h a l f b a k e r yThe phrase 'crumpled heap' comes to mind.
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WHEREAS:
The people of Scotland - not all of them Scots - will vote next year as to whether Scotland should be an independent nation. Whether or not this is a good idea is beside the point of this idea. What I am keen to deal with in the here & now is how Scots comport themselves in the aftermath
of attaintment of nation statehood (should such an event occur) and, on a broader level, how citizens of other countries which have attained independent nation statehood comport themselves in the period following such attainment.
National independence for countries is equivalent to potty training for humans: a pre-requisite for respectful engagement with others, but not of itself something to commemorate. Celebrating this independence leads to problems: in the early years such celebrations are gauche and unbecoming of civilised nations and give other nations to believe that the newly independent nation isn't knuckling down and getting on with being a nation and is instead dicking about with fireworks and yahboosucksery; further, in later years, such celebrations become entrenched as social customs, and tend towards the aggressive promotion of a vulgar stripe of unthinking nationalism, which has been shown previously to be a Bad Thing.
THEREFORE:
Celebrations of the attainment of nation statehood shall be permitted only for a period of 100 years, starting from the attainment of nation statehood. Countries which attained nation statehood more than 100 years from the promulgation of this act of the Global Parliament will be entitled to continue such celebrations for a peirod of 3 years from promulgation, after which they should knock it the fuck off, you're adults, now act like it.
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Should Scotland become an independent state there's an argument that "The Rest of the UK" also becomes a new, independent state. I'm not sure I'd support celebrations of the national day of "The Rest of the UK" or if I'd go around waving "The Rest of the UK" national flag. Apart from this, an excellent idea. |
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It's an interesting notion, but good luck selling it over here.
My nation in particular has turned the celebration of its
independence (along with every other holiday, it seems)
into a capitalist affair. |
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Without this measure Scots will have nothing to resist,
and by removing such an important antagonist as
whatever it is being seperated from whether the entire
notion of United Kingdom, a Great Britian, England, the
conflict of clashing national interests inside a functional
state system but not necessarily the state system or the
other nation (s) per
se, none of the former but the lattermost, one of the
former but the lattermost, etc. Scots will no longer
have anything to assert their freedom against. This is
essential legislation to maintaining the freedom seeking
identity and 'manifest destiny' of Scots without
destroying that very spirit through attainment of the
ultimate goal of freedom. |
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Or maybe it's something else entirely. Such as a
demonstrably overt statement against any sort of
tendency towards union in this modern era of European
Unions, United Nations, anticollective public sector
austerity measures etc. To demonstrate the power of
independent competing soverign states in a globalised
industrial capital-rationalized marketplace. The vote is
not in any way to fissure solidarity in Great Britain, but
merely the aforemention demonstration of modern
nation states in a globalised hyperindustrial capitalist
world system. The implication of the idea of soverign co-
existing states in the general UK vicinity stands the hairs
and raises the craters on my head, knowing that not just
a few familiar hairy heads have been cratered for the
same goal in prior historical independance movements.
Afterall soveriegn nation state sytem is the best, each
one seeking out advantages in a political economic
treatise way. |
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[rcarty] Are you suggesting that Scots identity is founded entirely on a resentment and dislike of being part of the United Kingdom? |
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Well in that part I suggested an options list for the
consumer who wants a diverse range of co-owned often
publically traded brands to select from in a competing
marketplace. If anti United Kingdom then the scot
seeks freedom from neofeudalist mass marketed
celebrity monarchy. If for the union, not a unionist per
se, but a free agent in a monopolizing political society
with no brand loyalty they can select from a range of
packages. Even to go so far as to make the split over
major league sport team franchises based on the
fluxuation of general political sentiments in an other-
object oriented, but geopolitically centred mass. Really
its the interplay of so much political diversification from
feudalism to industrial capitalism to socialism to WW2 to
postmodernism to late contemporary modernism when
Scotland, the original theorizer of modernity, the free
market, enters the
modern world system becoming a sovereign nation
state. The free market of liberalism marking the end of
feudalist monopolies, making way for industrial capitalist
monopolies, then a new political reality defined by the
capitalized social's consumer role, rather than the other
direction in parts asia, of reality production through
brand loyalty, system involvement and rationalization,
or free agency in a diversified competing marketplace
of mutual and self-interests. |
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As a Canadian I'd just like to say that we're sorry, and we'll try to tone down our Independence party to a dull roar. |
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...and that //raises the craters on my head// should be given [marked-for-tagline] consideration. |
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[rcarty] I think the missing apostrophe in "its" is making your anno hard to understand. |
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I have lately been pondering on the Scottish identity, such as it is. I suspect that there is an externally-facing tourist-mooching identity, which is all Rob Rob McGregor and Edinburgh and little tartan drummer girl in a plastic tube, and an internal one which is at once more fragmented and more unified: each city and area considering itself the best of Scothood but all of it coming down to a broad recognition of Is There For Honest Poverty as (a) true and (b) justifying a relatively open-minded friendliness. No, the Scottish identity is not founded or derived from any sense of not-Englishness, though I do think that consideration of Scottish identity is motivated by the fact that all the commonly touted symbols and baubles of Britishness are applicable to England alone (with the usual addition of a low-perspective shot of the Forth Rail Bridge, a colliery and the Giant's Causeway as sops to the fringe nations). Conversely, the English identity - and therefore by extension the international perception of the British identity - seems primarily founded upon a wounded sense of the sportsman cheated, which has led the English to the become the ne plus ultra of the bearer of unreciprocated international grudges. Nobody really gives a fuck about England (meaning either England or Britain, depending on context) but England is of the home nations the only one not to have noticed this. |
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I am not sure I buy into rcarty's application of the corporate / branding model of nation state agglomeration (though we kicked this one around on the Clear the UK National Debt idea a while back) but I will think more on't. |
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Hippo -Can't you read it both ways and decide whether
its is it's, it
is, or its s is its own and not the seperate word is. THis
obviously is not polished paper but the interrupted
breaks
while plopping turds. |
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I don't necessarily buy my own view, I've been reading
baudrillard and friends so I'm just word saladata dumping
on political econonomy view. It's worth thinking of the
social control structure of british society relative to
global political economic eras like fuedalism, liberalism
etc.but how society seems to operate postmodernily in
a consumer culture of social orders with prevailing
dominant social orders like the global structure of nation
states bringing a succession of scotland from the UK. But
also other social orders consumed in the sense of being
bought into as a movement and leading to its absurd
implosionary breakdown. For example when the
regulatory side of anticapitalist environmentalism
turned into the rationalization of consumers and a total
market rationalization towards green industry - or
capitalism that is more rationalized and a consumer that
is more rationalized. That serves as just an example of
the process of being coopted by a dominant system.
Although, the user
consumes the movement through immanent ironic
antitheses. Probably also another good reason scotland
hasn't become independant with such close geopolitical
integration. Disharmonious actors from other
independent nation states can insert their own
cogwheels into your machinery. The ultimate point is
whether scotland will be an absurd nation state breaking
down the idea of nation state through a sharing of
national security interests with the UK, or if such
geopolitical proximity will breakdown true soveriegnty
just by sexy people from the divided nations crossing
categories to fuck meaninglessly. Or something
analogous on a mass effect level. The original idea will
ultimately direct nationalists towards freedom from
global collectivism despite how absurd the sovereignty
of highly integrated neighbouring nation states actually
is. |
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Are you sure the rest of the UK won't be celebrating
a 'Good Riddance' Day? |
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I remember an opinion poll not so long ago, in which
a majority of Scots voted against Scottish
independence, but a majority of English voted *for*
Scottish independence. |
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So, yeah, what [calum] said. |
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Scotland is I think different from England. This may be the usual narsicissm of small differences, granted, but I think that these difference do exist. The main difference is the attitude to class. Some of the "better" parts of Edinburgh and Fife apart, I think that Scotland is less class-ridden than England. I am not sure why this should be: Scotland was as completely a feudal a state as can be for most of its existence (vestiges of this feudality still cropping up in the law, for example), perhaps the English entrenched their middle class - the class that exists to separate the rich and the poor and despises both equally - earlier and more comprehensively than Scotland ever managed. What I do think, though, is that the best fit curve of the Scottish psyche is essentially different from its English counterpart and while the Scottish and English psyches are closely related (I doubt there are two closer in the world) they are sufficiently different, and the Scottish psyche so sufficiently subordinated in the notional British psyche that the drive for Scottish independence is A Thing in and of itself, independent of any notion of Scotland (or any other nation) as a brand to be chosen or adopted. You can feel Scottish without being able to articulate Scottishness or indeed how you feel, you cannot *feel* Apple or Coke or Mr Kipling, though you might be able to say that you are "an Apple fan" or suchlike. In short, I think that while I have discussed the corporatisation of nations themselves, I don't think that nationality can (a) be completely divorced from the nation (particularly from its geography) or (b) traded or swapped or inveigled away from like any other brand. |
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All that said, I am fully onboard with the possibilities for meaningless international fucking that Scottish independence might bring. Makes you wonder why it hasn't been made part of the Yes campaign. |
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//meaningless international fucking// Do you mean interfering unnecessarily with inter-national political arrangements, or casual sex between citizens of different countries? |
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The latter. Bickering might be a vote winner, too, though. |
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Is this a "no sex please we're British" thing? Once people realise they're really English / Welsh / Scots they become as horny as rabbits? |
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England really should begin to celebrate some kind of independence day; maybe call it a national get-over-ourselves day or maybe something like a giant bar-mitzvah. It would do you all some good, and you might discover why we celebrate becoming independent from England. |
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I no longer live in England, but I'm saddened by the
thought of the Scots leaving. It is precisely because
so many of my former compatriots are trivial, vain
and/or snobbish that they need the Scots for
balance. Without the Scots, they'll get worse, I fear. |
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