Sure, my country too had a revolution and overthrew a Fascist dictatorship. That doesn’t make it a measure of civilization though.
I’ve lived in several countries of Europe and the web controlling Brits is exceptional in its breadth and depth and quite subtle: for example watch the BBC and look for language that subtly classifies different people as having different implicity trustworthiness, for example how they will report Israeli authorities as “saying” or “stating” things whilst Palestinian authorities “claim” things - this kind of technique is not just used for the Israeli Genocide, it’s used for everything and pretty hard to internally compensate for even if you’re aware of it because it mainly affects you at a subconscious level. Brits are constantly being indoctrinated and manipulated, all done with way more subtlety than run of the mill dictatorships.
Or look at how their level of civil society surveillance as shown by the Snowden Revelations was even worse than the US.
Further, do you know they have a Press censorship scheme called D-Notices? Most Britons don’t even know this.
In many ways Britain is a lot more like an Authoritarian Regime with a bit of performative voting (think Russia) than a Democratic country, only it’s all done way more subtly with far more advanced manipulation techniques as the structures supporting it have been developed over, literally, centuries.
(That’s why I said that I left the country thinking it was basically the closest to Fascism we have in Europe, just disguised as posh)
Yet plenty of people over there still have very strong principles to the point that 1.5% of the population went out and demonstrated purely for their principles and not at all their own personal good and people are still going out and risking being arrested by the government as “terrorist supporters” for demonstrating against a Genocide that doesn’t actually affect them personally.
Granted, at the same time there is also a large fraction of the population who are complete cunts, from Financiers in the City and the Political class, to Racist Nationalists.
Don’t get me wrong: British Society itself is quite backwards as European nations go in many things, it’s just that a significant fraction of the population do hold personal humanist values and are willing to at least go out and demonstrate and even face the authorities for them. I compare it with my own country - Portugal - whose society isn’t quite as ill (it has its problems, mainly different ones) but activism for actual principle around here is almost non-existent (sure, people will demonstrate and even strike for their own personal good, but for example a far smaller fraction of people was demonstrating against the Israeli Genocide here than in Britain) and don’t get me started on just hugely unlikely people around here are to do thinks like avoiding having a car for Ecological reasons.
PS: In fact, now that I think about it, a lot of the reason why I think that Revolutionary Capability is not the same as Civilization is the observation on my own country of how people can be perfectly capable of fighting for themselves to the point of overthrowing a dictatorship and yet won’t at all fight for others. In my view, “civilization” must include fighting against certain things happenning to anybody and only just fighting against those things happenning to oneself is merely Survival.
I must admit I am not nearly as informed about Portugal as I am about Northern Europe. But despite that I know they have some pretty strong policies protecting the weaker parts of civilization and workers, as misunderstood as they may sometimes be compared to the Scandinavian model that seems to work better.
The Portuguese may not be protesting as much as the Brits, but I don’t think the Portuguese system is as inherently bad as is the case for UK. In Portugal most things can be improved through the democratic process. Denmark is also a country that has a very low degree of protests, and I believe that coincides with being one of the best democracies in the word. If it works don’t fix it.
I think we differ mainly in that I think that in this era Civilization must be broader than just “Doing what’s better for us”.
So in that sense the Scandinavian model of governance by itself (absent all else), whilst more civilized than most others, isn’t enough for Civilization - there needs to be some kind of broad holding of Universal Humanist Principles rather than merelly just the nation treating its own citizens well.
By that metric and looking at the awful position of Denmark in regards to the Israeli Genocide and even in things like pushing for broad civil society surveillance at the EU level in the form of Chat Control, Denmark is NOT a civilized country, even if it’s better for its own citizens than the vast majority of countries are for theirs.
there needs to be some kind of broad holding of Universal Humanist Principles
I agree, and those principles are the basis for the welfare system, healthcare for all, livable minimum wage etc.
But also all EU countries are committed to those, it is mandatory for being a member of EU.
UK has a long history of not respecting such values particularly with their colonialism, and not letting go until they couldn’t hold onto it anymore.
USA has a similar problem with slavery way beyond what was acceptable in other countries that called themselves civilized. USA has even gone so far as to keep oppressing minorities, first with less voting power, but later exploited as cheap labor, which is probably why we see such a low minimum wage even today.
Take those general humanitarian principles, and you will see the leading democracies also being leading in humanitarian values. An example obviously being the Scandinavian countries. Just as authoritarian countries have disregard for humanitarian values.
We see that clearly in both USA and UK that are both dysfunctional democracies.
By that metric and looking at the awful position of Denmark in regards to the Israeli Genocide
And what awful position is that? Denmark has not helped Israel in their genocide, there was a reaction against the Hamas terrorist attack a couple of years ago, but the tune has changed a lot since that. I agree that personally I think our prime ministers initial reaction was disgusting and tone deaf 100% supporting Israel (but only morally and at the time), but Denmark has not supported Israel in their violent attacks on Palestine. And Denmark has also criticized Israel very strongly, and OFFICIALLY accused Israel of genocide in for instance UN.
The knee jerk reaction to support Israel is something that most western democracies suffer from, we were responsible for the creation of Israel, and somehow see it as our responsibility to protect Israel. Although Israel has become the villain we originally wanted to protect them against.
But Denmark is in no way like either USA in this situation, that have laws that they are required to protect Israel. Those laws may have seemed like a good idea at the time, but in this situation they need to be removed.
Lets put things this way: nations which hold Universal Humanist Principles will always treat their citizens well (or at least as well as they can), but nations which treat their citizens well don’t necessarily hold Universal Humanist Principles.
As for the rest, it’s just circling back to my original point that few or no nations are civilized, but the citizens in some nations are civilized whilst the elites holding power are not.
Good to know Denmark has changed its position in the Genocide. When are the sanctions on Israel starting?!
I also noticed you didn’t address my point on Denmark’s government push for broad civil society surveillance for all of the EU with Chat Control, something which in my view is the very opposite of “civilized” in the modern era.
Sure, my country too had a revolution and overthrew a Fascist dictatorship. That doesn’t make it a measure of civilization though.
I’ve lived in several countries of Europe and the web controlling Brits is exceptional in its breadth and depth and quite subtle: for example watch the BBC and look for language that subtly classifies different people as having different implicity trustworthiness, for example how they will report Israeli authorities as “saying” or “stating” things whilst Palestinian authorities “claim” things - this kind of technique is not just used for the Israeli Genocide, it’s used for everything and pretty hard to internally compensate for even if you’re aware of it because it mainly affects you at a subconscious level. Brits are constantly being indoctrinated and manipulated, all done with way more subtlety than run of the mill dictatorships.
Or look at how their level of civil society surveillance as shown by the Snowden Revelations was even worse than the US.
Further, do you know they have a Press censorship scheme called D-Notices? Most Britons don’t even know this.
In many ways Britain is a lot more like an Authoritarian Regime with a bit of performative voting (think Russia) than a Democratic country, only it’s all done way more subtly with far more advanced manipulation techniques as the structures supporting it have been developed over, literally, centuries.
(That’s why I said that I left the country thinking it was basically the closest to Fascism we have in Europe, just disguised as posh)
Yet plenty of people over there still have very strong principles to the point that 1.5% of the population went out and demonstrated purely for their principles and not at all their own personal good and people are still going out and risking being arrested by the government as “terrorist supporters” for demonstrating against a Genocide that doesn’t actually affect them personally.
Granted, at the same time there is also a large fraction of the population who are complete cunts, from Financiers in the City and the Political class, to Racist Nationalists.
Don’t get me wrong: British Society itself is quite backwards as European nations go in many things, it’s just that a significant fraction of the population do hold personal humanist values and are willing to at least go out and demonstrate and even face the authorities for them. I compare it with my own country - Portugal - whose society isn’t quite as ill (it has its problems, mainly different ones) but activism for actual principle around here is almost non-existent (sure, people will demonstrate and even strike for their own personal good, but for example a far smaller fraction of people was demonstrating against the Israeli Genocide here than in Britain) and don’t get me started on just hugely unlikely people around here are to do thinks like avoiding having a car for Ecological reasons.
PS: In fact, now that I think about it, a lot of the reason why I think that Revolutionary Capability is not the same as Civilization is the observation on my own country of how people can be perfectly capable of fighting for themselves to the point of overthrowing a dictatorship and yet won’t at all fight for others. In my view, “civilization” must include fighting against certain things happenning to anybody and only just fighting against those things happenning to oneself is merely Survival.
I must admit I am not nearly as informed about Portugal as I am about Northern Europe. But despite that I know they have some pretty strong policies protecting the weaker parts of civilization and workers, as misunderstood as they may sometimes be compared to the Scandinavian model that seems to work better.
The Portuguese may not be protesting as much as the Brits, but I don’t think the Portuguese system is as inherently bad as is the case for UK. In Portugal most things can be improved through the democratic process. Denmark is also a country that has a very low degree of protests, and I believe that coincides with being one of the best democracies in the word. If it works don’t fix it.
But apart from that, I agree with you.
I think we differ mainly in that I think that in this era Civilization must be broader than just “Doing what’s better for us”.
So in that sense the Scandinavian model of governance by itself (absent all else), whilst more civilized than most others, isn’t enough for Civilization - there needs to be some kind of broad holding of Universal Humanist Principles rather than merelly just the nation treating its own citizens well.
By that metric and looking at the awful position of Denmark in regards to the Israeli Genocide and even in things like pushing for broad civil society surveillance at the EU level in the form of Chat Control, Denmark is NOT a civilized country, even if it’s better for its own citizens than the vast majority of countries are for theirs.
I agree, and those principles are the basis for the welfare system, healthcare for all, livable minimum wage etc.
But also all EU countries are committed to those, it is mandatory for being a member of EU.
UK has a long history of not respecting such values particularly with their colonialism, and not letting go until they couldn’t hold onto it anymore.
USA has a similar problem with slavery way beyond what was acceptable in other countries that called themselves civilized. USA has even gone so far as to keep oppressing minorities, first with less voting power, but later exploited as cheap labor, which is probably why we see such a low minimum wage even today.
Take those general humanitarian principles, and you will see the leading democracies also being leading in humanitarian values. An example obviously being the Scandinavian countries. Just as authoritarian countries have disregard for humanitarian values.
We see that clearly in both USA and UK that are both dysfunctional democracies.
And what awful position is that? Denmark has not helped Israel in their genocide, there was a reaction against the Hamas terrorist attack a couple of years ago, but the tune has changed a lot since that. I agree that personally I think our prime ministers initial reaction was disgusting and tone deaf 100% supporting Israel (but only morally and at the time), but Denmark has not supported Israel in their violent attacks on Palestine. And Denmark has also criticized Israel very strongly, and OFFICIALLY accused Israel of genocide in for instance UN.
The knee jerk reaction to support Israel is something that most western democracies suffer from, we were responsible for the creation of Israel, and somehow see it as our responsibility to protect Israel. Although Israel has become the villain we originally wanted to protect them against.
But Denmark is in no way like either USA in this situation, that have laws that they are required to protect Israel. Those laws may have seemed like a good idea at the time, but in this situation they need to be removed.
Lets put things this way: nations which hold Universal Humanist Principles will always treat their citizens well (or at least as well as they can), but nations which treat their citizens well don’t necessarily hold Universal Humanist Principles.
As for the rest, it’s just circling back to my original point that few or no nations are civilized, but the citizens in some nations are civilized whilst the elites holding power are not.
Good to know Denmark has changed its position in the Genocide. When are the sanctions on Israel starting?!
I also noticed you didn’t address my point on Denmark’s government push for broad civil society surveillance for all of the EU with Chat Control, something which in my view is the very opposite of “civilized” in the modern era.