Anglosphere

Civic Association and Loneliness: Two Sides of the Coin in the English-Speaking World

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An excellent article, Family Ties in Western Europe: Persistent Contrasts by David Sven Reher, Population and Development Review, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Jun., 1998), pp. 203-234 contains some fascinating passages which are highly consistent with the arguments we make in America 3.0:

Loneliness is one of the most important social problems in weak-family societies. I refer to the loneliness of the individual who must confront the world and his own life without the safety net of familial support so characteristic of strong-family regions.'” Suicide, often an indirect consequence of loneliness, tends to be far higher in northern Europe and the United States than it is in southern Europe.” The effects of loneliness are compensated in weak-family societies by a strong tradition of civic association, where people form groups, clubs, and societies for the most varied purposes. The number and variety of these associations in England or the United States would be unimaginable for a citizen of southern Europe. In weak-family societies the individual is able to combat loneliness by turning directly to civil society, itself largely the product of the needs and initiatives of its members, in contrast to strong-family societies where the family comes between the individual and civil society, meeting a large part of the needs stemming from loneliness.
 

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Royal Air Force at Omaha Beach

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One of the little know stories of D-Day is the fact that a British Royal Air Force early warning radar unit — the 1st Echelon of 21 Base Defence Sector — landed at the Les Moulins Draw, on Omaha Beach, Normandy about 5:30pm on 6 June 1944.

The 21st BDS’s mission was to operate British ground control intercept (GCI) radar truck convoy the first night of the invasion so British night fighters could cover the Normandy beach head from Luftwaffee “night heckler” bombers with German SD 2 Schmetterling (butterfly) cluster bombs.

German SD2 Butterfly Bomb

Of the 180 men of the 21st BDS that landed there, eleven men were killed and 37 wounded. That is a 26.7% casualty rate for the assault. When actor Tom Hanks says Obamha Beach was “an all American affair,” these are some of our British Allies he is slighting.

You can find their story at this link —

http://www.therafatomahabeach.com/?page_id=91

Let’s talk about airplanes.

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I’ve been reading the new biography of Nevil Shute and the account of his trip by single engine airplane to Australia and back to England in 1949. Shute was an engineer and novelist. I think he is the best writer about engineers and one of the best about businessmen.

That got me to the subject of airplanes. A couple of years ago, I read a a book about restoring a Hawker Hurricane that was discovered in pieces in India and brought back to England (after a struggle with Indian bureaucracy) and completely restored. During the restoration, they found bullet holes in the wing tanks that had been sealed by the tank sealant system. It is back in flying condition and is the only flying Hurricane that saw the Battle of Britain.

This is R 4118 flying in 1941. It is the third below the wingmates

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Maybe That Day Has Come

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A day may come when the courage of men fails,
when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day.
An hour of wolves and shattered shields, when the age of men comes crashing down,
but it is not this day!
This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good Earth,
I bid you stand, Men of the West! Aragorn’s speech, before the Black Gates

It always comes back to Tolkien, doesn’t it? A man who lived through the hell of the WWI trenches, who recalled from first hand a time when you could use the term ‘Great Britain’ without ironical quotes around it, a time when there were very real social issues and pathologies to criticize and to try and deal fairly with but also a time when the common people took enormous pride and confidence in what they were, in their country, in themselves, in their institutions and in turn, the various institutions looked toward the general welfare of the commonality. I like the 19th century for that very reason, both the British and American versions. It’s a kind of mental refuge to me, these days. For all its pathologies and shortcomings citizens of both countries had cultural self-confidence. In the main, a self-confidence based on real accomplishment is a hell of a lot more attractive than a pitiful, helpless and apologetic bleating about ones’ societal and cultural shortcomings.

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The Common Law, Free Markets, and Voluntaristic Rather than Coercive Order: Three Great Things That Go Great Together

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In America 3.0 we discuss the origins of the common law, and how it was well-suited to adapt inductively to changing conditions, in contrast to the more top-down Roman law that predominated on the Continent.

This recent post on the John Wilkes Club blog, makes this point nicely:

There is no eschatology in the common law: its purpose is to reflect changes in the cultural, social and economic structure, not to direct them towards an objective preconceived in the minds of cultured and erudite elites for our betterment. Likewise there is no eschatology in free markets: they are a tool for the allocation of goods and services according to ever-changing consumer preferences, not for directing them towards some imaginary ‘ideal’ allocation. Not only is there no ethical basis for the social and economic coercion which rational, artificial, imposed order inevitably involves; but also, because even a benevolent genius is trapped in the prison of imperfect information described by Hayek and others, it does not work.

The post cites to The New World of the Gothic Fox: Culture and Economy in English and Spanish America by Claudio Veliz, a great favorite of ours, and concludes in Hayekian fashion: “… the ability to manage the modern welfare state is not just beyond any particular person, but beyond anybody … .”

Quite so. And that why is it is failing. And that is why the next iteration of America will be flatter, more networked, less coercive and better, cheaper and faster at everything that matters. But we have to get all this detritus out of the way, first … .

Cross-posted on America 3.0.