We must create a strong feeling against West-Britonism

[barryqwalsh]

“And, in order to do this, we must create a strong feeling against West-Britonism, for it – if we give it the least chance, or show it the smallest quarter – will overwhelm us like a flood, and we shall find ourselves toiling painfully behind the English at each step following the same fashions, only six months behind the English ones; reading the same books, only months behind them; taking up the same fads, after they have become stale there, following them in our dress, literature, music, games, and ideas, only a long time after them and a vast way behind.”


Hugh Linehan: What have the British ever done for us? Quite a lot

 

[Andylusion]

“And, in order to do this, we must create a strong feeling against West-Britonism, for it – if we give it the least chance, or show it the smallest quarter – will overwhelm us like a flood, and we shall find ourselves toiling painfully behind the English at each step following the same fashions, only six months behind the English ones; reading the same books, only months behind them; taking up the same fads, after they have become stale there, following them in our dress, literature, music, games, and ideas, only a long time after them and a vast way behind.”


Hugh Linehan: What have the British ever done for us? Quite a lot

These implicit assumptions of an unequal relationship go back a long way and, to a large extent, they simply reflect the realities of the differing scales of the two countries’ respective cultural marketplaces.

Yeah, but all relationships are unequal.

There isn't a marriage yet, where everything is 100% equal between the man and woman.

There isn't a trade deal yet where both countries benefit 100% equally.

There isn't a justice system yet that treats everyone with 100% equality.

Nothing in this life is completely fair. Now if you stay in a child's mindset, then you end up pouting and whining that it's not fair. You stay in that mindset long enough, you end up a left-winger complaining about everything, and dreaming of a utopian world that has never existed, and will never exist, and destroys every country that ever attempts it.

Or... you can grow up. You grow up into an adult which accepts that life isn't going to be fair, and everything isn't going to be equal, but even through that inequality, life can be 'better'. Not perfect, not fair, not equal.... but better.

So a man and woman come together, and find that yeah it isn't completely fair, and being together is never equal, but even so, both are better off together, even with it not being perfectly fair and equal.

A justice system is created, and people abide by it, because they understand that even if it isn't completely fair, and completely equal, it is still better to have a justice system, than not.

And two countries like Ireland and Brittan can have strong economic and social ties, and that is better than being separated entirely, even if it isn't completely fair, and completely equal.

The goal of perfection, is universally both impossible, and the enemy of the best possible.