To Be Nice … or Not To Be Nice, that is indeed the question.
Not bothered in the slightest by football but the message David draws from the game in this “News From …. “ is spot on.
I see the problem as rooted in a gradual erosion of the Rules Based Order in favour of a covert Feelings Based Order that has swamped the organs-of-state suffocating the attributes that were once the hallmark of British-ness, in all its glory.
This has been established via what may be called culturally based approaches typified by the drive for diversity, equity and inclusion in most aspects of socio-political engagement
We have thus moved from an evidential system based on definable and recognisable facts to an ideologically driven cultural transformation focusing on empathy over rationality, safety over risk and societal cohesion over competition : competitiveness is now a very dirty word, reflected in the musings of our educational establishment and its Ministerial leadership.
This has come to dominate both our approach to international relations as well as a controlling influence of domestic politics. The net effect of this is that politics and international relations has now to be visibly ‘nice’. We have to be seen as being ‘nice’ in our dealings in all manner of political enterprises : every school kid gets a ‘certificate of achievement’ even - and especially - when they were ‘nice’ to the other kids this term. We cannot, and must not, ‘discriminate’ or express judgmental opinions due to the harm it will inevitably cause.
Disruption of the ‘steady state’ achieved by being nice is held to be illegitimate. Not just ‘illegitimate’ but a heinous act of vandalism based on any one of a variety of supposed ‘phobias’. To disagree is to be seen as aberrant rather than simply disagreeing, the outpourings of a disordered mind that must be censored.
In doing so we have invented make-believe offences, most notoriously non crime hate incidents alongside a gamut of ‘hate crimes’ such as expressing ideas that are contrary to the dominant paradigm. Such contrarian ideas are labelled, for political purposes, as ‘harm’ and which may cause ‘upset’. Forbidden.
These not-so-subtle changes are an outlying form of Marxist ideology that prioritises a far more emotionally loaded approach over that which is seen as an overtly rigid form of relationships in any sphere of activity : sport, education, politics, international law have all been infected.
Yet it goes far deeper than that and synthesises what has been labelled (elsewhere) as ‘feminine qualities’ and ‘feminine thinking’ which reputedly has, by its very nature, a distinctively left-wing political disposition.
Thus, far greater weight and emotional appeal is given to a reengineered sense of ethics, morality and ‘rightness’. Being ‘nice’ in a harm-free, non-judgmental, sterilised world of make-believe.
We now have a compulsory and very different form of social engagement with an entirely different frame of reference that, in practice, downgrades logical argument in favour of emotional appeals to a higher calling of virtue, morality and equity.
We now have an enforced brand of virtue, morality and equity that prioritises and promotes a synthetic form of social cohesion, consensus, cooperation, participation, persuasion - but only on fixed terms that befits an embryonic-totalitarianism - rather than allowing open critical analysis, issuing instructions, setting targets and rules for ‘achievement’ and success. Such ‘rudeness’ of the narrow confines of such deplorable considerations of profit, merit, hierarchy, responsibility or efficiency. Very distasteful.
Now all of that is definitely NOT nice, almost as nasty as winning a footie match against such meticulous thuggery. That will never do. Be nice.
The article omitted the word 'German' when mentioning defensive substitutions by the team's "coach" who is better described as the manger directing how the team played. The foreigner didn't just change how we played; he also changed how Argentina played. The Argentine manager noticed the defensive substitutions and directed his team accordingly.
The nation's niceness is in letting foreigners tell us what to do, from Suez to the EU via foreign managers of English football. It's not inherent - see Elizabeth 1 speech at Tilbury.
David Starkey one quipped during Brexit debates that there is a direct line from Henry VIII to Nigel Farage. There is, but bent by our weasel establishment. There was a majority for "taking back control", but 10 years' later we have still to do so.
Kipling understood what foreigners understood about us:
"The Saxon is not like us Normans. His manners are not so polite.
But he never means anything serious till he talks about justice and right.
When he stands like an ox in the furrow – with his sullen set eyes on your own,
And grumbles, 'This isn't fair dealing,' my son, leave the Saxon alone."
That's why foreigners are so keen to tell us what to do and why our treasonous establishment are determined to stop us taking back control. The French found out what happens when the German manager stopped interfering.
Time to leave the Saxon alone. We are in fact quite nice to people who do that.
"The Argentine manager noticed the defensive substitutions and directed his team accordingly".
I couldn't help noticing that not only the manager but every single Argentine player was a native-born Argentine. As were all the Spaniards with, I think, one or two exceptions.
Whereas the "English" and "French" teams, between them, could probably have put together a very creditable pan-African team.
"As a nation, we’re too nice. We aren’t ruthless enough. We’re a soft touch".
Those words would elicit prolonged bitter laughter all over the world. The truth is that Britain often loses through gross incompetence, laziness, stupidity, and arrogance.
Why is the UK in such a horrible mess today? Indebted, bereft of industry, dominated by a small wealthy elite of financiers and plutocrats... committed to the ludicrous "Net Zero" and to hopeless wars against Russia and Iran that would lead to dreadful consequences if those nations took Britain seriously... and aspiring, God save the mark, to take on China - the world's most powerful and, in many ways, most civilised, country.
And it’s faux empathy and faux “niceness” (hence the bile directed at those who question the narrative). Not truly born of a sense of what it’s like to be in another’s shoes but of an unconscious guilt complex and loathing of one’s own tribe.
Empathy is an exclusive feature of the right hemisphere of the brain. The delusional thinking we’re witnessing is the result of left hemisphere dominance.
Infantilisation, instant gratification, rampant narcissism (a left-brain phenomenon) - luxury beliefs abound because life’s been too cushy for recent generations of Britons, such that they never grow up. We’re governed by the equivalent of a bunch of utopian, know-it-all sixth-formers and we’re producing more of the same.
That appears certain to end not well, one way or another.
Why is it, I can't help wondering, that so many people feel so much empathy for others who themselves have absolutely no empathy?
You'd think that a nice British lady of either (sorry, I meant "any") sex would feel a twinge of discomfort when empathising deeply with selfish, murderous bigots.
Your second-to-last paragraph is a summary that applies, point by point, to France. I don't know about other places, but it seems to me that Germany doesn't seem to be in very good shape either.
Most of this soft touch behaviour that is so endemic in society appears to be mandated by law or codes and best practices built on top of deeply rooted cultural mores that reward niceness and humility. Add to those influences the pervasiveness of the "nanny"-state that treats citizens as children. Only societies that still glorify individual striving in a free market (i.e. ruthless competition) and are sceptical of the Nanny-state can have any hope of not succumbing to the effeminacy wave.
I agree that to some degree the niceness thing is an issue. But I don’t think we should underestimate the role that mismanagement plays in all of this - and specifically a particular Orwellian form of anti-nativist, anti-English “steal from the poor box” sentiment (snobbery?) that seems to pervade across all areas of national governance, including our sporting teams.
The FA have for years only appointed two types of coach: the irrationally lauded foreigner (Eriksson, Capello and now Tuchel) or the kind of middle of the road, say the right thing, speak the right way, nobility approved, don’t rock the boat Englishman (McLaren, Hodgson, Southgate). Any English England coach not within that mould is either not appointed when clearly qualified to do the job (Clough? Redknapp?) targeted and hounded out of post through flagrant application of double standards ( Venables, Allardyce - as I recall Capello had a high profile tax avoidance case ongoing against him at the time the FA appointed him and given Eriksson’s later involvement with the likes of Munto Finance and that he appeared to owe HMRC nearly £5m at the time of his death I suspect nobody looked too hard at his off field activities during his England time). Or they are simply never even considered - the plethora of former England internationals who have simply never been given serious consideration or support to coach - even the u21’s manager is an Irishman (albeit and English born, English raised one) and when the main job became available he openly stated he didn’t want it and the FA seemed quite clear they didn’t want him either.
This all being said, and despite the recent substitute-gate against the Argies, I actually quite like Tuchel and even have a degree of sympathy for him. There were moments in the tournament where the camera caught his expression, a look of part incredulity, part wide eyed realisation. A look that seemed to say of his players “how do you not understand this?” when issuing direction and instruction from the touchline. (You could almost hear him muttering to himself in his slightly broken Teutonic English “do i not like that.”) Ah yes people say, but he selected the squad and this is very true. But the FA selected him - a foreign coach, with a foreign footballing upbringing and foreign expectations of what the players could and couldn’t do (and should and shouldn’t be able to do) - the English footballing DNA if you will. Personally I hope he stays in post for Euro 28. I think this tournament has taught him a lot about the players at his disposal, their strengths and weaknesses and the kind of tweaks and alterations required to overcome the mental and physical obstacles in the way of finally getting over the line in a major tournament.
Is it possible that one of the causes is that for many generations the most ambitious Britons, outside of the upper and upper middle classes, have emigrated to the U.S.A. and the dominions?
In Scotland, we long ago learned to apply the adage 'snatching defeat from the jaws of victory'. It certainly applied to our football team but also to life in general.
Football aside, I don’t think the country suffers from “niceness”. Clearly, there’s nothing nice about the state we are in.
I think our predicament stems from avoidance of confrontation and conflict, even at the cost of truth and honesty. I don’t know where this comes from, but I suspect a big factor is the way public schools and universities highly value rhetoric and eloquence whilst ignoring that what is being so beautifully said is either vacuous or stupid.
for me its the other way round … if the Elite can inflict a legislative regime and a regulatory framework on society that persecutes and punishes un-niceness then it doesn’t matter to them how hideous it is ‘out there’ for them its ‘mission accomplished’ by showing - forcibly - that Not Nice is an offence against their higher level morals
To Be Nice … or Not To Be Nice, that is indeed the question.
Not bothered in the slightest by football but the message David draws from the game in this “News From …. “ is spot on.
I see the problem as rooted in a gradual erosion of the Rules Based Order in favour of a covert Feelings Based Order that has swamped the organs-of-state suffocating the attributes that were once the hallmark of British-ness, in all its glory.
This has been established via what may be called culturally based approaches typified by the drive for diversity, equity and inclusion in most aspects of socio-political engagement
We have thus moved from an evidential system based on definable and recognisable facts to an ideologically driven cultural transformation focusing on empathy over rationality, safety over risk and societal cohesion over competition : competitiveness is now a very dirty word, reflected in the musings of our educational establishment and its Ministerial leadership.
This has come to dominate both our approach to international relations as well as a controlling influence of domestic politics. The net effect of this is that politics and international relations has now to be visibly ‘nice’. We have to be seen as being ‘nice’ in our dealings in all manner of political enterprises : every school kid gets a ‘certificate of achievement’ even - and especially - when they were ‘nice’ to the other kids this term. We cannot, and must not, ‘discriminate’ or express judgmental opinions due to the harm it will inevitably cause.
Disruption of the ‘steady state’ achieved by being nice is held to be illegitimate. Not just ‘illegitimate’ but a heinous act of vandalism based on any one of a variety of supposed ‘phobias’. To disagree is to be seen as aberrant rather than simply disagreeing, the outpourings of a disordered mind that must be censored.
In doing so we have invented make-believe offences, most notoriously non crime hate incidents alongside a gamut of ‘hate crimes’ such as expressing ideas that are contrary to the dominant paradigm. Such contrarian ideas are labelled, for political purposes, as ‘harm’ and which may cause ‘upset’. Forbidden.
These not-so-subtle changes are an outlying form of Marxist ideology that prioritises a far more emotionally loaded approach over that which is seen as an overtly rigid form of relationships in any sphere of activity : sport, education, politics, international law have all been infected.
Yet it goes far deeper than that and synthesises what has been labelled (elsewhere) as ‘feminine qualities’ and ‘feminine thinking’ which reputedly has, by its very nature, a distinctively left-wing political disposition.
Thus, far greater weight and emotional appeal is given to a reengineered sense of ethics, morality and ‘rightness’. Being ‘nice’ in a harm-free, non-judgmental, sterilised world of make-believe.
We now have a compulsory and very different form of social engagement with an entirely different frame of reference that, in practice, downgrades logical argument in favour of emotional appeals to a higher calling of virtue, morality and equity.
We now have an enforced brand of virtue, morality and equity that prioritises and promotes a synthetic form of social cohesion, consensus, cooperation, participation, persuasion - but only on fixed terms that befits an embryonic-totalitarianism - rather than allowing open critical analysis, issuing instructions, setting targets and rules for ‘achievement’ and success. Such ‘rudeness’ of the narrow confines of such deplorable considerations of profit, merit, hierarchy, responsibility or efficiency. Very distasteful.
Now all of that is definitely NOT nice, almost as nasty as winning a footie match against such meticulous thuggery. That will never do. Be nice.
The article omitted the word 'German' when mentioning defensive substitutions by the team's "coach" who is better described as the manger directing how the team played. The foreigner didn't just change how we played; he also changed how Argentina played. The Argentine manager noticed the defensive substitutions and directed his team accordingly.
The nation's niceness is in letting foreigners tell us what to do, from Suez to the EU via foreign managers of English football. It's not inherent - see Elizabeth 1 speech at Tilbury.
David Starkey one quipped during Brexit debates that there is a direct line from Henry VIII to Nigel Farage. There is, but bent by our weasel establishment. There was a majority for "taking back control", but 10 years' later we have still to do so.
Kipling understood what foreigners understood about us:
"The Saxon is not like us Normans. His manners are not so polite.
But he never means anything serious till he talks about justice and right.
When he stands like an ox in the furrow – with his sullen set eyes on your own,
And grumbles, 'This isn't fair dealing,' my son, leave the Saxon alone."
That's why foreigners are so keen to tell us what to do and why our treasonous establishment are determined to stop us taking back control. The French found out what happens when the German manager stopped interfering.
Time to leave the Saxon alone. We are in fact quite nice to people who do that.
"The Argentine manager noticed the defensive substitutions and directed his team accordingly".
I couldn't help noticing that not only the manager but every single Argentine player was a native-born Argentine. As were all the Spaniards with, I think, one or two exceptions.
Whereas the "English" and "French" teams, between them, could probably have put together a very creditable pan-African team.
Yes our immigrants played their immigrants.
"As a nation, we’re too nice. We aren’t ruthless enough. We’re a soft touch".
Those words would elicit prolonged bitter laughter all over the world. The truth is that Britain often loses through gross incompetence, laziness, stupidity, and arrogance.
Why is the UK in such a horrible mess today? Indebted, bereft of industry, dominated by a small wealthy elite of financiers and plutocrats... committed to the ludicrous "Net Zero" and to hopeless wars against Russia and Iran that would lead to dreadful consequences if those nations took Britain seriously... and aspiring, God save the mark, to take on China - the world's most powerful and, in many ways, most civilised, country.
Suicidal empathy.
And it’s faux empathy and faux “niceness” (hence the bile directed at those who question the narrative). Not truly born of a sense of what it’s like to be in another’s shoes but of an unconscious guilt complex and loathing of one’s own tribe.
Empathy is an exclusive feature of the right hemisphere of the brain. The delusional thinking we’re witnessing is the result of left hemisphere dominance.
Infantilisation, instant gratification, rampant narcissism (a left-brain phenomenon) - luxury beliefs abound because life’s been too cushy for recent generations of Britons, such that they never grow up. We’re governed by the equivalent of a bunch of utopian, know-it-all sixth-formers and we’re producing more of the same.
That appears certain to end not well, one way or another.
Indeed.
Iain McGilchrist´s work on this is superb.
Why is it, I can't help wondering, that so many people feel so much empathy for others who themselves have absolutely no empathy?
You'd think that a nice British lady of either (sorry, I meant "any") sex would feel a twinge of discomfort when empathising deeply with selfish, murderous bigots.
But evidently not.
Your second-to-last paragraph is a summary that applies, point by point, to France. I don't know about other places, but it seems to me that Germany doesn't seem to be in very good shape either.
Most of this soft touch behaviour that is so endemic in society appears to be mandated by law or codes and best practices built on top of deeply rooted cultural mores that reward niceness and humility. Add to those influences the pervasiveness of the "nanny"-state that treats citizens as children. Only societies that still glorify individual striving in a free market (i.e. ruthless competition) and are sceptical of the Nanny-state can have any hope of not succumbing to the effeminacy wave.
I agree that to some degree the niceness thing is an issue. But I don’t think we should underestimate the role that mismanagement plays in all of this - and specifically a particular Orwellian form of anti-nativist, anti-English “steal from the poor box” sentiment (snobbery?) that seems to pervade across all areas of national governance, including our sporting teams.
The FA have for years only appointed two types of coach: the irrationally lauded foreigner (Eriksson, Capello and now Tuchel) or the kind of middle of the road, say the right thing, speak the right way, nobility approved, don’t rock the boat Englishman (McLaren, Hodgson, Southgate). Any English England coach not within that mould is either not appointed when clearly qualified to do the job (Clough? Redknapp?) targeted and hounded out of post through flagrant application of double standards ( Venables, Allardyce - as I recall Capello had a high profile tax avoidance case ongoing against him at the time the FA appointed him and given Eriksson’s later involvement with the likes of Munto Finance and that he appeared to owe HMRC nearly £5m at the time of his death I suspect nobody looked too hard at his off field activities during his England time). Or they are simply never even considered - the plethora of former England internationals who have simply never been given serious consideration or support to coach - even the u21’s manager is an Irishman (albeit and English born, English raised one) and when the main job became available he openly stated he didn’t want it and the FA seemed quite clear they didn’t want him either.
This all being said, and despite the recent substitute-gate against the Argies, I actually quite like Tuchel and even have a degree of sympathy for him. There were moments in the tournament where the camera caught his expression, a look of part incredulity, part wide eyed realisation. A look that seemed to say of his players “how do you not understand this?” when issuing direction and instruction from the touchline. (You could almost hear him muttering to himself in his slightly broken Teutonic English “do i not like that.”) Ah yes people say, but he selected the squad and this is very true. But the FA selected him - a foreign coach, with a foreign footballing upbringing and foreign expectations of what the players could and couldn’t do (and should and shouldn’t be able to do) - the English footballing DNA if you will. Personally I hope he stays in post for Euro 28. I think this tournament has taught him a lot about the players at his disposal, their strengths and weaknesses and the kind of tweaks and alterations required to overcome the mental and physical obstacles in the way of finally getting over the line in a major tournament.
Is it possible that one of the causes is that for many generations the most ambitious Britons, outside of the upper and upper middle classes, have emigrated to the U.S.A. and the dominions?
In Scotland, we long ago learned to apply the adage 'snatching defeat from the jaws of victory'. It certainly applied to our football team but also to life in general.
Football aside, I don’t think the country suffers from “niceness”. Clearly, there’s nothing nice about the state we are in.
I think our predicament stems from avoidance of confrontation and conflict, even at the cost of truth and honesty. I don’t know where this comes from, but I suspect a big factor is the way public schools and universities highly value rhetoric and eloquence whilst ignoring that what is being so beautifully said is either vacuous or stupid.
for me its the other way round … if the Elite can inflict a legislative regime and a regulatory framework on society that persecutes and punishes un-niceness then it doesn’t matter to them how hideous it is ‘out there’ for them its ‘mission accomplished’ by showing - forcibly - that Not Nice is an offence against their higher level morals