Two Telling comments? The Answer Perhaps?

[Nathan]

Ron,

If I understand you correctly, you seem to think that those abroad believe in a fairytale caricature of Scotland that includes clans, heather, thistles, whisky, haggis, kilts, Gaelic, glens, pipes, heavy events and that people don't understand that Scotland is a modern 21st Century society. Am I right?

While on the contrary, I think that most people grasp that modernity exists in Scotland as it does everywhere. We've all seen Trainspotting and have met the rabid, "what team do you support, then?" Scots footie fan at the pubs of our cities.

The romantic traditionalists who try to maintain threatened aspects of a once proud, distinct culture in the face of Globalization are not the majority here or there.

Most of the MacWhatevers abroad couldn't give two shakes about their clan either.

But some Scots and expats feel that the culture doesn't need to die just because the calendar reads 2014 and that it is the people who decide which traditions, if any, they will pass on and which ones they will discard.

You mock the chiefs' traditions of feathers, day plaids, cromachs and other traditional items whereas I respect them for carrying them on. They are as grand today as ever they were.

Perhaps your piping is just as silly to some Scottish rock fans as my tartan car blanket is to you.

Maybe if more Scots and Scots descendants within and without Scotland stood up for what makes us unique and demanded we bring it with us into the next century instead of rushing to assimilate to the Anglo-American McStarbuck's bland globalized corporate consumer iCulture proclaiming that to hold onto anything else is living in a fairytale from the past, everyone's grand children might just be grateful we did.