doctor scrumpy

Talking of tolerance, did anyone see the pre game intro for Monday Night Football this week ? Seems Tyrell Owens ( a black player for the Eagles ) was seen with a white actress from the Desperate Wives tv show. The outcry over their flirting has been bizarre.

Dan Rooney ( owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers ) said it was "An out-and-out disgrace."

Now personally I remember the mid 80s and watching an Irish girl in the Sudan famine who was like me in her early 20s, and her job was to choose which babies were fed that day ( and would live ) & which were not ( and would die). For anyone that young to have to make those choices is a real disgrace.

Given the choice, which would most people see to be the more disgraceful event ?

The Christian fundemental right wing in this country is beyond a joke at times.

edwinadolly

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Duncan Roberts

You could use a UK/English/Scottish/Welsh/NI flag to wash your car and people wouldn't bat an eyelid. Try that here with an American flag!

mattbutt

[QUOTE=IanandHolly] 99% of brits couldnt give a shit about fox hunting, its just a few tree huggers that love cuddly wuddly foxes and all the Lords and Ladies in the the house of lords that go riding every christmas thats making it a big issue.

If the lordy people hadnt made such a fuss about it because they play golf with uncle whoever who sits in the house of lords, it would have been banned a long time ago along with badger baiting etc.

But i agree, it is a waste of time and not worth the amount of time and money that has been spent talking about it, i cant believe i have written so much on a subject i couldnt give a toss about either...

elfman

To answer the original post, I would point out America's civil rights record versus the UK's: Yes we have racism in Britain but we never had to force half the country to grudgingly accept laws bestowing full citizenship rights on black people. We never had black people denied the vote. We never had segregated schools, restaurants, buses or sports leagues. We never had to mobilize the army to protect black people from lynching when they enrolled at traditionally white schools or universities, and although we have had outbreaks of racially connected violence, we have never had the spectacle of white policemen attacking peaceful black protestors with clubs, dogs and fire hoses.

CPW

In thinking of the reasons for British tolerance, I believe that you need to look at a long history of the development of British society.

For example, thinking just of England for the moment, the religious settlement engineered by Elizabeth I was extraordinary for its day. One of her chief motives in establishing the Church of England as a 'via media' – a 'middle way' between the Church of Rome and the more extreme forms of protestantism – was to try to settle, once and for all, the religious questions raised by the Reformation and so to avoid years of internecine fighting. In this she largely succeeded. Yet she was also motivated by a genuine revulsion against extremism, and the fact that the settlement worked so well suggests strongly to me that this feeling was shared by most of her subjects.

The change from a mediaeval feudal state to a modern state has been a very gradual one in Britain, with few major lurches – contrast this with, say, France or, most notably, Russia. This gradual change has resulted in institutions that have also developed gradually, with more or less natural checks and balances, and I think that this fosters a degree of tolerance in society. The rise of the middle class in Britain (especially England) has also been very gradual, over many hundreds of years, and a middle class of business people and merchants has allowed an entrepreneurial spirit to permeate all levels of society. Certainly, the British are unusually tolerant of individuality and eccentricity. Tolerance has also been found at the highest levels: for example, in how many nineteenth European countries would the reigning monarch have encouraged the building of a Buddhist temple on the river running through the capital city, as Queen Victoria did in London? (And yet the 20th century has often reviled her as being intolerant.) Similarly, in how many European countries would a synagogue numbered among its congregation, as the Central Synagogue in London did in 1872, five members of parliament, six barons, two city aldermen and the Solicitor-General? Moreover the Prince of Wales (the future Edward VII) was a visitor to the synagogue for weddings and funerals in the 1880s and 1890s.

I think that the fact that Britain is an island country has also fostered a degree of tolerance. Somehow, over the centuries, the arrival of peoples with different languages and (latterly) different religions seems less of a threat because of a separation from the main well of world population (i.e. the Eurasian-African land mass). This is not logical, of course, least of all today when most people don't arrive by sea anyway, but I think it is real nonetheless.

Tolerance does not, of course, mean that no one who is different in society has any problems or that every individual is tolerant. It doesn't even mean that society adopts an 'anything-goes' approach or that it doesn't regard some things with distaste. But it usually means that, on the whole, people are free to live their lives in the way that they want to, even if that differs from society's norms. In this regard I would agree that British society is very tolerant, although people who look for legislation and ordinance may find this is lacking compared with some other countries. But you can't legislate for true tolerance anyway!

acer rose

Mmmm, but substitute Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland in the appropriate places above........

That said, the UK is a nation historically built on invasion, foreign leaders imposed by inheritance, immigration, emigration and unification. People have had learn to get along over the last 500 years or so for mutual benefit.

dunroving

Not sure I can put my finger on reasons why Brits are more tolerant (though I'm not sure that's what you are asking; more like evidence that we are tolerant, right?)

I would just tell your friend to watch Jerry Springer with you for 10 minutes and then try telling you that people in the US are tolerant...

Quote from a recent (US) newspaper: "USA, the land of the free, is rapidly becoming the land of the easily-offended"

warksgirl

Unless you erect a wendy house in your garden and the local parish council tells you to take it down because it's too big and is an eyesore... (so tasteless and not in keeping with the natural surroundings....)

AdobePinon

Let's see..... because you don't need to be made of plastic and botox to be accepted in the UK?

Bob

Bit OTT....The point I was making is that TV shows shouldn't have to worry about showing uncut "Saving Private Ryan" in the evening because the FCC might impose fines because of decency, a lot of ABC channels didn't show it over veterans day because of that. If there had been a watershed, for instance, where people know that certain shows could be viewed, which would be sensible, it shouldn't have been a problem. Rather than having a whole bunch of channels butcher shows just because they might show the odd arse crack in the evening is silly.

AdobePinon

It's interesting, innit? They never seem to think twice about screening Schindler's List uncut.

MightBe

There was a big discussion about certain scenes with the governing bodies before it was shown.

mikehope

Remember Eddie "the eagle" Edwards ? probably the worst ski jumper we had ever seen but he was something of a celebrity!

CalgaryAMC

One of the very few times I can say I've actually learned something on BritishExpats.