Stephen Fry - almost American
(H/T: Normblog)
I was so nearly an American. It was that close.... I was 10 when my mother made me a present of this momentous information. The very second she did so, Steve was born.
[-] I have often felt a hot flare of shame inside me when I listen to my fellow Britons casually jeering at the perceived depth of American ignorance, American crassness, American isolationism, American materialism, American lack of irony and American vulgarity. Aside from the sheer rudeness of such open and unapologetic mockery, it seems to me to reveal very little about America and a great deal about the rather feeble need of some Britons to feel superior. All right, they seem to be saying, we no longer have an empire, power, prestige or respect in the world, but we do have "taste" and "subtlety" and "broad general knowledge", unlike those poor Yanks.
What silly, self-deluding rubbish! What dreadfully small-minded stupidity! Such Britons hug themselves with the thought that they are more cosmopolitan and sophisticated than Americans...
Sophistication is not a moral quality, nor is it a criterion by which one would choose one's friends. Why do we like people? Because they are knowledgeable, cosmopolitan and sophisticated? No, because they are charming, kind, considerate, exciting to be with, amusing… there is a long list, but knowing what the capital of Kazakhstan is will not be on it.
Read it all, here.
Stephen Fry, let me remind you, is Oscar Wilde. He is also a liberated asajew who earlier this year signed a public letter in which he joined other prominent British Jews (like Harold Pinter), upon the occasion of Israel's 60th birthday:
We cannot celebrate the birthday of a state founded on terrorism, massacres and the dispossession of another people from their land. We cannot celebrate the birthday of a state that even now engages in ethnic cleansing, that violates international law, that is inflicting a monstrous collective punishment on the civilian population of Gaza and that continues to deny to Palestinians their human rights and national aspirations.
One assumes that he does not suffer any "hot flare of shame inside him" when he listens to his fellow Britons' unapologetic demonization of Israel and Zionist Jews.
It's very nice of Reginald Jeeves to speak for maligned Americans. It's a big step forward from the rest of the anti-American crowds that populate the sceptered isle. One wonders, though, when and if a similar bout of courage will take hold of Fry's public conscience with regards to the damage he and his ilk inflict upon their fellow British Jews who, unlike him, are not embarrassed to be Zionists and defend Israel's right to self-defence.
(H/T: Normblog)
I was so nearly an American. It was that close.... I was 10 when my mother made me a present of this momentous information. The very second she did so, Steve was born.
[-] I have often felt a hot flare of shame inside me when I listen to my fellow Britons casually jeering at the perceived depth of American ignorance, American crassness, American isolationism, American materialism, American lack of irony and American vulgarity. Aside from the sheer rudeness of such open and unapologetic mockery, it seems to me to reveal very little about America and a great deal about the rather feeble need of some Britons to feel superior. All right, they seem to be saying, we no longer have an empire, power, prestige or respect in the world, but we do have "taste" and "subtlety" and "broad general knowledge", unlike those poor Yanks.
What silly, self-deluding rubbish! What dreadfully small-minded stupidity! Such Britons hug themselves with the thought that they are more cosmopolitan and sophisticated than Americans...
Sophistication is not a moral quality, nor is it a criterion by which one would choose one's friends. Why do we like people? Because they are knowledgeable, cosmopolitan and sophisticated? No, because they are charming, kind, considerate, exciting to be with, amusing… there is a long list, but knowing what the capital of Kazakhstan is will not be on it.
Read it all, here.
Stephen Fry, let me remind you, is Oscar Wilde. He is also a liberated asajew who earlier this year signed a public letter in which he joined other prominent British Jews (like Harold Pinter), upon the occasion of Israel's 60th birthday:
We cannot celebrate the birthday of a state founded on terrorism, massacres and the dispossession of another people from their land. We cannot celebrate the birthday of a state that even now engages in ethnic cleansing, that violates international law, that is inflicting a monstrous collective punishment on the civilian population of Gaza and that continues to deny to Palestinians their human rights and national aspirations.
One assumes that he does not suffer any "hot flare of shame inside him" when he listens to his fellow Britons' unapologetic demonization of Israel and Zionist Jews.
It's very nice of Reginald Jeeves to speak for maligned Americans. It's a big step forward from the rest of the anti-American crowds that populate the sceptered isle. One wonders, though, when and if a similar bout of courage will take hold of Fry's public conscience with regards to the damage he and his ilk inflict upon their fellow British Jews who, unlike him, are not embarrassed to be Zionists and defend Israel's right to self-defence.
posted by The Contentious Centrist @ Sunday, September 28, 2008
1 comments
1 Comments:
It is Britain that was founded by terrorism, massacres and dispossession of another people from their land, not Israel. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles detail how the invading Angles, Saxons and Jutes oppressed and drove to the margins the native Celtic and Pictish peoples. Furthermore, Britain is a country that for most of its history, and certainly throughout the last 500 years, has engaged in international aggression, ethnic cleansing and imperialism. The native peoples of North America, Australia, New Zealand and much of Africa were all savagely assaulted and many largely exterminated by the British, their lands expropriated by invaders from that country.
Fry is engaging in displacement, projecting onto others the crimes and cruelties committed by his fellow Englishmen.
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