The weather made us phlegmatic - at least compared to the melancholic cousins we left behind us in Germany. The ruined country we found when we arrived though made us a deeply nostalgic people.
Our lack of civilisation of course left us deeply materialistic and individualistic. We knew that no one was going to come to our rescue, and that the only religion or justice we would ever know would be that which we could see with our own eyes.
And thus there is a disturbing sense in which we feel that justice resides in the status quo. We do not have a love of tradition so much as a resigned tolerance of "the current thing".
Above and beyond that though there's an element of "insular gigantism" in our culture. We've dwindled in some ways (nationalism isn't really our thing, old boy) and grown in others (the Empire definitely was our thing).
Most importantly of all though, things have survived here that have withered or failed elsewhere. That we still crown our monarchs is only the most obvious example!
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