MidgePhotoPhoto55@mastodon.social
Oct 23, 2026, 8:36 PM@JugglingWithEggs A bit more widespread than that
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_uniforms_by_country
Replies
Juggling With EggsJugglingWithEggs@mstdn.socialOct 23, 2026, 8:55 PMSchool uniforms are not common in Europe or North America though. How many of the countries that do have school uniform also used to be part of the British Empire? There have been some unfortunate concepts that sadly we Brits have been responsible for exporting…
Divide and rule
Straight line cartography
Sedition and blasphemy laws
Anti LGBTQ+ penal codes
Cash crop monoculturesAnd I would add school uniforms.
- MidgePhotoPhoto55@mastodon.socialOct 24, 2026, 7:10 AM
@JugglingWithEggs
Straight line cartography?
Do you mean "The Mercator projection is a cylindrical map projection introduced by Flemish geographer and cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569. "
Or the borders of the USA big square states in the middle, and various straight lines in Africa which tended to have various colonial powers associated.(We didn't really have uniforms, but we dressed uniformly, suit and tie. Cricket clubs have blazers, and colours etc. )
- Juggling With EggsJugglingWithEggs@mstdn.socialOct 24, 2026, 8:09 AM
I was thinking of the straight lines that divided African countries - splitting tribes and causing tension that still exist today.
- MidgePhotoPhoto55@mastodon.socialOct 24, 2026, 8:14 AM
@JugglingWithEggs
Not my area, but did they divide existing countries, or establish/create/define administrative areas, and later pass them on to successors? Not ideal, but establishing borders by defensible features fought over for generations has its drawbacks as well. - MidgePhotoPhoto55@mastodon.socialOct 24, 2026, 7:16 AM
@JugglingWithEggs
Didn't Machiavelli write about divide and rule? And Sun Tzu who pointed out the art of war included not having one?
The Roman Empire played the tribes against each other, and their later politics is remembered as Byzantine. I rather think Chimpanzee troop leaders understand it on their scale.Perfidious Albion may have formulated it as foreign policy, but that didn't cause the Medieval and early modern wars.
- Juggling With EggsJugglingWithEggs@mstdn.socialOct 24, 2026, 8:13 AM
I would agree the concept of ‘divide and conquer’ is not necessarily British in terms of its creation, but it’s very much in the bones of our national identity in terms of our class system and we exported that around the world with colonialism.
- MidgePhotoPhoto55@mastodon.socialOct 24, 2026, 8:30 AM
@JugglingWithEggs
Before that, the foreign policy of allying so as to avoid a dominant coalition in Europe, which got us th3 tag3 of Albion perfide.
Standard primate stuff I think, writ large. - MidgePhotoPhoto55@mastodon.socialOct 24, 2026, 9:39 AM
@JugglingWithEggs
Russia brought it back to us with Brexit.The Chinese long ago practiced the water empire.
- MidgePhotoPhoto55@mastodon.socialOct 24, 2026, 7:21 AM
@JugglingWithEggs
The Romans awaited the grain ships from whatever Libya was called then, the Japanese based their economy on credit, settled when the Rice harvest was in. Europe invented crop rotation, on those long strip fields.