Saturday, October 15, 2011

England

While I was in England this time during the last 2 weeks I started to really get this time who the English are. In some ways the most similar country though culturally very different would be Japan. Both places are on an island. So, for thousands of years it was hard to get on the island and hard to get off unless you like to swim in cold water or are a sailor. So, this made both countries very polite. Because if you weren't very polite eventually you were very likely soon dead with these types of circumstances. The other thing is that an island country is very difficult to attack for thousands of years. First you would have to have ships to put your army on before you could even consider attacking England. So, mostly even then it would be too expensive to attack. Even the Spanish were ruined financially for about a century when they cut down most of their big trees to create the Spanish Armada which was destroyed by bad weather off of England at that time. So, in the end what England became is from the politeness of the people who survived and the difficulty for other nations to attack it and succeed for centuries.

Then you have the interesting English quality of really rewarding people within the English people who contribute in any way to the group good of the English people. This might be the finest example of English culture that has made its way across the globe now. This rewarding of good people instead of just killing them on the spot like in many other countries has allowed English Culture to spread so far and wide around the world to where English is now the Business language of the whole planet. And if you look deeper still, the English language is actually a language of sailors who traded wares from all around the region there in England as a sort of ancient trading place on the island. So you have the English language with elements from all Scandinavian lands as well as German, Dutch and French elements within the language. Since the English language was actually formed by sailor traders and merchants over the years down through history, it now has become the business language of the world and benefits all people who wish to trade and do business worldwide.

If you really want to understand the love of learning, culture and knowledge just go and walk around inside of Westminster Abbey. Inside you will find the burial crypts and masks of monarchs like Queen Elizabeth I and memorials to great scientists and writers and poets of every age since Elizabeth I. The Renaissance that Elizabeth I ushered in in a way has never ended. In the end what England has brought to the world through both circumstance and decision is pretty amazing in its affects worldwide. The caring about all peoples philosophy of English culture has led to philanthropy and study of literally all disciplines worldwide. All the cultures of the world benefit from English culture and English Culture benefits from all the cultures of the world. And that's the way it should be.

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