The American Heritage, as seen from A.D. 1955, was the focus of a group called ‘The Newcomen Society’ in Vermont. Their goal was, as best I can understand it, to preserve the ‘American Heritage’ by promoting interest in it and preserving tangible remains of the past.

In 1955 the Newcomen Society hosted a luncheon in Shelburne, Vermont. The following are some brief excerpts from the address given.

“As we forge ahead…in our marathon of Progress to provide the common man with automobiles, television sets and automatic garbage disposals, the gap yearly widens between our civilization and that of the uncommon men who settled the Atlantic Seaboard and the far prairies.

[…]It is true that the average man in this Country is living better from the standpoint of material possessions than he ever has in the history of the world, and I suppose we owe it to the assembly lines. But I am sure that if Henry Thoreau were alive today, he would be gloomier than ever, and Emerson would be moved to expand his essay on Compensation. We have admittedly gained much, but have we not at the same time lost a great deal? We are so frantically busy building a new environment that may not necessarily be any better, or in some ways as good, as the one we have been living in, that I am sure we have all frequently wondered if we are not indeed going too far.

Psychological requirements, of course, do not change. People still seek to put roots down and to express themselves. Yet the gadget civilization of today tends to frustrate these needs. We cannot put roots down while gales of change are buffeting us about.

We cannot mechanize and standardize everything without blunting individuality and self-expression. The Constitution of Vermont reminds us “that frequent recurrence to fundamental principles and a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, industry and frugality are absolutely necessary to preserve the blessings of liberty and keep government free.”

The men who wrote these words found in their environment many values that we cannot share in a society that has become so commercial, so mobile and so highly organized. But the conditions of the Twentieth Century do not prevent us from seeking these values, and there is no better way of seeking them than to cultivate a sense of the past. For years we have tended to be disdainful of the old. We have chided the British for their poor plumbing and emphasis on tradition. However I am sure that many Americans, straining to keep up with the ever-increasing tempo of life, have from time to time suspected that our English cousins may have something there.

Fortunately the pendulum always swings the other way. During the past few years there have been symptoms of a tremendously renewed interest in the American Heritage. This may be because we are now old enough as a Nation to look back at our beginnings with real perspective and appreciation, yet I think there is a deeper reason, a psychological one. If we do not know where we are going today, it is at least reassuring to know where we have come from. It is comforting to sense our kinship with the pioneers, whose burdens were far heavier than ours, but who nevertheless seemed to know where they were going.”

The Newcomen Address was delivered on 28 September, 1955, at the Vermont Luncheon of the Newcomen Society, at Shelburne Harbour Inn, Shelburne, VT

In 1955 there seemed to be an air of optimism about what the writer of the speech saw as a renewed interest in American Heritage on the part of these New Englanders. Sad to say, it seems as if there is little of that interest today, but then in our own defense it may be that most of us recognize that we are in a dire situation, and our immediate fate concerns us more at the moment than does our past, our historic heritage.

Can we learn useful lessons from our Pilgrim or Puritan forebears? They were hardy and resilient people. I am not sure how true that is of us, their descendants. But maybe we can take some inspiration from them and perhaps we might learn something. There is so much doomsaying and black-pilling these days on the Internet but I don’t think we can afford to give in to that spirit.

And as the writer refers to the ‘gales of change’ that were buffetting the people of that era; we are being buffetted ourselves, in our day. Some of that can-do spirit is essential.

I feel as though I’ve been neglecting this blog; it seems I’ve been experiencing some writers’ block, though I’ve managed to crank out a few posts at the other blog. But mostly my scarce output is due to other issues. Chronic illness is not fun.

I hope to post more regularly and I hope those of you who are still there will check in and continue visiting. I appreciate my readers, however many or few you are.

At Unz.com, there is a piece by Andrew Joyce in response to a short essay from the year 2007, by Curtis Yarvin. Yarvin is better known to many as erstwhile blogger ‘Mencius Moldbug’, who had a considerable following as the sort of guru to the Neoreactionary set of that time.

Joyce’s piece is lengthy and thorough; I recommend reading it if you are interested in the subject matter that is being examined in it, namely who is most responsible for the multiculturalism which is swallowing up Western civilization at the current hour.

If one reads the comments section on blogs which discuss that topic and related ones, you will soon become weary of reading comments blaming ‘WASPs’ and their Christianity for the impending death of Western civilization and those who created it. I will say I am more interested in the allegations of ‘WASP’ complicity in this crime; it may be that WASPs were too trusting and too subdued to try to avoid the loss of their identity and the loss of their primacy on this continent. But it is not true, in my opinion, that Anglo-Saxons conspired or acted in concert with ‘Zionists’ as some say, to bring about a multicultural America.

I’ve read some of Moldbug’s ideas about who was to blame in this situation, and as with Paul Gottfried, I find an effort to shift blame onto old-stock Anglo-Saxon Americans. One argument Moldbug/Yarvin makes is that his people, that is, Jewish-Americans, merely tried to assimilate to WASP norms. More blame-shifting.

“There is little question that Jews were keen to obtain the outward signs of social climbing in America — by, for example, entering certain professions or joining fashionable golf clubs. But underlying many of these economic advances was an outright hostility to the culture, politics, and behavior of the Protestant Brahmin class. In this regard, Yarvin’s definition of “assimilation” needs to be problematised. As I’ve argued elsewhere, and developed further in my forthcoming book, it is highly doubtful whether genuine Jewish group assimilation has ever occurred in any nation at any time. In the United States, Jewish “assimilation” has involved the academic deconstruction of WASP cultural heroes (e.g., T.S. Eliot, Richard Wagner), the pathologization of the WASP family (Freud, the Frankfurt School, and their intellectual followers), and the weaponisation of WASP children during the 1960s “New Left” revolution…”

The last part of the paragraph above, which alludes to the ‘weaponisation of WASP children’ during the ’60s New Left revolution is right on the money. The idea that WASPs were complicit in their own displacement and ultimately our loss of identity and diminution of power just makes no sense.

But for self-serving reasons, having to do with nepotism, or the promotion of mass immigration from third-world countries as a ‘survival strategy’ it appears that it’s in the interests of some to promote the replacement of the long-standing inhabitants of what was once Christendom.

The Public Prosecution Service in Northern Ireland recently announced that no soldiers would face prosecution relating to the events on ‘Bloody Sunday’ in 1972. On January 30 of that year, 13 civilians were shot and killed, as a clash broke out between marchers and British soldiers who were there to maintain order.

The Daily Mail article about this incident indicates that the soldiers opened fire before projectiles were thrown at them. The scenario is a little reminiscent of the Kent State, Ohio incident in which National Guardsmen opened fire on students, four of whom died. But it may be more complicated than it appears.

Just an aside here, but these protests by the Northern Ireland Catholics were directly inspired by the activism of the Civil Rights revolutionaries in the U.S. The leadership of the activist groups openly said they emulated MLK et al.

The central story is, unfortunately, an example of how disparities within a population or a society seem inevitably to bring conflict and in worst cases, bloodshed. ‘Diversity’ is not a strength unless one thinks internal dissension and misunderstanding are desirable.

A common belief about the Northern Ireland problem is that it’s religious in nature. It is, but only partially. Religion is only one of the points of difference between the two longstanding populations, the Ulster folk, Ulster Scots, the people Americans like to call ‘Scotch-Irish’ and often misidentify as being one and the same as those we call just Irish. But besides the differing religions there is a different culture and history and mindset. As ever, people are not interchangeable.

And just to confuse things more, many of the ‘Scots-Irish’ are neither Scots (by blood) nor Irish; their ancestors, who were brought to Ulster in the 17th century, were from the English border counties, and were English. Some Southern Americans who claim ‘Scotch-Irish’ ancestry are in fact English, as DNA tests show, in the cases of some American celebrities I’ve read of.

The two peoples, the Catholic Irish and the Protestant Ulster folk differ on their religious beliefs, but if Northern Ireland is anything like the rest of former Christendom, religion is not as important as it once was. Ethnic identity used to be a strong motivator, and the Ulster Protestants identify as British. This is the part that many Americans don’t understand. This is why Northern Ireland felt so strongly at one time, that they not be merged into Catholic Ireland, living under liberal laws and rules, as Ireland has gone very left, being itself greatly weakened by a forced dose of diversity and socialism.

It’s a complicated situation, but it looks as though, if the self-styled elites have their way, there will be no more nations/states, just a monolithic world regime, so the whole national question would in theory be moot.

But back to the central issue here: is it right that the men who shot and killed the protesters should be exempt from prosecution? First I am sure that the Prosecutors in Northern Ireland have all the information, and we get just dribs and drabs from our sometimes incompetent, always dishonest media. I don’t feel qualified to judge here, as to what ideally should have happened.

To put this on more of a human basis, I have met (through friends on the other side of the pond) men who served as very young soldiers in Northern Ireland. Not all those who served there were battle-hardened soldiers. Some were quite green and they were often threatened by civilians there. That may have been a factor.

And of course show business had to exploit the deaths. Something like 11 years afterward, the Irish rock band U2 recorded the song, “Sunday, Bloody Sunday” though they said the song was not political, not taking sides. Interestingly, the Kent State shootings in the 70s also were the subject of a rock song, ‘Ohio.’

And finally here is one more take on this story via AltNewsMedia.

The resentment of Norman ‘invaders’ is still, apparently, alive and well in parts of England. I do get the impression from what I have read and heard from English folk that it is not uncommon.

I actually used to believe that the Irish grudge against the Anglo-Normans took the prize for its persistence. Now I am wondering: the Norman Conquest began in 1066 (it will be a full thousand years ago this century) and the Anglo-Normans invaded Ireland in 1169 through 1171. Obviously the Norman conquest of England took place in a longer-ago time.

How can a group of people still be labeled “invaders” or considered alien when they have been in a country for almost a millennium? It’s not as though they are still speaking a foreign language, separating themselves from those of only Anglo-Saxon blood, or going back and forwards to their ‘native country’ as so many of the immigrants to modern Western countries do.

The Normans were not so genetically different from the Saxons. I don’t think the DNA testing now can differentiate precisely between the different ethnicities of Britain, not even as much as between Anglo-Saxons and Scots, or Anglo-Saxons and Welsh, or Dutch.

So why are those of Norman descent spoken of at times as being outsiders, not belonging on the island of Britain?

I can understand why being conquered would have a certain ‘sting’ to it, just as with Americans who might rightfully feel that we have not just been colonized, but thanks to the machinations of the Leftist infiltrators and subversives, we are not in control of our country any longer. It does wound the pride.

But here is an article by Peter Hitchens which I happened across; ithas some interesting thoughts about the changes in the UK and about the state of Free Speech and other liberties, along class and regional lines. He also writes about the Norman-Anglo-Saxon divisions. Interesting subject matter.