by Tarandus » Mon Feb 12, 2007 5:17 am
Yat-Chum, I notice that you too live in the UK and I was wondering how you thought this quotation applied to Britain today? It strikes me that there are many useless traditions and rituals that should have been binned a hundred years ago or more. All that nonsense and flummery in Parliament for instance. The tradition of 'Black Rod' banging on the doors of the Commons to open a new session of Parliament; Lords and Ladies in ermine-trimmed robes in the House of Lords - none of them actually elected (in THIS DAY AND AGE!!!!!); judges and lawyers in wigs and gowns. Britain prides itself on its 'traditions', but look closer at these, and you'll find that they are ALL middle class. After the Industrial Revolution two hundred years ago, when the agricultural class became the new 'cannon fodder' for industry in the burgeoning and slum-infested new cities, they were stripped of all their rural traditions - their music, their clothing and their entire way of life, their entire culture. Even in Scotland, nowadays, 'traditional' Scottish dancing etcetera, is dominated by the middle class and even the kilt, and most of the tartans, were fabrications designed by the novelist Sir Walter Scott in the early nineteenth century for a fanciful middle and upper class, just 50 years after the wearing of Tartans and all indigenous rural Scottish culture was banned by law when the English annihilated Bonnie Prince Charlie's army in the rebellion of 1745. Go over to Norway, for instance, and to many other European countries, and they still have a genuine folk tradition. There is none of that in Britain. All the so-called traditions here are for the elite, the rich, and those who curry favour with politicians. Kind regards, T.
'Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions. Live the questions now. You will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.' Rainer Maria Rilke.