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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   3051 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 2, 2022

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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In the UK "indigenous" to refer to the white English population is considered to be a racist dog-whistle. Amusingly, there is a deep (as in going back to the 1380's, and still taken seriously as late as the 1980's) tradition of (pre-Wokespeak so it doesn't use the technical terms, but the sentiment is clear) left-wing historical mythology in England which sees the white working class as indigenous and the upper class as settler-colonialists descended from William the Conqueror's knights.

The researchers from the London School of Economics, Dr Neil Cummins and Professor Gregory Clark, said the name checks showed that social mobility in England is hardly greater than in medieval times, and that people inherited their social status even more than they inherit their height.

Dr Cummins said: ‘Just take the names of the Normans who conquered England nearly 1,000 years ago. Surnames such as Baskerville, Darcy, Mandeville and Montgomery are still over-represented at Oxbridge and also among elite occupations such as medicine, law and politics.

‘What is surprising is that between 1800 and 2011 there have been substantial institutional changes in England but no gain in rates of social mobility for society as a whole.’

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2479271/1-000-years-invaded-need-Norman-like-Darcy-Percy-ahead.html

Excuse the Daily Mail link, at least the quotes are from the source.

Of course going down the indigenous rabbit hole in a European country leads you to places where indigenous either doesn't mean anything (mythology) or doesn't mean anything useful to modern society (Neanderthals, out of Africa).

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