented than the one that is replacing it.”

So like most nostalgic people, he longs for a good old days that never existed except in his memories. The postwar England of his upbringing was in reality none of the things that he describes, except for maybe within his closed circle of prep school and Cambridge.
 
Nov 25, 2013
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I fully expect you and the other folks celebrating "diversity" to therefore decry as "racist" the folks who decry gentrification which has the same racist overtones, just against a different racial group.

So, it seems that you're trying for simple stupidity today. Congratulation, you succeeded.
 

glenn1

Lifer
Sep 6, 2000
25,383
1,013
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What is about London today, specifically, that makes it less English than it used to be?

Already explained it here: https://forums.anandtech.com/thread...glish-these-days.2565861/page-2#post-39833653


So, it seems that you're trying for simple stupidity today. Congratulation, you succeeded.

LOL, your side can't even keep straight its own principles? Is diversity a good thing, or a bad thing if it's the "wrong" kind of diversity? London would be even more diverse if you dropped in a bunch of members of the KKK, Lord's Resistance Army, ISIS, folks who practice female genital mutilation, those who think gays should be thrown off a tower, et cetera but I'm guessing you wouldn't be down with THAT kind of diversity. Basically you want "diversity" that means people who think exactly like you but can introduce some new ethnic restaurants in town as they vote for Bernie Sanders. Basically brown versions of yourselves.
 

Veliko

Diamond Member
Feb 16, 2011
3,597
127
106
LOL, your side can't even keep straight its own principles? Is diversity a good thing, or a bad thing if it's the "wrong" kind of diversity? London would be even more diverse if you dropped in a bunch of members of the KKK, Lord's Resistance Army, ISIS, folks who practice female genital mutilation, those who think gays should be thrown off a tower, et cetera but I'm guessing you wouldn't be down with THAT kind of diversity. Basically you want "diversity" that means people who think exactly like you but can introduce some new ethnic restaurants in town as they vote for Bernie Sanders. Basically brown versions of yourselves.

This is the part where you don't even bother denying your own xenophobia, but instead try to make out that everyone else is just as xenophobic as you.
 

Starbuck1975

Lifer
Jan 6, 2005
14,698
1,909
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So like most nostalgic people, he longs for a good old days that never existed except in his memories. The postwar England of his upbringing was in reality none of the things that he describes, except for maybe within his closed circle of prep school and Cambridge.
Who are you to question how he remembers things? I can’t speak for London, but speaking for NYC, it’s a changed city. On the on hand, I enjoy the culinary and cultural changes brought by multiculturalism, but there is also an underlying commercialism and materialism that unifies those who are actually able to enjoy it. In that sense, Cleese is very correct.
 

Vic

Elite Member
Jun 12, 2001
50,422
14,336
136
Already explained it here: https://forums.anandtech.com/thread...glish-these-days.2565861/page-2#post-39833653




LOL, your side can't even keep straight its own principles? Is diversity a good thing, or a bad thing if it's the "wrong" kind of diversity? London would be even more diverse if you dropped in a bunch of members of the KKK, Lord's Resistance Army, ISIS, folks who practice female genital mutilation, those who think gays should be thrown off a tower, et cetera but I'm guessing you wouldn't be down with THAT kind of diversity. Basically you want "diversity" that means people who think exactly like you but can introduce some new ethnic restaurants in town as they vote for Bernie Sanders. Basically brown versions of yourselves.

So basically, you've gotten past racist to full blown nationalist. It's not that you don't want brown people to live in London, you don't even want Scottish, Irish, French, German, and Polish peoples to live in London, because all of those would make London less English.
 

Vic

Elite Member
Jun 12, 2001
50,422
14,336
136
Who are you to question how he remembers things? I can’t speak for London, but speaking for NYC, it’s a changed city. On the on hand, I enjoy the culinary and cultural changes brought by multiculturalism, but there is also an underlying commercialism and materialism that unifies those who are actually able to enjoy it. In that sense, Cleese is very correct.

Commercialism and materialism are things that have defined London and NYC since those cities were founded. They're the very things that define all prosperous cities and always have since ancient history. Change being the one true constant, it is the ability to adapt to change that makes prosperous cities prosperous, and the failure to do what poor small town into what they are.
But as with all those infected with nostalgia, the only things that have really changed are the aging minds of those so infected.
 
Nov 25, 2013
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Already explained it here: https://forums.anandtech.com/thread...glish-these-days.2565861/page-2#post-39833653




LOL, your side can't even keep straight its own principles? Is diversity a good thing, or a bad thing if it's the "wrong" kind of diversity? London would be even more diverse if you dropped in a bunch of members of the KKK, Lord's Resistance Army, ISIS, folks who practice female genital mutilation, those who think gays should be thrown off a tower, et cetera but I'm guessing you wouldn't be down with THAT kind of diversity. Basically you want "diversity" that means people who think exactly like you but can introduce some new ethnic restaurants in town as they vote for Bernie Sanders. Basically brown versions of yourselves.

Just another fucking deplorable. Sad.
 

glenn1

Lifer
Sep 6, 2000
25,383
1,013
126
So basically, you've gotten past racist to full blown nationalist. It's not that you don't want brown people to live in London, you don't even want Scottish, Irish, French, German, and Polish peoples to live in London, because all of those would make London less English.

If you swapped the entire populations of London and Beijing then London would effectively cease to be English and Beijing would cease to be Chinese. I am unsure why this is a hard concept for you to grasp. Place is more about culture and its peoples than its physical location. That’s why the U.S. has neighborhoods like Chinatown in SF and Koreatown in LA.

If you bulldozed K-Town to put up luxury condos for Venezuelan oligarchs and moved all the Korean residents to Fullerton, would it make sense to call it “Koreatown” any more? Of course not. Does it make the same patch of dirt “better” or “worse” if it’s less Korean in nature and more Venezuelan? Of course not, being different doesn’t mandate a hierarchy of good/bad.

Likewise London being more diverse/cosmopolitan doesn’t make it “better” or “worse” than before but it’s true to say it’s less English. It’s simply definitional truth that diversity and homogeneity (like being primarily English inhabited vs diverse) are antonyms.
 

Vic

Elite Member
Jun 12, 2001
50,422
14,336
136
If you swapped the entire populations of London and Beijing then London would effectively cease to be English and Beijing would cease to be Chinese. I am unsure why this is a hard concept for you to grasp. Place is more about culture and its peoples than its physical location. That’s why the U.S. has neighborhoods like Chinatown in SF and Koreatown in LA.

If you bulldozed K-Town to put up luxury condos for Venezuelan oligarchs and moved all the Korean residents to Fullerton, would it make sense to call it “Koreatown” any more? Of course not. Does it make the same patch of dirt “better” or “worse” if it’s less Korean in nature and more Venezuelan? Of course not, being different doesn’t mandate a hierarchy of good/bad.

Likewise London being more diverse/cosmopolitan doesn’t make it “better” or “worse” than before but it’s true to say it’s less English. It’s simply definitional truth that diversity and homogeneity (like being primarily English inhabited vs diverse) are antonyms.

Ok, this would true from a stricly logical and unemotional viewpoint. But within the context of an emotional and nostalgic view that Cleese is presenting of a London that was more English, it is obviously implied that a less English London is worse.
 
Nov 25, 2013
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Woe is me. London is changing. Woe is me.

Some London history

1674-1715

"During the seventeenth century migration tended to be long distance and international. As a result, besides its youth, London's population in this period was also characterised by its diversity. All the regions and countries that made up the British Isles were well represented by self-conscious communities of migrants. Specific neighbourhoods were associated with Yorkshire, Scotland and Ireland. At the same time the Huguenot refugees from France successfully carved out a distinct district for themselves in Spitalfields; while Sephardic Jews and Ashkenazim from Poland and Germany settled around Whitechapel and Petticoat Lane. The Irish came to dominate the area around St Giles in the Fields, which came to be known as "Little Dublin".

1760-1815

"At the same time, international, and indeed global, migration (both economic and forced) became more significant. Following the end of hostilities at the conclusions of the Seven Years War in 1763 and the American War in 1783, a large number of black men and women from Africa, the Caribbean and North America settled in London. By the last quarter of the eighteenth century the black population of London is estimated to have been between 5,000 and 10,000. The outcome of the American War in particular also resulted in the establishment of a large American loyalist community, both white and black.

1815-1860

"In 1815 London was already the largest city in the world, but by 1860 it had grown three-fold to reach 3,188,485 souls. And many of the souls it contained were from elsewhere. In 1851, over 38 per cent of Londoners were born somewhere else."

1860-1930

"During the same period, the flow of European immigrants rose from a steady stream to a regular river of humanity, while migration from the wider world also grew in importance."
...
"The great revolutions and political struggles of late nineteenth-century Europe brought many from Russia, Poland, France, Italy and Germany - including revolutionaries and political activists such as Karl Marx. But most came to work, or to escape persecution."
...
"Chinese and Indian immigrants became a more prominent and established part of the London whirl in these same years, while Indian sailors, and a small but significant African and Black Caribbean community continued to prosper. The Pan-African Conference was held in London in 1900; reflecting the extent to which the capital acted as the centre of imperial dissent as much as the centre of the imperium. The 1901 census recorded 33,000 Londoners as having been born in British colonies or dependencies."

https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/static/Population-history-of-london.jsp
 

glenn1

Lifer
Sep 6, 2000
25,383
1,013
126
Ok, this would true from a stricly logical and unemotional viewpoint. But within the context of an emotional and nostalgic view that Cleese is presenting of a London that was more English, it is obviously implied that a less English London is worse.

I’ll agree for sake of argument and respond “so what”? People argue nostalgically for past days all the time, from neighborhoods “lost” to gentrification or progressives who yearn for the 1950s and it’s tax rates and income distribution. That doesn’t mean those people want to return to pre-gentrification drug gangs or to the Jim Crow of the 50s.
 

Vic

Elite Member
Jun 12, 2001
50,422
14,336
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I’ll agree for sake of argument and respond “so what”? People argue nostalgically for past days all the time, from neighborhoods “lost” to gentrification or progressives who yearn for the 1950s and it’s tax rates and income distribution. That doesn’t mean those people want to return to pre-gentrification drug gangs or to the Jim Crow of the 50s.
Then what do they mean?
 
Nov 25, 2013
32,083
11,718
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Already explained it here: https://forums.anandtech.com/thread...glish-these-days.2565861/page-2#post-39833653




LOL, your side can't even keep straight its own principles? Is diversity a good thing, or a bad thing if it's the "wrong" kind of diversity? London would be even more diverse if you dropped in a bunch of members of the KKK, Lord's Resistance Army, ISIS, folks who practice female genital mutilation, those who think gays should be thrown off a tower, et cetera but I'm guessing you wouldn't be down with THAT kind of diversity. Basically you want "diversity" that means people who think exactly like you but can introduce some new ethnic restaurants in town as they vote for Bernie Sanders. Basically brown versions of yourselves.

Keep up the good fight in your ongoing War Against Straw. You're doing a heck of a job.



ROFLMAO
 
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glenn1

Lifer
Sep 6, 2000
25,383
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Then what do they mean?

What does who mean? Unsure who the “they” in your response is. To me this is a non-story of an older person you see every day who yearns for “the simpler times” of their youth and dislike the young whippersnappers and their long hair, strange food and music, etc. If he is racist there’s plenty of places he can go where it’s old white folks everywhere (see Vermont for example).
 

Ichinisan

Lifer
Oct 9, 2002
28,298
1,235
136
Did he say being less "English" / "British" or less distinctly "London" is a bad thing?