Well no it's not straightforward - I was asking more questions than providing answers, but

I think for a couple of the points you addressed more detail than I intended. You took kids on oversea trips for 30 years, which is indeed a valuable experience for them all! However, they would have been received as exotic visitors and treated with extraordinary hospitality, visited the sights, had excursions and activities etc. That kind of visit doesn't given them the same regular exposure to aspects of everyday life in those countries. Learning what the issues there are, what people believe, their different rituals and customs etc. Perhaps a small taster of it, and much more than the average council estate kid might have had but still nothing like they can get using the internet. Remember as well that as we all know, what they might get on the internet may not be true, but perception is truth in the context I was addressing.

Tribal associations can be very parochial and isolated - yes totally agree. This is also the case "IRL" but on the internet it is magnified due to the relentless exposure to it that algorithms ensure, and the reward they give to outrage.

You describe an increase in religious affiliation. Yes this is reported all over Europe. Partly due to immigration, by the way - Muslims and Poles as two examples who are far more likely to have religion. But also the rise in Christianity has been connected to the MAGA and other conservative cults spreading their influence. I have read that the fastest rising religion in Europe is actually American Evangelism.

You refer to the Manosphere and that "So much of it comes down to needing a sense of belonging, especially young people."

I totally agree with that, but if I step back from the detail, my challenge to Paul wasn't that I didn't agree that there is a missing sense of identity, but rather as to the question of whether that should be a national identity. Do we need that or is there an alternative? Before the national identity, for that only becomes important when the population considers international affairs, it was a religious identity and we survived that being eroded. Before that it was literally tribal.

But, given that we are now a multicultural society, whether we like it or not, how can a new national identity be based around British culture of the 1950s, or the English language, or Christianity without actually creating a further divide, and how would it attract young people who feel as much connected with people outside their country as they do those inside it?

Of course, it's all hypothetical as consciously pushing one's idea of a national identity can really only be achieved with propaganda and restricted press. A strong national identity can only develop organically, and I hope it does.

This will have all happened before, many times, and will happen again.

Posted By: Legacy Fan, Apr 1, 19:31:41