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xenogon

@adamgreenfield when I first moved to the UK in about 2003 a fellow kiwi who'd been here a few years told me in passing that "there's a culture of incompetence here", and those words continue to be a good description. It's not evenly distributed, and individuals are not necessarily more incompetent that other places, but there's nevertheless a pervasive tendency to get things wrong.

I suspect (without real evidence) that it may have started as a sort of passive resistance to generations of being ground down by kings and tories, but I can't support this suspicion.

A related but different point is there's also a lot of nonsensical systems in place where following the letter of the procedure will not give the desired result, you just have to magically know how to fudge things just so.

26 March at 22:47 | Wall-to-wall | Open on sunny.garden
3 comments
Linda

@xenogon @adamgreenfield there is no single culture, NHS, Legal jurisdiction or education system in the U.K. and much of failings in England are totally irrelevant and inapplicable to NI, Wales and Scotland. The other 3 nations have their own challenged, but when will ignorant comments from those who equate England as U.K. stop?

27 March at 8:07 | Open on mastodon.scot
xenogon

@Lassielmr @adamgreenfield The observed effect is not limited to or defined by administrative systems, it is cultural and exists at a wider more basic level than the failings of bureaucracy which it contributes to. So the partially separate bureaucratic systems in the smaller nations of the UK is only marginally relevant. The effect is culturally in the people. It is also, as I said, unevenly distributed.

I do agree that it seems to be at source an English phenomenon, and Scotland seems somewhat better, but I have not lived in Scotland and may be basing this on the selected sample of Scots I know and the visits to selected areas.

Nevertheless I think it likely that the sheer hegemony of english cultural dominance likely means that the effect is observable in Scotland too. Much as american failings now appear throughout european societies.

I almost said england rather than UK, but felt that the phenomenon I was describing was somewhat vague and emergent and defining it's exact boundaries didn't seem so important.

I have insufficient experience to comment meaningfully on Wales or NI, but my impression is that they are more strongly within the English cultural influence than Scotland is.

@Lassielmr @adamgreenfield The observed effect is not limited to or defined by administrative systems, it is cultural and exists at a wider more basic level than the failings of bureaucracy which it contributes to. So the partially separate bureaucratic systems in the smaller nations of the UK is only marginally relevant. The effect is culturally in the people. It is also, as I said, unevenly distributed.

27 March at 8:27 | Open on sunny.garden
Adam Greenfield

@Lassielmr @xenogon I’ve observed it in Scotland too, and I’ll thank you not to call me “ignorant.”

27 March at 8:34 | Open on social.coop
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