I currently live in the UK (moved a few years ago), and one of the single most infuriating thing in the culture here is how “we’ve always done it this way” is THE answer when it comes to justifying anything moronic or broken.
I know that resistance to change and attachment to traditions is not a uniquely British thing but it’s markedly worse here than anywhere else I’ve lived.
I was told in history lessons, that it was also why UK didn’t modernize after WW2.
While the rest of Europe modernized, especially Germany that had to rebuild a lot.
But when UK rebuild, they made the same mistakes as the first time all over again, because of tradition as you say.
As a counterpoint to that, after WW2 the UK created the National Health Service, comprehensive education and the rest of the welfare state, while nationalising many huge industries. For the UK that was pretty radical stuff, and it lasted until the 1980s when Thatcher and her mob started tearing it all apart.
Whether you’d call that modern I’m not sure, but it wasn’t traditional either.
Being radical is not a sign of being progressive in thinking and definitely not a sign of doing what is best.
Being radical left (or right) is not to be more “modern” either.
UK at the time was way more radical on both the left and the right side than most European countries, exactly because of FPTP. And it lead to politically unsustainable solutions. Again a sign of stupid policies, and a sub par form of governance.
Nationalizing is radical, but it’s a double edged sword that can easily become a burden. It was already at that time an old fashioned socialist way of thinking.
The more modern Social democracies of Scandinavia avoided nationalizing but used regulation instead. A model that has been proven on average to work way better.
So again I’d say the UK politicians weren’t neither modern or clever in nationalizing industries, as I wrote in a previous post, and nationalizing an industry has nothing to do with modernizing it, on the contrary nationalized industries tend to become monopolies, and monopolies tend to stifle innovation.
Also the improvements in the Social Democratic countries on health education and infra structure quickly surpassed the UK.
I currently live in the UK (moved a few years ago), and one of the single most infuriating thing in the culture here is how “we’ve always done it this way” is THE answer when it comes to justifying anything moronic or broken.
I know that resistance to change and attachment to traditions is not a uniquely British thing but it’s markedly worse here than anywhere else I’ve lived.
I was told in history lessons, that it was also why UK didn’t modernize after WW2.
While the rest of Europe modernized, especially Germany that had to rebuild a lot.
But when UK rebuild, they made the same mistakes as the first time all over again, because of tradition as you say.
As a counterpoint to that, after WW2 the UK created the National Health Service, comprehensive education and the rest of the welfare state, while nationalising many huge industries. For the UK that was pretty radical stuff, and it lasted until the 1980s when Thatcher and her mob started tearing it all apart.
Whether you’d call that modern I’m not sure, but it wasn’t traditional either.
Being radical is not a sign of being progressive in thinking and definitely not a sign of doing what is best.
Being radical left (or right) is not to be more “modern” either.
UK at the time was way more radical on both the left and the right side than most European countries, exactly because of FPTP. And it lead to politically unsustainable solutions. Again a sign of stupid policies, and a sub par form of governance.
Nationalizing is radical, but it’s a double edged sword that can easily become a burden. It was already at that time an old fashioned socialist way of thinking.
The more modern Social democracies of Scandinavia avoided nationalizing but used regulation instead. A model that has been proven on average to work way better.
So again I’d say the UK politicians weren’t neither modern or clever in nationalizing industries, as I wrote in a previous post, and nationalizing an industry has nothing to do with modernizing it, on the contrary nationalized industries tend to become monopolies, and monopolies tend to stifle innovation.
Also the improvements in the Social Democratic countries on health education and infra structure quickly surpassed the UK.