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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 14, 2025

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Is England a better place where nobody cares about the Legend of King Arthur anymore?

Better? I don't know about that. But worse? Almost certainly not.

If the very idea of "King Arthur" somehow fell out of the collective consciousness, then as far as I can tell, nobody would really notice or care. Maybe we might see an improvement in GDP figures when fewer awful movies come out every few years and then bomb at the box office.

Now, the current state of England, or the UK as a whole, leaves much to be desired, but I can recall no point in history, even at its absolute prime, when success or governmental continuity was load-bearing on watery tarts handing out swords. And even back then, people treated it as a nice story, rather than historical fact or the basis for their identity. England was conquered by the Danes and the Saxons after all, well after the knights of the not-square table were done gallivanting about.

On a more general level, I fail to see your case, or at least I don't think there's a reason to choose false stories or myths over ideas that are true, or at least not accurately described as either.

The French made liberty, equality and fraternity their rallying cry to great effect. I do not think any 3 of those concepts are falsifiable, but they still accurately capture values and goals.