John Cleese: London doesn't feel like an English city anymore. Legitimate to prefer some cultures over others

[Basil II the B.S]

https://twitter.com/JohnCleese/statu...04249693110272

https://twitter.com/JohnCleese/statu...44383533793282
WaPo has a surprisingly rare good comment on the topic:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...466f&tid=sm_tw

Which can be summed up with the example of ''skyscrapers vs national monuments''. If you look at today's architecture, the skyscrapers in Shangai look the same as those in Nairobi, which look the same as those in London, which look the same as those in New York, which look the same as those in Zurich. The so-called ''cosmopolitan'' cities are actually the most culturally flat in the world. There's zero actual diversity. They are generally celebrated by cosmopolitan progressives as post-racial societies, but in truth they celebrate the destruction of cultural diversity.

As for ''some cultures'' are better, the case is pretty basic and I agree with Cleese, who, despite, being liberal himself, isn't new to clashing with the political correct orthodoxy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAK0KXEpF8U

Of course Cleese was quickly harassed by the usual progressive mob, which in theory is a proponent of ''diversity'', but in practice absolutely despises any kind of it, starting with viewpoint diversity.

Feel free to discuss whether Cleese is right in his advocacy for preservation of diverse national identities, or we should wipe them all out to make room for a grey new world.

[95thrifleman]

I notice you do not post a picture of the Nairobi, London, Shanghai, New York and zurich skylines as doing so would so inconveniantly prove the whole grey culture point a fail.

[Basil II the B.S]

Meet:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

soulless penis of glass n.1 (Shangai):


Soulless penis of glass n.2 (Nairobi):


Soulless penis of glass n.3 (Zurich):


Soulless penis of glass n.4 (London):


Soulless penis of glass n.5 (New York):


Soulless penises of glass Bonus (Dubai):

Now, let's repeat altogether, at unison: ''DIVERSITY IS OUR STRENGTH''.

Thank you for bringing it up btw, you just reminded how Orwellian this is.

For a more proper comparison:
Historic buildings, same cities:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Shangai

Nairobi:

London



Zurich

Choose your destiny:

-Soulless penis of glass N. 123897213123, advertised in your dreams by bot N. 539435345, legalized by bureaucrat of the World Government N. 324235432243 as per Act: Ignorance is Strength''.

Or:

-the magnificent city of Bukhara

[Muizer]

Some nice examples of western cultural imperialism

[Basil II the B.S]

Some nice examples of western cultural imperialism

Nah. There's really no imposition. More like copy-pasting and homogeinety of thought at elite level.

[Katsumoto]

I too judge the cultural value of a city on the basis of skyscrapers built by multinational corporations (just a heads up, your Zurich sky penis is the Shard in London).

In any case, you have a point, just not the one you'd like. Cities are continuing to look the same not because there's too many brown people, but because they're catering to the wealthy (unless these giant skyscrapers are actually the minarets of a mosque). Ironically John Cleese is probably part of the problem. As your article states:

But the most trenchant defense may simply be that in world capitals, the affluent class that drinks $15 cocktails is slowly pushing everyone else out of the way, and with them, more and more of what remains of their city’s individual character. Cleese later elaborated on his tweet, saying that he found the London of his youth “calmer, more polite, more humorous, less tabloid, and less money-oriented than the one that is replacing it.”

The great global cities are ports on a great ocean of international capital, and the people who sail so profitably upon it are outbidding everyone else for a tightly restricted supply of housing. The more they dominate the housing market, the more everything else upscales and homogenizes to cater to their tastes. The result is reassuring for the traveling class, but also faintly depressing, since it removes one of the main reasons people used to travel: expanding their horizons, and broadening their comfort zone.

Of course, this might be just a fine bit of nostalgia from one old fogy, and one fogy-in-training. But while nostalgia can blind us with rose-colored glasses, it can also occasionally open our eyes to things we’ve lost, and the ones we’re letting slip away.

[Basil II the B.S]

I too judge the cultural value of a city on the basis of skyscrapers built by multinational corporations (just a heads up, your Zurich sky penis is the Shard in London).

Good eye and my bad. Promply replaced with another soulless penis building of glass.

In any case, you have a point, just not the one you'd like. Cities are continuing to look the same not because there's too many brown people, but because they're catering to the wealthy (unless these giant skyscrapers are actually the minarets of a mosque). Ironically John Cleese is probably part of the problem. As your article states:

Nope. In your frenzy to paint me as a racist, you are missing the point. I didn't complain about ''too many brown people''.
The underclass of ultrapoor is a key element of the system represented by soulless penises of glass.
Now, you have no problem pointing out the ultra wealthy that hoard real estate. We may call them, the globalist elite. People who have little attachment to national boundaries if not outright despise them. They own one building on London, another one in New York etc. This obviously results in lack of housing for middle class citizens, which are indeed vanishing from metropolitan areas. I had already pointed this out in one of the thread where even the New York Times admitted that ''it's the wealthy liberals'' who are ruining the country.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/22/o...ing-nimby.html

Where does the underclass of ultrapoor enter this? They are the other side of the same coin. The increasing trend is that there are only two types of people living in the great urban conglomerates: those who can afford it and those who accept an abysimal standard of living. Most national citizens don't accept it but can't afford higher, thus leave. Third world migrants are the ones more incline to accept living in suburbs and ghettos and there are so many of them that it indeed replicates the lack of housing problem at lower level as well. The ultra rich love this. Because by gentrification they make sure that the ultra poor never sets foot in the wealthy areas, simply because they are priced out. The only interactions between the two groups are when the rich liberal takes a taxi or requires some other cheap service.

When it comes to everything else, for instance, schooling, public transportation, restaurants, the underclass are priced out. Given that the latter is simply too busy surviving in what's essentially an economically hostile environment and they are also tribally divided, which result in ethnic turfs, the wealthy liberal can keep his lifestyle and constantly shift his personal yard from New York to London to Frankfurt. They are all the same. The soulless penises of glass are the perfect represntation of this system: soulless globalist liberals are there, they are all the same. Why do you think it's the wealthy that lobby for more immigration every time? The Kushner, the Koch brothers, just like the Tim Cook, George Osborne, I could go all day.

[Dismounted Feudal Knight]

I'm not sure how we went from Cleese making a point about cultural makeup (that I do agree with) to penis skyscrapers, but while we're on that lovely subtopic, I do think those structures are excessively boring and that having them as a replacement of traditional buildings that were in the same locations is a damn shame and a loss. However, I would not consider that particularly relevant to this case. Anyone who explicitly disagrees with his commentary in the OP, the 'London is not really an English city anymore' portion? While I can't speak for all of London, I can say there's a great deal there that is less of what would be traditionally identified as English than there has been ever since before it was a place to note and identities were shifting between Saxon and Norman.

In the spirit of the relevant OP, I present a video I actually saw just before entering the thread, one which I think does well in articulating its points and countering a rebuttal to Cleese's comments.

[Basil II the B.S]

Am I the only one who can't click on the video and watch it?

[Dismounted Feudal Knight]

I ed it up. Corrected.

[conon394]

On the architecture you could have kinda don the same for skyscrapers in 30s and 40s. How many important building built in London or Chicago or Paris (think bank Public Libraries, Courts have a facade of a classical temple/public building look. How many cities in say 70s from the USSR to rural US when for god awful cement boxes?

"There's zero actual diversity. They are generally celebrated by cosmopolitan progressives as post-racial societies, but in truth they celebrate the destruction of cultural diversity"

So the Chinese are supposed to a 100 story pagodas all the time? Japan what a sky scraper with rice paper walls?

Anyway picking out the clusters the newest skyscrapers is an misleading. In quick succession I've been to LA, Chicago, and London (and I'll toss in Newark) and traveled about all on foot a lot. Sure you tell there is particular Style popular for very new sky scrapers. But from the ground each city remains distinct and you really could never mistake one for the other.

Edit and lived in Houston - might make the OP happy they seem to like rectangular even for the newest building but all glass and a some 70s dower concrete heavy ones.

[Kyriakos]

Well, London has far more foreigners than the other UK cities. This is nothing new; it was like that already 20 years ago (when I lived there as a university student). Yes, it can create some problems, although I do doubt it is a major problem...
Depends on factors like formation of ghettos. If ghettos form, it is terrible. And I recall feeling uneasy the only time I went considerably south of the Thames (though tbh most people there were just English ).

Doesn't current London have a very serious (and morbid) issue with acid attacks?

[conon394]

Well, London has far more foreigners than the other UK cities. This is nothing new; it was like that already 20 years ago (when I lived there as a university student). Yes, it can create some problems, although I do doubt it is a major problem...
Depends on factors like formation of ghettos. If ghettos form, it is terrible. And I recall feeling uneasy the only time I went considerably south of the Thames (though tbh most people there were just English ).

Doesn't current London have a very serious (and morbid) issue with acid attacks?

On acid attacks my impression is that its more an outgrowth of good control of more typical weapons and the fact you can acquire the acid legally and cheap. Why bother in New York where all you need to do is pay a college kid a few buck to drive to a state with lax guns and buy a crate load or just hit the gun show - hey buddy you just like prison tattoos right? no criminal record?Sure I am saint, OK here is your glock how much ammo can you carry?

[Cookiegod]

Pls delete

[Cookiegod]

Nah. Different weapons achieve different results and are used for different reasons. An acid attack is very unlikely to kill a victim (at least if it's the kind of attack I'm thinking of), but it blinds and disfigures people. It's about hate and the wish to humiliate the victim. Guns aren't used that way, and thus linking one to the other is a false reduction.

To be honest, I don't get this outrage thing. John Cleese is right. I also don't think that's a bad thing at all. Imagine you meet a person, whom you'd want to live with for the rest of your life. Do you want to change him/her? Hopefully not. Otherwise your relationship is bad and without real love. It's the same with national identities. Why is it necessary to redefine national identity into something "pc" instead of simply accepting it for what it is and simply be mindful of the flaws? The two dogmata "English must be all inclusive" and "multiculturalism is desirable" are directly contradictory. One prefers a homogenous society, the other a heterogenous one.

Worse is actually that more and more of the world starts to look exactly the same. The products you can buy? Also exactly the same. It really annoys me.

And you can't blame old people for being sceptical about the present. Isn't that what being old is all about? Remembering the good old days and how everything was better then?

[Heathen Hammer]

I think its just modern glass buildings which don't really have any aesthetic value, but that goes for modern art as well.
English, just like many other Western nations, never asked for mass-importation of foreigners at their expense. They didn't ask to be disarmed and stripped of their individual freedoms by puppet corporate government, where illusion of democracy is maintained via a choice between left-leaning neocons and neo-marxist lunatics.

[conon394]

Nah. Different weapons achieve different results and are used for different reasons. An acid attack is very unlikely to kill a victim (at least if it's the kind of attack I'm thinking of), but it blinds and disfigures people. It's about hate and the wish to humiliate the victim. Guns aren't used that way, and thus linking one to the other is a false reduction.

To be honest, I don't get this outrage thing. John Cleese is right. I also don't think that's a bad thing at all. Imagine you meet a person, whom you'd want to live with for the rest of your life. Do you want to change him/her? Hopefully not. Otherwise your relationship is bad and without real love. It's the same with national identities. Why is it necessary to redefine national identity into something "pc" instead of simply accepting it for what it is and simply be mindful of the flaws? The two dogmata "English must be all inclusive" and "multiculturalism is desirable" are directly contradictory. One prefers a homogenous society, the other a heterogenous one.

Worse is actually that more and more of the world starts to look exactly the same. The products you can buy? Also exactly the same. It really annoys me.

And you can't blame old people for being sceptical about the present. Isn't that what being old is all about? Remembering the good old days and how everything was better then?

To some extent but the spike in London and surrounds looks to have been gang related as sales of the material were made more lax

https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/y...going-anywhere

[Mithradates]

good control of more typical weapons and the fact you can acquire the acid legally and cheap.

That describes the EU in general, the acid and knife attack epidemic is a UK phenomenon, it is cultural.

Acid attack trio responsible for 19 robberies across north and east London

You dont see this in Vienna or Warsaw.

[Kyriakos]

I think its just modern glass buildings which don't really have any aesthetic value, but that goes for modern art as well.
English, just like many other Western nations, never asked for mass-importation of foreigners at their expense. They didn't ask to be disarmed and stripped of their individual freedoms by puppet corporate government, where illusion of democracy is maintained via a choice between left-leaning neocons and neo-marxist lunatics.

Britain run a global empire. When a number of the colonies became independent, a lot of locals who were loyal to Britain had to emigrate there (unless they didn't mind a purge).
So it isn't like the flow of foreigners to Britain is similar to the one in countries that just had no ties to the areas said immigrants come from.
Likewise for France and arabic-speaking population.

[conon394]

That describes the EU in general, the acid and knife attack epidemic is a UK phenomenon, it is cultural.

Acid attack trio responsible for 19 robberies across north and east London

You dont see this in Vienna or Warsaw.

Really why not? I mean just social norms or better regulation of chemicals. The use of acid is kind nasty in the UK I mean you can put a gun to somebodies head and just walk away but you leave open the possibility of mass shooting becoming the new norm as well. Also of course once you have somebody at close gun point you and your mates can do all matter vile stuff under the threat of a rather easy means to death at close range that requires zero skill or effort. In the UK acid attacks have dropped after the high spike. I mean I worried not much in London vs walking about Chicago at night where I was back to my old Detroit roots guard level of watching everything on the street.