Whatever happened to Britain, or the UK, or England, or whatever they’re calling it? We can’t even agree on what it’s called. But what happened to England, the England that, if you’re over 50, you grew up learning about, the England that controlled the world, the England that ran the largest empire in human history at the end of World War One?
Britain, which is an island in a pretty inhospitable climate, controlled literally a quarter of the Earth’s surface – and not controlled in the way the United States controls the rest of the world with an implied threat or with economic ties through trade, but with administrators and people sitting at desks with eyeshades, counting things. Way more than Rome, way more than the Mongols, way more than anybody, ever, or maybe in the future, ever.
Britain was the most powerful country in the history of the world. And then 25 years later, it was this kind of sad, soggy welfare state, which is, to some extent, what it still is, except maybe even a little bit worse. What happened?
There are a couple of levels on which to think about this. First is just geopolitical, and I guess they spent a lot of money in these wars and the ruling class, half the class at Eton in 1910 was killed in the trenches. You can think of a lot of different ways to explain what happened to Britain. The fact remains, however, the British won the two biggest wars in human history. They won and yet they’re still greatly diminished and to some extent humiliated. What is that?
So again, the first explanation can be described in economic terms. The United States took over. The British Empire just moved west to its child, the US. They just transferred the power and a lot of the gold to this new country, which had its systems and some of its customs. But there’s something deeper. If that were the whole story, then Britain would still be recognizably Britain.
The English people would still be recognizably English. They would just be not in charge anymore. They would have less money and less power. But the country would be, by any conventional measurement, thriving, just not running the Bahamas and Hong Kong and Pakistan.
But that’s not what’s happened. After winning the two biggest wars in human history, Britain has shrunken not just physically, but in some way that’s hard to describe. Its culture has changed, some might say has been destroyed, and it’s become something completely different. And what is that? And why does it matter what it is?
Well, it matters because what’s happened to Britain, to England, is also happening to many countries in the West, certainly its heirs, the Anglosphere: Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Canada, Ireland. It’s happening to those countries. It’s also happening to the rest of western Europe all at the same time.
A bunch of different profound, never seen before phenomena are happening to all of those countries, and again, including ours here in the United States. So it’s worth understanding what has happened to Britain. So maybe the best image that describes it is the one that we’re about to show you.
In case there’s no context in the tape, what you’re watching is a woman being arrested outside an abortion clinic. And keep in mind, as you watch this, she’s not being arrested for throwing a firebomb, a petrol bomb, through the window of this abortion clinic in the UK, or even for obstructing access to this abortion clinic. No – she is being arrested and taken to jail for praying outside the abortion clinic.
So what is that? It’s hard to argue that if your government is arresting people for praying that you’re watching a political phenomenon. Because, of course, praying is not simply a non-violent act. It’s not even a physical act. It can’t possibly, at least in secular terms, affect outcomes or harm anyone. Praying for people can never be a crime. But it is a crime in Great Britain, literally a crime. And the woman you saw is not the only person who’s been arrested for doing it. So clearly we’re watching a spiritual phenomenon here. There’s sort of no arguing it once you see things like that.
But what is that spiritual phenomenon and what are its effects on the people of this country? Before we go further, we should just say that if you visit the “Yookay” as it’s now called, or London, its capital and completely dominant city, the first thing you’ll notice is it’s actually pretty nice. The nice parts of London are as nice or maybe even nicer than any city in the United States. Certainly nicer than any city in Canada or Australia. It’s a great city, filled with lots of happy people.
But broadly speaking, this country has changed dramatically, and it’s changed in ways that are recognizable. Here’s what you recognize. The people of Great Britain are going through a series of crises, and they’re all internal. Drug use, alcohol use. Their appearance has changed. People are no longer as well kept, the streets, the landscape is not tidy anymore. It’s got lots of litter and graffiti in some places. To technocrats, these are not meaningful measures of anything. Who cares if you’ve got graffiti? Does that affect GDP? Well, maybe. Maybe not, but it’s definitely a reflection of how people feel about themselves.
People with self-respect do not tolerate public displays of disorder or filth or graffiti or litter because they care about themselves and their family and they understand intuitively, as every human being does, that once you allow chaos and filth in your immediate environment, you are diminished. So you just don’t allow that. No healthy society does.
But all through the West, these are not just features, they’re defining features. All western cities are filled with litter and graffiti, and people who look like they didn’t bother to get dressed this morning, but are instead wearing their pajamas in Walmart. It’s not just in your town, it’s everywhere in what we refer to as the West.
The point that underlies all of this is a really obvious one, that too few people say. This is the behavior of a defeated people. This is what it looks like when you lose. This is what it looks like when you’re on your way out to be replaced by somebody else. This is what it looks like to be an American Indian.
Now, one thing nobody in the United States ever says about the American Indians, except in a kind of pro-forma white guilt way, is these weren’t just impressive people – and no, they didn’t write the Constitution before we did – these were some of the most impressive people, most self-reliant, most dignified. Read any account of early American settlers, people who were pushing west, who came into contact with Indians and yes, were often scalped and forced to eat their own genitals and roasted over open fires. I mean, these were cruel people. But even the people who were in danger of being murdered by them respected them. Because the Indigenous Americans had a great deal of self-respect. They had what we call dignity. And now, hundreds of years later, the opposite is true.
The poorest people in the United States are American Indians. Why? Because the federal government hasn’t given them enough. The federal government is completely in charge of the indigenous economy in the United States, and has been for over a hundred years, and it hasn’t worked. American Indians are still the poorest.
Why? Because the Iroquois and the Navajo weren’t impressive? No, they were the most impressive. Again, read the account of anyone who dealt with them. Even people who were dodging their arrows thought they were amazing people, because they were. And now they are by many measures, the saddest people in the United States. Why is that? Some inherent genetic predisposition to patheticness? They couldn’t deal with modernity? Well, they probably could. They were defeated. They were defeated. And in some deep, the deepest way, they wound up destroying themselves, and it’s not unique to them. That’s the point.
And just to be completely clear, all of this is observed with a great deal of sympathy, not scorn. No one’s mocking the American Indians. Everyone should feel bad about it. For real. Again, not in a silly white girl guilty way, but in a real way. These are amazing people. Greatly diminished. And the reason it’s worth remembering is the same thing is happening to the West.
And it makes you realize, especially if you travel a lot, that the problem is not necessarily the immigrants. The problem is what mass migration does to the people who already live there. They’re the victims of it in a way that, again, is hard to measure and sometimes hard to notice, but totally
So you walk through this city, London, and it’s been completely transformed by immigration. Completely. And the numbers are really, really clear. One hundred years ago it was 100 percent European white. Now it’s less than 40 percent. OK, that’s massive, unprecedented demographic change. The immigrant areas are absolutely poorer than the traditionally white English areas. There’s just no question about it. But wealth as measured by the government is not the only measurement.
Actually, and this is true in the United States, too, lots of immigrants who have a lot less money than the native population seem a lot more balanced and happy, both because this is a huge upgrade for them just in terms of annual income and standard of living. But it’s more than that. They’re not defeated. They don’t hate themselves.
And if you have traditional nationalist opinions in the United States, I can confirm this personally, you’re never going to be stopped on the street and screamed at by some Guatemalan who’s like, you are racist for having your views on immigration. No, they’ll probably agree with you. The only people who ever get mad at you are the people who already hate themselves, and it’s always, famously, some private equity wife or somebody who should be happy about how things are going because they’re in the portion of the population that’s benefiting from it. But they’re not happy. They’re angry.
What is that? That exact same thing is going on in this country. Exact. And it’s part of a very recognizable syndrome, and it’s the most destructive of all. History is just filled with examples of people who get invaded and clubbed to death and have their women stolen from them, and they’re fine. They’re fine. It’s the people who feel defeated inside who no longer exist. And that is happening to the West. And it’s measurable.
What other society hates its own national symbols? It’s only happening in the West, only in Great Britain. This is coming to be true in the United States. It’s already true in Canada and Australia. What other country finds it embarrassing to fly their national flag? What are you saying if that embarrasses you? You don’t hate the flag. You hate yourself.
And it’s obvious because people who have dignity, self-respect, who believe in their own civilization want to continue it. How do you do that? By talking about it a lot? No. By continuing it through reproduction. No one is preventing the West from reproducing. And people who come up with these conspiracy theories, like, oh, they’re doing it. No, we’re doing it to ourselves. What else is abortion? It’s not empowering for women. Of course not. That’s absurd. Anyone who believes that is an idiot.
Abortion is the way to stop people from reproducing. So is birth control, by the way, of course. So is convincing people that their dumb job is more important than having kids. It’s not. It never will be. Any person who can get clarity for a second will recognize that. It’s only about stopping you from having more of you.
And is there anything that’s a clearer representation of how you feel about yourself than how you feel about having kids? And by the way, it’s not just because these people are selfish and they want to go on vacation and don’t want to pay for children, or they’re worried about how much it might cost. Notice that none of these impoverished immigrants living on Snap and housing subsidies, they don’t seem worried about it at all because they know it’ll be fine. Most of the time it will be fine. They’re having kids when much more affluent natives are not, because they believe in themselves and their culture, their civilization. They’d like to see it continue. It’s the most basic of all human desires.
So here in Great Britain, which has about a 40 percent abortion rate, 40 percent of all conceived children are killed. Who’s doing that? It’s not the immigrants because they don’t hate themselves. They’re not defeated. They’re ascendant. And so they can see the future. They know that they may not live to experience it, but they’re still fully human. And they know you plant the tree not because you can bask in its shade, but because your grandchildren will. This is the most obvious of all human instincts and the most basic.
But the native population in Britain is not debating abortion because it’s not even a debate here. Everyone agrees it’s just an affirmative good, of course, to eliminate your own people. Absolutely. But again, no one’s making them do this. They’ve decided to do it themselves. But now their most enthusiastic campaign is for state sponsored suicide. They’ve already done this in Canada. It’ll come to the United States. What is that? That’s an entire people saying we should exit the stage. Our time is done. It’s over. Let’s go. Someone else will take our place. Not the first time that’s ever happened. This is what defeated people do. This is what happens when you break people inside. And maybe it’ll just reach its terminus. Maybe there’s no way to stop it.
So in Great Britain, if you were to say, wait, what the hell is this? This looks nothing like the country I grew up in – guess who’s going to arrest you? Your fellow Britons. The ones whose great-grandparents lived here. The whites. They’re the ones enforcing this. They’re the ones determined to eliminate themselves.
Tucker Carlson
THE ARTFUL DILETTANTE 