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| How significant is culture when understanding land? | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Mar 22 2010, 11:21 PM (76 Views) | |
| Hildebeorht | Mar 22 2010, 11:21 PM Post #1 |
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Just thought I'd pose this question, because I think It's a pretty interesting one and is of relevance to the EDL's cause. I was watching a program ealier on today on 4 OD called "Pagans: Sacred Landscape" and although this particular statement was made in regards to Iceland, and the Icelandic sagas, it is certainly applicable to England, and to absolutely anywhere else in the world for that matter... It's not a religious statement either, so it isn't really to do with 'paganism'. Anyway, there's two quotes here, the first one being:
And the second:
So what do you make of this? Is culture, and an understanding of culture important in relation to our understanding of a particular landscape, and more contraversially, is ethnicity important too? I'm aware of the EDL having quite a wide ethnic and 'racial' support base, so it'd be interesting to hear a few different responses, baring in mind that this is merely speculation. Could I understand the northernmost stretches of Norway, Sweden and Finland as the Sami do, with a little cultural education - or would I still be lacking that bond? Could the Sami understand the lakeland fells of England in the same way as I, with a little cultural education - or would they still be lacking that bond? Is it even relevant? Personally, I think I agree with the quoted statement. There are two aspects to a landscape, the physical aesthetics, and the cultural and historical metaphysics - the two are bound together. To me, the Amazon would be a pretty patch of green I'd like to have a look at, but to the native inhabitant it would be a land of myth, legend, folkore, great wars, warriors and kings, their ancestors, all in combination with the physical aesthetic that I too pick up on. I'd be lacking the spiritual bond that has cultivated alongside the evolution of culture and landscape. I think this is one explanation (of many) for our detachment from the natural world in recent decades - a lack of national identity results in a lack of interest in history and culture, which results in an ever decreasing bond with the land we call home, which results in the cementing of more fields and the bulldozing of more forests, which results in the cycle getting progressively more vicious as we become more and more urban and less and less attached to the land. All these things tie together. Overspeculating? Perhaps! What do you think. |
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| Bernician Angle | Mar 24 2010, 02:34 AM Post #2 |
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Very interesting post. I've always felt a spiritual bond with the English landscape. My father has researched our family lines on both sides and I am about as Englisc as it gets. Somerset (Wessex) on my Mam's side and Northumbrian (Englisc) on my Dad's. Last year we decided to holiday in England and drove from the NE down to Devon via Somerset. Getting past the midlands into the Cotswolds my head screamed that I knew this place. Perhaps it's just stories from the owld girl or maybe something more, I don't know. My real bond lies with the Northumbrian coastline, however. I can stand on a dune at Druridge or a cliff-top at Shields or a coal staithe at Dunston and know that at sometime, my forefathers sailed toward where I stand. Some people get it, others don't. I make no apologies for loving my heritage (or imagination, as others might say). |
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| AgeofEnlightenment | Mar 24 2010, 10:13 AM Post #3 |
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Kafir
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I wouldn't say it's spiritual, perhaps a form of Deja Vu or a feeling of home. If the countryside is beautiful then it probably enhances such a feeling. |
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"A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything." Friedrich Nietzsche "All things must be examined, debated, investigated without exception and without regard for anyone's feelings." - Denis Diderot. "People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both." - Benjamin Franklin | |
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| ignominius | Mar 24 2010, 11:02 AM Post #4 |
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Infidel
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Culture is what defines us as a group. Are culture and the land on which we live - in this case the British Isles - related? I think so. I believe the land helps shape a group's characteristics. For instance, The Fells farmers that have all but disappeared were a disticintive hardy breed of men who scratched a living. They could be considered by our standards dour, very conservative, hard-working and hard-living and had that distinctive Yorkshire grit. Compare that to a farmer say in East Anglia and you have a different kind of person. So the landscape does influence character and characteristics. Character in turn influences our culture. So I think the answer is yes. In the human need to belong to a group, that group is bound to the land it finds itself. Is ethnicity involved. I don't think so, as I believe that skin colour has very little to do with culture. A man with black, brown or yellow skin can have the same love of the land and the same culture as you or I. As the song say for us England is a warm feeling in the hearts of men! |
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| nottz_ben | Mar 25 2010, 05:38 PM Post #5 |
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Culture is a tricky one because it's far more flexible than your typical patriot likes to think. I think Doctor Who is a part of the national fabric, but obvious it wasn't 50 years ago. Our rituals around Christmas are seen as a cemented part of our culture, but those rituals are forever changing. I think generally culture is what is uniqeuly us, or anything we did first. But it can be something alien that we all embrace as well as the nature in which we embrace such things. But of course our history is at the core of our culture, but that is a tricky negotiaion between what should be left in the past and what should be seen in a new light. Whatever the case I think we dont teach history enough, and my teacher put me off English History almost for life it was so boring! If we don't know our history we certainly don't have much of a culture and a country that doesn't take their culture seiously is a dying one....A country that tries to reshape it's culture is a suicidal one. In the grand scheme of things I doubt it matters, this land will eventually shake us off like a bad case of the fleas and what was Britain will be lost and forgotton - It's just a shame our government is doing that before the planet does! |
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www.youtube.com/justb3nji | |
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| AnnwynAvalonAlbion | Apr 19 2010, 09:45 PM Post #6 |
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So glad this question was raised! For me, the 'Geo-mythical' landscape is too easily dismissed as irrelevant in our modern 'rationalistic, materialist, and scientific age', and people have been reduced to nothing more than socio-economic statistics, living on a piece of real estate with a monetary value! It's for this very reason that we see a world quickly accelerating towards a culture less melting pot of economic migrants! I believe the very land contains the spirit of our ancestors, and even in these modern times, it's still possible to tune in with them! We shape the land, but equally the land shapes us! our Ancestors, knew every rock, tree, spring,hill and mountain intimately, and conversed with the land through vision quests, and local site guardians. The faery realm was a real alternative place to them, and elemental spirits could be sensed with their heightened perceptions! Earth energy's flowed like rivers through the sacred land of Albion, and ley lines can still be divined today! We have been separated from the mysteries of being 'in touch' with the land by scientific dogma , but slowly, and surely, the Children of Albion, are awakening to the voices of their ancestors, reaffirming their place in this sacred isle, soon the once and future king will arise! Blessed Be! Children of Albion! The Sang-real (blessed blood) flows in your veins, and this land holds still the remnants of Atlantis!!! for anyone interested in the ancestors and the land, I recommend a book called 'The Rollright Ritual@ , by the great late English Occultist; William G Gray. |
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