Naïve realism? An American in the New Town

Professor Sridhar’s tweet has been removed. I understand why. An army of drooling orcs led by the Scottish Conservatives will be all over her twitter feed.

She’s by no means alone in seeing anti-Scottishness, among Americans living here:

Sridhar uses the word ‘naive’. It’s a good choice. Intelligent people who are, in one context, naive like the young, are often best at seeing things, more realistically, as they are.

For most of us, our grasp on reality is compromised by years of socialisation within a culture. We politely allow Unionists to assert an alternative definition of Scottishness, based on inclusion within Britishness and objectively subservient to it in decision-making.

A child can see that that subservience is unavoidably, so some degree, anti-Scottish, because it weakens and undermines the idea of Scottishness, as meaning anything much beyond sport.

15 thoughts on “Naïve realism? An American in the New Town”

  1. This is one reason why the Unionists are on the attack. Scotland’s divergence helped it deal with covid19 more effectively than the UK government..

    “Devi Sridhar
    @devisridhar
    ·
    May 29
    I’m reading through the released SAGE minutes from Feb/March & oh wow- some of the conclusions they reached were way off. 8th SAGE meeting: ‘When there is sustained transmission in the UK, contact tracing will no longer be useful.’

    7th SAGE meeting: ‘SAGE should continue to work on the assumption that China will be UNABLE to contain the epidemic.’ ‘SAGE concluded that neither travel restrictions within the UK nor prevention of mass gatherings would be effective in limiting transmission.’

    14th SAGE meeting- March 10th : ‘the UK is considered to be 4-5 weeks behind Italy but on a similar curve (6-8 weeks behind if interventions are applied)’.
    ‘SAGE noted that public gatherings pose a relatively low but not zero public risk.’

    15th SAGE meeting- March 13: ‘SAGE was unanimous that measures seeking to completely suppress spread of COVID-19 will cause a second peak.’ ‘Community testing is ending today.’ ‘The science suggests household isolation…of the elderly and vulnerable should be implemented soon.’

    16th SAGE meeting: ‘The objective is to avoid critical cases exceeding NHS intensive care and other respiratory support bed capacity.’

    Also worth noting how devolved nations (Scotland, Wales, N. Ireland) were not integrated into SAGE in Feb/March so had no real insights into decisions –> Scotland only set up its advisory group on 30th March. Publishes full membership & minutes just days after meetings.”

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  2. Cybritnats can say–hurl abuse etc— on line; do what they like, without condemnation from the Brit Nat commentariate and press.
    During the 2014 referendum, they posted three times more abuse than those on the pro-indy side.

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  3. In order for the unionist message to prevail,Scotland has to be no better than England.
    People can now see that they wish for increased sickness and death,simply to bring us into
    line with England and to that end,anyone who is assisting in preventing that is regarded as a political
    target.
    That and BoJo is why their support is melting away.

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    1. “For the Unionist message to prevail Scotland has to be no better than England”

      Heard this in action this morning . . . BBC’s radio station in Scotland about about 9.15am David Leask summing up The Times coverage of the surge in support for The FM . . . . “Scotland has one of the worst death rates in the world”

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      2. Yes, today’s edition as a whole, was particularly biased and not just about independence.

        The main theme was about food post-Brexit and the tone was decidedly in favour of a deal with the US. In his piece, Douglas Fraser must have mentioned the ‘efficiency’ of American food production ten times.

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      3. Alisdair yes, he pointed out it was efficient, I didn’t take from that he was keen on bringing American produce into Scotland.
        Recently I’ve noticed that D.F. is turning against Westminister’s recent actions, his reviews have been met with a lack of enthuisiam from the programme leads.
        I didn’t take from the discussion that it was pro a deal with US. The editor of Scottish Farmer, Gordon Davidson, couldn’t have been more anti. Saying it would be the end of Scottish Lamb production replacing sheep with forestry. Will Hutton was scathing of the American diet. At one point during the debate it was pointed out that the %age of Americans being made sick from the food they eat was much higher than it is in the UK.

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      4. A fair point, Clydebuilt. Perhaps, I have an automatic scepticism against Mr Fraser because he has been on BBC Scotland so long! I noticed that the editor of Scottish Farmer was strongly opposed, but, I thought Bill Whiteford was trying to put words in his mouth. I expected Will Hutton to take the position he did, but, given that he has tended towards the union in the past, I was again in a sceptical mindset.

        Thanks for the alternative perception.

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      5. Alisdair . . . I definitely want to listen to this again. aye i expect Whatford would be in favour of chlorinated chicken etc.
        I think Hutton would have been against US food coming here as English peolpe would have to consume it, not just us Jocks.

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  5. She thinks of herself as Scottish as far as i can tell.At least twice i have seen her refer to herself as ‘we’ in Scotland (not wee). That is why she is pissing off the unionists.
    She can, and from the sound of it will, vote for Independence too.

    We don’t label people by their skin colour or name so where is the need to label by accent or previous abode?
    We own her now.

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  6. Sridhar’s original tweet to “Americans” came over as typical of US straight talking, but it would have come under fire from non-“Americans” of a Unionist bent no matter how diplomatically she framed it, simply because it compared SG’s performance with that of London, and being in a position of authority to know, she had to be silenced.
    Britnat activists are constantly looking for for new stories to drown, the resident “army” haunting BBC Website comments are not there to put a point of view but intimidate and silence pro-SG comment.
    The recent good humoured demonstration at the Berwick border was to emphasise the existence of the border (contradicting BJ and JRM rhetoric) and underline Scotland’s better control of Covid. Reframed by activists as a threatening horde, it drew condemnation from senior SG people before they realised they’d been conned, mission accomplished, original message lost in the ether, embarrassed silence.
    As to criticisms of “anti-Scottish, pro-UK people (‘unionists’)”, coming from those who regularly deploy “anti-English, pro-Indy people (‘separatists’)” is hypocrisy on stilts, but that’s the modern cyber game…

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