Disclaimer: This post is modelled directly on my post for the “The Arab world”. It is an exercise to see how ridiculous that post was.
The Anglo world is made up of those countries where English is the main language. Most belong to the Commonwealth. The Anglo world we know grew out of the British Empire.
The Anglo world currently has about 400 million people, twice the size of the Arab world. Yet it accounts for almost half of the world’s military spending.
The Anglo world is not the same as the Christian world. Only one Christian in six is Anglo. Anglos were not converted to Christianity till the 600s, by Irish and Roman missionaries.
Also, not all Anglos are Christians. Some are Jewish, like some in New York and California. Most Anglos who come to live in Israel are Jewish.
The glory days were from the 1800s to the 2000s, in the days of the British and American empires. England was at the centre of it all and had some of the greatest minds ever.
The British Empire came out of nowhere, as many do: in 400 years the Anglos went from being an island of people always fighting among themselves to rulers of an empire on which the sun never set, taking in most of the countries along the sea from London to Hong Kong.
For hundreds of years the Anglo world was far in advance of the East: it gave the East plastic, Coca-Cola, computers, Darwin and Western science, nylon, Internet porn and much else. Not that Anglos necessarily invented all these things: they got Internet porn from the Netherlands and plastic from Belgium.
In time the British Empire fell. Among its successor states are Nigeria, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sudan, Egypt, Israel, Iraq, Kuwait, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Malaysia, Tanzania, Kenya, Guyana, Sri Lanka, etc. About 58 countries, almost a third of the world’s 193.
The American Empire picked up where the British left off, at least in the Arab world. It supports Israel. Blindly. It supports bad government throughout the region, especially in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. It has made a complete mess of Iraq. So when it says it wants to bring peace and democracy to the Arab world it is not believed.
America will fall too. Its undoing will probably be the Persian Gulf falling into unfriendly hands. It is overly dependent on the oil that flows through it. America makes the region weak and easy to dominate by keeping it divided, violent and on edge. That has satisfied its war industry’s need for permanent war and rumours of war, but it has also has led to 9/11 and an Iran bent on nuclear weapons.
If the Anglo world goes the way of the Arab world – there is no reason to suppose that it will not in time – then it will be cut up into a string of petty vassal states dominated by foreigners.
See also:
- British Empire
- American Empire
- Israel
- 9/11
- Iran and the bomb – from 2007, but not as outdated as you might expect
- English
- Christianity
- countries:
“It is an exercise to see how ridiculous that post was.”
Did you come to any conclusion about this? I don’t think either post is ridiculous, and I’d like to see more like them (the Russian, Chinese, and Hispanic worlds would be good candidates).
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Posts like this one are so interesting, Abagond.
I agree with georgiasomething that The Arab World post wasn’t ridiculous.
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The thing is America has the best buying power for foreign imports. It’s carrying the weight of the world on its shoulders.
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Interesting post.
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People, before they criticize this take, ought to see some of the other ones on this and other similar subjects. People prognosticating the future geopolitical scene go off the tracks pretty darn quick most of the time. One such, who has a lucrative career as a corporate consultant, predicts future world power for Poland and Turkey. These are two countries which have credibility and potential where others in the same situation do not. But world power? Please.
Over some period, this scenario could come to pass, with different parts of the Anglo world falling into the orbit of different powers. “Vassal”, I think is too strong a word.
Of great interest to us is what might happen if the United States and North America generally broke up into in a series of regional states. An early version of this idea was Joel Garreau’s “Nine Nations of North America” concept. Garreau’s divisions made geopolitical sense but were designed with less than total regard for the political and cultural sensibilities of the people who actually lived there.
If the United States broke up, the old South in some form or shape would become an independent country. While there might not be any sentiment among Southern whites to return to the days of segregation in employment, public accommodations and education, this development still would represent a great challenge to African Americans since the South represents both their North American homeland and the North American homeland of the white southerner.
Any thoughts, anyone?
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wait for it… back to balfour again
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/balfour_declaration_of_1917.htm
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I suspect America’s downward trajectory will mirror that of Great Britain, which went from an awe-inspiring empire stretched across the globe to an influential yet severely degraded entity in a matter of decades.
While the aftermath of World War II marked the end of the British Empire, I see America getting squeezed into an economic and geopolitical corner by a combination of emerging global powers getting their economic and military sea legs (the “BRIC” nations, etc), multinational corporations preferring to bleed dry American capital while relocating their assets and profits elsewhere and a growing inability to properly finance internal upkeep due to inadequate taxation and an extreme unwillingness to curb military expenditures, pork barrel spending and tax breaks to said multinational corporations. America will still attempt to play World Policeman as long as it can, but the efforts will be slowly and quietly scaled back, as so the country doesn’t wind up losing face in front of the rest of the world in the process.
I don’t see the U.S. breaking up any time soon – it won’t ever become weak enough where that would be a tempting option for any state to pursue. Sure, regionalism will be on the upswing, but not enough that anyone would dream of actually leaving the Union. Besides, we already went through that back in the 1860s and we all know how that turned out.
Influences? Perhaps. I can see China trying its hand at Empire Building, specifically by integrating the U.S. along with the entirety of Southeast Asia and Australia/New Zealand into its economic sphere of influence. American policy being subtly influenced via Chinese economic pushing and nudging? I have a feeling that’s already happening on a low-level scale and it could get ramped up in the future.
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Sure, regionalism will be on the upswing, but not enough that anyone would dream of actually leaving the Union.
^ It’s late, as you know, so that’s my excuse for not sourcing but didn’t Texas rattle some secessionist sabres back in 08′? (the financial crisis).
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Reblogged this on oogenhand and commented:
Masterpiece! The main reason people buy into this kind of silliness is because most people who speak Arabic also understand some English, but almost none of the people who speak English as their first language understand at least some Arabic. This means the Anglo world is doomed.
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The U.S. is not going to fall any time soon. The U.S. is planning to dominate the world to an even greater degree than it has in the past, with her advancing war technology and through economic manipulation. We may well wish that the U.S. had quietly slipped away, when they have finally achieved the kind of control of the world that they have been spoiling for.
As for the Persian gulf oil
NPR
which is about 13%
The U.S. has also become an exporter of oil in recent years, due to new drilling/pumping technology.
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The US dollar will soon no longer be the world’s default currency. No more printing money out of thin air that’s backed by nothing. No more forcing the world to purchase oil with petro (American) dollars.
The Chinese invaded here and elsewhere without firing a single bullet! It’s an economic occupation they’re employing to buy up whole sections/areas in the US and wherever else they’re permitted to occupy, take over and begin new PROFITABLE capital ventures/cartels. What else is there to do with the soon to be worthless trillions of DOLLARS they’ve earned selling the West their cheap trinkets?? Not to mention their collective buying of gold like it’s going out of style.
Everything that’s coming home to roost bodes poorly for the once great USA whose dim leadership created this entire mess with their short-sighted policies and desire for insatiable profits instead of the welfare, security and safety of its own people.
((Nothing to see here folks. Keep it moving! This way to the slaughter house where you can continue your deep sleep while retaining the freedoms those terrorists hate and want to take away from us real Muricans. The USA remains vigilant, vibrant and (sic) strong! ))
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abagond “The American Empire picked up where the British left off, at least in the Arab world.”
The British were only in the Middle East for 30 years. They inherited the territories when the Ottoman Empire lost WW1 and transitioned them to independence right after WW2. What would America want with an “empire” in the middle east?
“It supports Israel. Blindly.”
Do you have a problem with Jews?
“It supports bad government throughout the region, especially in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. It has made a complete mess of Iraq. So when it says it wants to bring peace and democracy to the Arab world it is not believed.””
Egypt and Saudi Arabia are hardly the worst in the region. Regardless, the fighting in the Middle East is a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The US is only involved for Cold War reasons. Or, to put it another way, the US backs the Saudis because Russia backs Iran.
http://middleeastvoices.voanews.com/2013/11/insight-yemen-another-battlefield-in-saudi-iran-proxy-war-16406/
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/feb/26/proxy-war-between-iran-saudi-arabia-playing-out-in/?page=all
People who think the US doesn’t want to bring “peace and democracy” to the middle east don’t understand the motives for doing so. Unfortunately, the popular vote goes for Islamist fascists who massacre religious minorities. Unfortunately, secular dictators and monarchists are the lesser of the evils.
http://www.cfr.org/democratization/promoting-democracy-whys-hows-united-states-international-community/p24090
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/03/06/obamas_calculated_gamble_109123.html
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I guess you think of the post as “ridiculous” because you think generalizations are ridiculous. But generalizations are inevitable, the question is: Is it a false or a correct generalization?
In Germany we regularly use the term “the Anglo-Saxon World”, “the Anglo-Saxons” – meaning British, Americans, Canadians, Australians and New Zealander. When Obama first visited Germany as a President, our Foreign Minister greeted him as “our Anglo-Saxon friend”, which probably sounded strange to American ears.
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@King: In my estimation, the way to look at it is to think of all world oil production as going into a single pool. That American-produced oil is sent to other countries simply means that it is more convenient to ship it to other countries than to move it to refining location in the United States.
There is a subtle corollary to this idea. The only way we in the United States can gain any serious benefit from the increase in domestic production is to have two-tier pricing. When George W. Bush said “The Iraqui oil belongs to the Iraqui people,” I got a good laugh out of it. American oil sure don’t belong to the American people. By selling our oil at the world price, and we are one of the “Big Four” oil producers in the world, along with Saudi Arabia, Canada and Russia, we again through our domestic market are subsidizing the rest of the world at the expense of “the people who actually live here.”
The last time we had full employment in the United States was back during World War II, when our population was just over 120 millions, we were fighting a world war on three fronts (Europe, Pacific, South Asia), supplying three major allies (Great Britain, the Soviet Union, China) and had10 million or more white guys between the ages of 18 and 40 removed from the labor force. Just so you know, I’m a white guy myself, but I’m willing to see the picture when other people won’t. My forte, you might say. Reality is, the “economy” will never produce full employment, and subsidizing the rest of the world at the expense of our own doesn’t help. This policy has some deep roots in some of our Cold War phantasms, and then took on a life of its own as other geopolitical and world political issues came to the fore.
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How on earth would someone confound questioning blind support for Israel with having a problem with Jews? It would be like questioning the validity of one party rule for Singapore as having a problem with Chinese or the government corruption in Malaysia as having a problem with Muslims.
And I question the need for male infant circumcision and see it as a violation of child rights. Does that mean someone has a problem with Jews specifically? Certainly not.
One could easily flip the script and say that America’s blind support for Israel has more to do with the supporter than for the supportee. Does that imply that someone has a problem with white Anglos for that reason?
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jefe “How on earth would someone confound questioning blind support for Israel with having a problem with Jews? “
I’ve found that many people who object to US support for Israel don’t like Jews. I wondered if that’s the case here so I asked. Do you have a problem with me asking?
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@ Anonymike
Exactly my point. The U.S, is not dependent on “Persian Gulf oil” or even Middle East oil. The U.S, gets it’s oil from Canada, from Mexico, from South America, from Africa, ad from the the Middle East (about 13%). That means that the U.S. does not rely on a regional petroleum source but upon an international petroleum pool that has become rapidly decentralized from OPEC producers. When OPEC stayed their first embargo in 1972, they were in fact, signing their own death warrant. Within the next 20 years OPEC will collapse, maybe sooner.
As for U.S. energy production, many people still subscribe to the old and obsolete OPEC worldview of decades ago, when the Arab world had the industrial West by the balls as their only energy suppliers. This is no longer the case. The US has the following energy advantages:
– Huge shale-oil reserves made recently available through exploiting hydraulic fracturing technology.
– Huge reserves of Natural Gas also made available through newly exploited shale deposits.
– Huge reserves of oil (traditional extraction) available within ANWR (Alaska)
– Large amounts of oil available through new offshore platform and deep ocean drilling technology
– The U.S. is also the technology leader in Alternative Energy technology (but not implementation) – Solar/Wind/Hydro/
– The U.S. is also a world leader in energy conservation technology. See LED lighting technology, electric hybrid technology, Energy Star efficient appliances, LEED construction standards, etc.
Oh no…. I’m afraid there will not be any national decline based on energy acquisition, probably ever. The U.S. is stronger and more independent on energy than is Europe, all of Asia, or the Middle East. Most of the U.S. internal energy policy is simply political.
The U.S. is more powerful and more dangerous than it has ever been at any time in the past.
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anonymike, king
I recently read a report by an analyst who said oil production/consumption used to be considered as one large international supply. But that it’s better understood as belonging to several regional zones. The demand and supply in each zone can effect the price in others. But the time and cost of transporting large quantities keeps the regional zones somewhat insulated unless the supply or demand becomes too imbalanced..
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@ Da Jokah
That makes sense.
Clearly the energy market is complex. On it’s simplest level it can be understood as production / consumption. The U.S. is now producing far more and developing technology and standards to consume far less, per household.
And really, we are just waiting for the alternative energy market technology to mature. Anyone in Solar or Wind will tell you that the main barrier is the ever-improving ‘efficiency problem.’ Once these alternatives technologies improve enough to be truly more profitable than oil, they will rapidly replace the messy, expensive, and difficult, petroleum extraction standard of today. That’s maybe 10 to 15 years off. The brass ring, however is hydrogen fusion energy technology, which is probably 30 – 40 years off.
Seen in this light, rather than through the lens of the old Peak Oil model, energy will not be the issue. However it is a convenient political tool.
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kiwi
I don’t have a problem with anyone unless they’re violating others’ rights or inciting others to do so. Thanks for asking.
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@ Kartoffel
That’s all true.
I expect that the study of British history and culture has probably all but vanished from schools in the US.
As a result many Americans are unaware of just how deep the similarities between the 2 countries are. Not so for “foreigners”, who will have a far clearer notion of this, and will group the 2 together as “Anglo-Saxon”.
Ethnicity has nothing to do with it. It’s cultural heritage.
A few hundred years of wars have shaped this outlook, and repeated Anglo-Saxon military victories brought about an influence that has changed the way the world lives, thinks and organises itself.
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Da Jokah: Probably, you are correct in detail about the world oil market, but in a most general sense, still there is a single world pool, so to speak. However this argument is resolved, still, the only way we, the American people en masse, can benefit from our own production is to have two-tier pricing.
I also think that a two-tier pricing system should be regarded as a mean of protecting Americans from the dislocation caused by high oil prices while alternative to oil are developed. With or without global warming, and I don’t believe in human-caused global warming, dependence on the burning of reduced carbon as the primary energy source has its drawbacks. The risk of depleting the resource is one of them. The geopolitical risks involved in obtaining the resource is another. Numerous environmental hazards also exist, even apart from the global warming hypothesis. Gravity and solar energy are the only “free’ sources of energy. Tidal power exists an an effect of gravity and potentially is available in massive quantities. Hydroelectric generation combines the two. Solar energy move water from a lower to high elevation. Gravity makeS it run back down again. Human beings sometime do the same thing. Water can be pumped into a reservoir during non-peak electrical use hours (i.e. at night) and sent running back downhill to generate electricity during peak use hours (during the daytime). Here, the difference in “time of use” rates makes this practice economic.
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contd.
There’s a lot I could say about this, but I think that Oliver Cromwell might be just as well known in the 2 countries?
As England’s Lord Protector, what Oliver Cromwell asked the Parliament in the 17th century was:who are our enemies and why do they hate us?
He went on to say that there’s an axis of evil in the world. Those enemies:
“…are all the wicked men in the world, whether abroad or at home…”, and that was because they hated God and all that is good. At the time, it was the Spaniard:
“Truly, your great enemy is the Spaniard…through that enemy that is in him against all that is of God that is in you…I will put an enmity between thy seed and her seed…” There was a need, in political terms, to cite God’s curse on the serpent in Eden and the difference that He would cast between the Children of Darkness and the Children of Light.
Click to access Speech_7.pdf
Centuries later, I think “The Spaniard” would be replaced by “the Communist” or someone else, as that same speech (or similar) would come out of the mouth of Ronald Reagan (and others!).
They are both familiar calls to a consensus Foreign Policy.
A rally to unify the notion.
In Cromwell’s England dissent and disloyalty were seent as the SAME thing. He had executed his King to conclude a war, but everyone, no matter what his political shade had to agree on who was the threat and the enemy.
Being an Evil Empire meant that the enemy were bad and violent.
So, in that speech, Cromwell chronicled Spanish atrocities, their unreasonable ways, and refusals, yet all the English wanted, though, was “liberty”.
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It may be advisable for anyone going abroad to acquaintant themselves with the culture(s) of the locals with whom they will likely interact. Here in the US itself, few people, not even those of actual English ancestry, will identify themselves as being, in anyway, “Anglo-Saxon” (even the term WASP – White Anglo Saxon Protestant – is often used derisively; sometimes by WASPs themselves).
So, in visiting the US, expect to be greeted with some degree of displeasure at any insistence that a local who identifies as, say, an Asian; an Arab; a Latino, a Black person; or an Italian is actually a (cultural) “Anglo-Saxon”.
This said, anyone, of course, is free to view others as they wish or even to make statements as to how they view others, but to openly state that s/he him- herself has a “clearer notion” concerning the identity of others is quite narcissistic, and is probably not such a great idea ….
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Kartoffel said:
This is a question of national culture, rather than psychiatric labeling, which may, to some nationalities that are not American or British, appear like a rather misplaced and un-informed entitlement.
This may be “advisable” to note for those who may not be familiar with other national traditions, who may in turn be labeled in turn.
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“In Germany we…”
My emphasis, if not also noted.
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Additionally: a “clearer notion” about the national identity of the British, Americans, Canadians, Australians and New Zealander — in this context — is not arrived at in French, German or other European education systems through any sense of national pride or arrogance, or even prejudice.
From what I’ve been told about those nations, it’s a more a case of accurate historical perspective.
Perhaps when judging the perception and culture of others, it might be most wise for one to question her- or himself on whether those judgments and perceptions are, in fact, MIS-judgments and MIS-judgments before advising — or, indeed, warning — others about what are good ideas and what are bad…
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Correction: *MIS-perceptions
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The term Anglo is interesting since the anglosaxon, if it points towards the english origins, would be excately correct term. Anglo itself comes from the Angle-Land, which was the name given to the eastern areas in present day England and occupied mainly by the anglian immigrants from the 420’s onwards who originated from the area known as Anglia. Saxons actually gave the name for the saxons proper, coming from Saxony, and to angles. In 450’s onwards these anglo-saxons were not only giving problems to the brittish, who were called as wheala which from the Wales comes from.
The anglosaxons known as Sais, the saxons, were actually huge problem in the seas and were known as sea-wolves from the present day Denmark to the Loire valley in France. They were actually driven from the Loire in 460’s and from then on concentrated on Britain, which was known at the time as Albion. Later Albion, which could have come from the white cliffs in the southern coast of the island, became a name for Scotland, which by the way was so named only after the scotts originating from Ireland took over that region in 800’s.
DNA testing has shown that there was never the population replacement in the eastern parts which the anglosaxons took over. Anglosaxons, the sais, took over and the majority of the people adopted their language and the people assimilated and formed the Angle-land. But the brittish who fought them for the control of the island called them the Sais, the Saxons, so the anglosaxon is pretty accurate term.
There was a certain comeback for the anglosaxon in late 1800’s, a nostalgic yearning for the roots of the nation, since the norman take over by the normans in the kate 1000’s had left the history somewhat traumatised. In the early 1900’s the term anglosaxon was restored as a matter of pride and a way to separate oneself from the more vague term brittish which included and had originally meant the so-called celtic people of the island. So the people now known as the english were the anglosaxons proper and thus gave the name for any brittish export of culture etc. during the century of the colonisation. Thus the anglosaxon empire or the anglo empire.
In the original anglo-saxon immigration and take over of the eastern Britain there also the jutes, who also hailed from the old country, from the modern day Denmark. They concentrated to the Kent area.
Couple anecdotes tell a lot about the anglosaxon connection and its vitality. During the WW1 some german imperial troops raised signs above their trenches with this writing: “Brittish, do not shoot! We are saxons. Bavarians come next week!”
Adolf Hitler was well informed of the history of Britain and wished that the United Kingdom would actually side with him because of the “racial brotherhood” of the anglosaxons and the germans. He and the nazis certainly saw the english, the anglosaxons, as germic nation and peoples. Hitler was very dissapointed when the brittish chose to fight with him and originally ordered that the cities were not to be bombed. It was only after the brittish did not succumb to his will he wanted the so-called “revenge bombings” and ordered the Adler Day, general bombing campaign of Britain.
One reason the US ambassador Joseph Kennedy hoped that USA would join with the nazi-Germany was this anglosaxon-germanic connection. Even though he himself was a “celt”, a wheala of irish stock.
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I don’t think I have a problem with these terms. I guess it depends on how they are used. Generalizations are inevitable. ‘Human being’ is a generalization. We expect certain things to be true about anything so called yet we appreciate that there will be differences between individuals. I think the attitude towards generalizations (applying to oneself) is related to the differing ontological assumptions made by different civilizations or cultural groups. (Which is also related to the cultural concept of what is science versus superstition.)
In the west, we (I was born in this part of the world) see ourselves primarily as individuals in a world of things. The top-level being is the (white) man whose aim is to become greater by accumulating an ever greater quantity of possessions. Individual recognition and generalization/grouping are at odds conceptually. So where the aim is to achieve the former being grouped would appear to frustrate that goal. Additionally, the value of science would be measured by the extent to which it facilitates control of objects (including other people) in the natural world to make it possible to own them.
However there are other ways to think about ‘being’ which seemed common among many cultures before they were colonized. For example, there are beings with our cells called organelles. Our cells are beings with our organs and our organs are beings within ourselves. Some cultures extended the concept of being to the earth (and might have included it in other beings up to a cosmic self). Individual humans became parts of the earth-being. So by extension of the anology to the body the aim would be harmony not exploitation. Because if they sickened the earth they’d die either because it would kill them to save itself or it would die and take them with it. The tendency to view things as integrated wholes rather than atomic pieces would emerge naturally from such a worldview.
Also, one couldn’t measure ‘civilization’ among such people by the extent to which their way of life disrupted the natural order because their goal would have been to avoid disrupting it too much. Their science would have been concerned with discovering the depth of their connection with the natural world in terms of relationship to outer beings (ie the ones formed from integration of individual humans, then integration of the ones so formed and so on). But this is obviously at odds with individual advancement at the expense of others which is the doctrine here. Their view would be “superstitious” to us because it supposes that selves already stand over (superstare) us that include us as parts in the way that we have living beings within ourself. In fact, it is horrific to already belong to something if one’s aim is to consume everything. With Nietzche’s concept of the Uebermensch (over-man) he seems to advocate working towards self-made transformation into a kind of over-being.
The ‘West’, which is young, has been successful for the past few centuries at reshaping the world according to its viewpoint so its assumptions are taken for granted among people who’re considered civilized. The impressive vastness of the empire seems to serve as proof that they made the right moves. But maybe the jury is still out on which ontological concepts are more correct. Possibly, the experiment is only now reaching the critical test that will settle the debate. What happens when the activities of a civilization are at the point of rendering the earth unfit for life? It’s sad that we’re here because either resolution will be painful.
Anyway, this is a bit OT, but I’ve typed too much not to post…lol But my point was that our view of what it means to generalize (almost always interpreted as a disservice to the individual) is probabaly related to our automatic assumptions as a culture. I see generalization as pertaining to the essential similarities not the denial of all difference. IMO, the latter is stereotyping.
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Oops, I accidentally typed “with” instead of “within” a bunch of times. Whenever you thought I meant “within” you were right.
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When i see the word “Anglo” i think of white,anglo-saxon. I think of wasps. That is was how i understood the word. But reading this posts and other commenters posts it is much more than this. It all been insightful.
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White-Anglo-Saxon Protestant. This is how me as a Black American woman understands this term.
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MB, can I ask you, when you see Spanish-speaking blacks from, say the Dominican Republic or Cuba, do you think of them as Latino?
I must admit that to me, Anglo includes both WASPs and African-Americans and also black Britons, ie, coming from English speaking cultures.
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@jefe: Is this a trick question? Yes when I see Spanish speaking blacks from the Dominican Republic or Cuba I do think of them as Latino. Am i incorrect? It was always my understanding the Anglo was “white.” I will admit that I never African Americans or Black Britons as Anglos. I have learned from this thread that i was limited in my understanding of what “Anglo” meant. That’s why i am here to learn, Sir. Now, that i have additional information that it means someone from an english speaking culture. I have learned something new.
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Typo: I have never thought of African Americans or Black Britons as Anglos.
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Got it someone from an english speaking culture.
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now this is indeed a far ranging and profound post ,sometimes I think beyond narrow and small confines of my-our own era ,to the near and far future based on trends of the past.
sociology and history are indeed very interesting subjects ,I’m sure I’ll have a fulfilling offline reading experience.
btw isn’t it curious that the male in current banner picture of a lynching has a Hitler like mustache!
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In Abagond’s map, why is Guyana part of the “Anglo World?”
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America will fall too. Its undoing will probably be the Persian Gulf falling into unfriendly hands. It is overly dependent on the oil that flows through it.
We import far more oil from Canada than we import from the Persian Gulf. However, the rest of the world depends on Persian Gulf oil. Frankly, the US is now positioned to end all imports from the middle east, though that’s unlikely to happen anytime soon.
However, when Mexico expands its oil industry and Brazil begins drilling its offshore reserves, the US will buy some of their output, and simultaneously reduce imports from the middle east.
Big picture, there’s no other nations on earth that are prepared or capable of achieving superpower status. No other nations, including China, have the financial AND intellectual horsepower to become superpowers. China is big and getting bigger, but at least one billion of its 1.3 billion citizens are still living in mud huts without running water or electricity.
As for the Islamic world, well, no chance there. No Islamic nation has the technical capacity to do more than shoot lead bullets at its own citizens.
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In one of my reference book “World History Made Simple: I was able to comprehend the meaning of the word Anglo- Saxon. “England’s Anglo Saxon rulers were called Anglo-Saxon, just like Anglo-Saxon’s today, because they descended from Germanic tribes,chief among them the “Angles and the “Saxons.” In fact England means. the “Angles Land”, and regions within England also got their names from these people. That’s why there is a Wessex(West Saxon Land) and Sussex (South Saxon Land), Essex (East Saxon Land), and East Anglia.People say “Anglo-Saxon” rather than Angle-Saxon” because of the influence of Latin on the English language.
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Modern Americans use “Anglo” without linking it to another word but usually use it to refer to Americans who are of majority white background and speak English, as opposed to Americans of other ethnic backgrounds and those who speak Spanish. Source: World History Made Simple.
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@jefe: As you can see i have made an effort to educate myself on this subject.
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@sb32199: You need a terminology infusion. “Mud Huts” is not proper terminology, not to mention it’s probably not literally true either, not in China. The proper term is “traditional lifestyle”. People all over world live in a traditional lifestyle. Even some Europeans and white Americans, lest we forget.
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@ King
Yeah, that is a paradox.
It follows from my definition in the first paragraph of the post, which in turn is directly modelled on my definition for the Arab world. If you think of Anglo America as the counterpart to Latin America, you would come up with a similar definition. In either case “Anglo” means anyone whose main language is English, regardless of race. Just like how “Latino” is cultural rather than racial. BUT that is NOT how “Anglo” works outside of this post, and that is for two reasons:
1. “Anglo” means a white English-speaking person as opposed to a Latino, particularly in the south-western U.S. What the U.S. Census Bureau awkwardly calls “non-Hispanic whites”. When Churchill wrote his four-volume history of the English-speaking peoples it was – just about white people!
2. A common belief among English-speaking people is that race matters more than language or culture. Many White Americans, for example, think they have more in common with Russians or Greeks than with Black Americans or, God forbid, Those People in Guyana. In my experience religion and language matters more than race. Black and White Americans have way more in common than either care to admit. I think that is clear to the non-Anglo world, but one of the fictions of Anglo society is that race matters more. Otherwise the evils of Anglo society would become nakedly apparent.
Just like the word “American”, the word “Anglo” has been co-opted.
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Ah, that helps some, but I thought that the official language of Guyana was Dutch, and that English is only spoken in pigeon form?
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@ Abagond
Great conceptualizing post.It helps us to see this dominant perception of the Anglo centric Western World model in a new context. A context which makes it easier to understand how apparently fragile and unrepresentative this picture is of the world we all globally inhabit.
@ Matari
Excellent, insightful and surprisingly aware commentary on what likely awaits the illusory dominance afforded to the US as the lead representative of what we think of as the Anglo world.
@ Origin
Some brilliant, alternative and conceptually different perspectives on how people before the “johnny come lately s” understood our world. From a conception of the microscopic and smallest extending to the largest and enormous within our cosmically perceived and constantly expanding universe.
Your commentary, I believe, deserves more critical study given the topic of this generally accepted one-world falsely limiting view:
Perhaps, as some would argue (I would), this will be the world view some of us are in the midst of returning to…
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MB, no, it was not a trick question.
It depends on whether you have racialized the term “Anglo”.
I agree with Abagond’s point 2 above.
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@Abagond
Just like the word “American”, the word “Anglo” has been co-opted.
So, “African-American”? What to do about that term? How to regard it? How to use it? It seems that, it’s general understanding and general use continue to divest rightful Anglos from claiming themselves to be Anglos (and in some/many cases of deeply accepted propaganda, do not even know they are Anglos.)
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@ King
Guyana is certainly an English-speaking country, same as Jamaica. You are probably thinking of Suriname, which is right next to it. There the official language is Dutch. Most people speak English as a first language, though some might only speak a creole form of it, similar to Jamaican patois.
My main source for the map:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-speaking_population
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legion
The way abagond is using “Anglo” is incorrect. The proper term for someone who speaks English is “anglophone” not unlike the proper term for someone who speaks French is “francophone”. Speaking English or French does not make one English or French any more than speaking Mandarin makes one Chinese. The confusion comes from using words incorrectly. In this case, the incorrect usage is to shorten the word “anglophone” and confuse it with the word “anglo” which means something different.
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@ Abagond
Ah yes, that was it. I was thinking of Suriname!
Hey wait, Suriname is also highlighted as part of the Anglo World… Even though the official language is Dutch. I guess they speak enough English to be included.
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@Abagond: In my first comment about what i always was taught the word “anglo” meant which was a white person. That’s what i was taught. Was i wrong. I have been reading the thread and reading other reference books to get a greater understanding of this term. So i was taught to racialize the term.
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@ Mary
You are right: an Anglo is a white English-speaking person. But, for the purposes of THIS post, as an exercise to see where it would go, I made it analogous to Arab or Latino, a strictly cultural term that had nothing to do with race.
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@ Abagond: Thanks for responding.
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sometimes in LA people would use the term ‘anglo’ as opposed to ‘chicano,’ not so often, but i did hear it
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@ Legion
The way I generally look at it, at a cultural level, is: Western / English-speaking / US / Black. African Americans are a subculture of the English-speaking world, just as White Americans are.
BUT
When I say “Black American” I am thinking race / nation. Black is first and foremost a caste, its subculture a side effect.
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@ Abagond
I wrote a longer response to you but lost it due to glitchyness.
Basically, I said, I agree to this:
The way I generally look at it, at a cultural level, is: Western / English-speaking / US / Black. African Americans are a subculture of the English-speaking world, just as White Americans are.
and made mention that a useful way to see Anglo would be to make a flowchart of the related branches.
Re: Black American
You’ll notice I did not take issue with the term Black American. African American seems the problematic term. I mentioned (in the lost comment) that interestingly all of us on the blog use Black American and never use African American or use it in special circumstances. For example, I have used the ‘African American’ term, in this post, as an object, but elsewhere I will use ‘Black American’ as a descriptor and see it as natural to do so. It seems the forum does the very same thing. I also threw a jab at Jesse Jackson for originating and popularizing the term.
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One christian in six is Angl? I disagree. A cursory look at their history and current events proves that none of them are Christian.
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I met many people from Guyana, friends and ex-coworkers. Every one of them speaks English as their first language. Also seems to be very multi-racial – with about half of them of Asian Indian descent.
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Abagond, you forgot Cameroon, the only African nation with both French and English as national languages. One part of Cameroon was a part of the British Empire.
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@ melody
From what I understand, tons of people in Cameroon speak English, but only as a second language. My map only shows countries where it is spoken as a first language.
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@ Legion
Right, I am no fan of “African American”. When racism is dead, then Black Americans will be African Americans, strictly an ethnic group, a subculture, with no racial overlay. In my experience it is mainly white people who use “African American”.
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Abagond, I don’t think “African American” is used to deny the existence of racism, but to confront that racism. I see it as reclaiming an identity that was stolen. Something that is much more imperative now when racism is so rampant.
Why do we need to wait until racism has ended to start that process? I see it as something that is necessary to kill racism. I don’t see what we gain by waiting. If we are somehow able to destroy racism while refusing to acknowledge our African-ness( I mean if we can’t even do the easy thing of calling ourselves African American how can we do the harder work of defining ourselves.), what would compel us to be African Americans then instead of just Americans?
Also, why does “Black American” get the special treatment? Why not call ourselves n-words until racism is over?
In my experience, it is mainly people who think of black people as “n-words” who take offense to “African American”.
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I don’t understand why African American is negative. Not understanding that logic.
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Regarding the term African-American, can’t it be possible that the term came into use because of the need for a term that was equivalent to all of the other hyphenated-American desingations? Myself, I rarely use it to describe or refer to a person, but more often use it as a proper name for a subculture, as in African American history. Usually I refer to or describe an person of Black African descent in America as “black”, rarely as an African American.
Sometimes a cigar is only a cigar, Sigmund Freud once said, a statement which in my estimation will stand as his only enduring contribution to world culture. LOL
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All in all i can say this was a good exercise in critical thinking, i thought about the word “Anglican” and anglophile these are icons for things that are “British” and “English ” and also “English” speaking culture.
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I have actually heard some Latinos call anyone who was born in the US Anglo, whether they’re white, Latino, black, etc. It does hold sort of the same definition as Latino does, most just rarely use it that way, and also white Americans will hold on to it like crazy.
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@ Abagond
When I’ve heard the word “Anglo”, on its own, it refers to “English people” or “The English” — that’s how it’s used among the Irish: to them, the English are “Sasanaigh”, or Saxons. Also, “Anglo”, among Scottish people also has a different meaning than any of the ones you’ve given here.
Out of curiosity, do Irish Americans embrace being called Anglo?
Do German Americans happily accept being called Anglo? Neither are Angles.
The last time I was in the US (Florida), it was apparent that “Anglo” was a descriptor for every European-American EXCEPT those of those who were of French or Latin descent. The term “Anglo” has a number of meanings…
(I’m late to the thread, and I may have missed possible answers to these questions.)
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If the Anglo world goes the way of the Arab world – there is no reason to suppose that it will not in time – then it will be cut up into a string of petty vassal states dominated by foreigners.
The irony of this…
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I find this post really interesting because the term ‘Anglo’ is used in a much narrower context in Australia.
Here, an ‘Anglo Celtic Australian’ (‘Anglo’ for short) specifically refers to someone with British and/or Irish heritage and not to – for example – people with Italian, German or Greek heritage.
Maybe ‘Anglo’ is used in its more literal sense here because the overwhelming majority of the white population is English/Irish descended.
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I think Abagond was only using the word “Anglo” experimentally as analogous to “Latino,” in this post. Kind of like saying ” Anglinos” are people who speak English and who roughly share a general culture. In time, the meaning evolves into a racial connotation as well – much as it has with Latinos.
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@ King
Oh sure, I interpreted it that way too 🙂
But I think there are a few comments above (one from Abagond) suggesting that an Anglo is any white, English speaking person. That expanded idea of what an Anglo is might be the case in the US but it isn’t here in Australia.
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^ I thought people use the word Aussie to refer to Australian Anglos. 😛
Anyhow, the immigrant population to Australia was overwhelming English for nearly 200 years. Few descendants of non-anglo immigrants have passed into the 3rd or 4th generation, much less 9th or 10th. The US population was already multi-ethnic from the very beginning. By the first waves of Irish and Germans in the early 19th century, the English-descendant population was already a minority. They have already largely amalgamated with the founder English population to expand the “Anglo-American” population to include most white people in the USA.
But, I still see Anglo as more a cultural term, rather than a racial one, and includes black Americans and many of the other Americans as well, including many of the Hispanics. I suppose that some might prefer to use “Anglicized” to refer to that.
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@ Bulanik @ Wordy
Thanks. I did not know that “Anglo” had those meanings.
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Before any of this vassal partitioning happens, there will a second use, or series of uses, of the A-bomb. I wouldn’t underestimate the degree to which those in power will go to remain so. Nonetheless, it was fun speculation to read. I shall no go and read their prior posts
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Again, Sranan is not English, in spite of it having been called Negro-English in the bad old times, it is the least influenced by Englishof the English based creoles. Really “Dan pe y’e go?” is not English for “Quo vadis?”, but Surinamese.
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Now, if this were to happen, what would be the implications for racism, and the power dynamics behind it? Would it mean that at least global “white privilege” would finally come to an end if these “foreigners” are not white, and whites would begin to experience what it’s like to be a second-rate group (which, unfortunately, would not be equal either), and may have “prejudice-plus-power racism” directed their way, when before, when they held the power, they were the ones directing at others? Or could it mean the end of racism, which would be great? Or would there be no effect?
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