An Englishman\u2019s home is his castle. Or so they say. Of the available definitions for castle (source: Dictionary.com) I am (personally) mostly taken by \u2018A strongly fortified, permanently garrisoned stronghold\u2019.<\/p>\n
In this regard an Englishman\u2019s home is not literally his castle. Mores the pity. Had the course of the British Empire run ever so slightly more successfully and the whole world was run by moustachioed buffoons with stiff upper lips and resplendent paunches, the above, however, could be a true statement.<\/p>\n
Had the Brits maintained an economic stranglehold on all the lesser nations, if Victoria was still alive today, it could have happened.<\/p>\n
The issues with modern life\u00a0could be seen as\u00a0one of expectations amongst the population. It\u2019s not what we have or haven\u2019t got, it\u2019s what society tells us we do and do not want.<\/p>\n
With this in mind, if my British ancestors had sufficient foresight and skill, successful and broad application of social engineering could have\u00a0made us\u00a0the rulers of the globe. Whoever taught the working class that a factory accident was a bad thing are the real enemies in all this. If we could have kept everyone else expectations low, we would have been fine.<\/p>\n
I mean, of course we could start\u00a0letting those from the Northern Towns and Scotland in on the joke\u00a0– after they had built us a few ships, and enough yards of cotton for the sails –\u00a0but once we can outsource this to some of our other lands, we would be sorted.<\/p>\n
Imagine it, Yorkshireman sitting alongside a Lancastrian, being tended to by Indians and Africans – perhaps even the Dutch. If we had successfully convinced our subjects of the righteousness of the Empire and the perils of sitting alone, we could be the worshipped – a higher class. The glory-smattered subjects under a higher kind of human.<\/p>\n
And united with our underlings, we would have swept all up amongst us.<\/p>\n
You see it yet? My imagined modern life involves everyone but a Brit being subject to a lesser economic wellbeing. 5 billion people working to create goods and food and weapons for the 50 million or so Brits, who can subsequently afford to maintain private armies in heavily fortified living accommodation. Such a beautiful thought.<\/p>\n
But if this hypothetical social engineering exercise was a success, why would we need private armies and huge steel walls and complicated digital access codes on all our gates?<\/p>\n
Of course, most Western politicians and social engineers are actively trying to maintain this absurd imbalance. They keep the rich as wealthy as they need to be,\u00a0and they keep the poor far richer than most of the world. And most of the rest of the world sit beneath us all, making shoes, growing coca plants and stitching footballs. And every person\u2019s expectations more or less in line.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s the point in all this? Will China take us all over?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not about sitting in our fortified homes pouring boiling pitch off our roofs –\u00a0wouldn\u2019t it be better if we took our castles apart, brick by brick, and built roads to all our neighbours? With a bit of luck they\u2019ll meet us half way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An Englishman\u2019s home is his castle. Or so they say. Of the available definitions for castle (source: Dictionary.com) I am (personally) mostly taken by \u2018A strongly fortified, permanently garrisoned stronghold\u2019. In this regard an Englishman\u2019s home is not literally his … Continue reading