At the gas pump

[Geoff Withnell]

Let's quickly get back to discussing reactions to the kilt before the conversation goes off the rails, please.

[bdkilted]

Because the response I usually get (including that morning at the hotel) from many people of color is; pointing, then laughing, then running away to find friends so they can point and laugh.
The positive actions of these 3 folks were a pleasent surprise.

[MacGumerait]

Let's quickly get back to discussing reactions to the kilt before the conversation goes off the rails, please.

I agree Geoff .

I've had quite a few reactions to the kilt while at a gas station either going to a Scottish Festival / Highland Games or going home . Most all have been quite interesting discussions and positive .

After a while of this happening , I began to think gas stations were the perfect place to debut the kilt .

Quite a cross section of all people , not everyone goes to a shopping center but everyone does stop to get gas sooner or later .

Cheers , Mike

[Father Bill]

Gentlemen, further mention of race on this or any other thread will in evitably result in flags for you. It is inappropriate, and you were already warned once by my colleague. Someone coming along this thread for the first time may yet still choose to flag your comments, so be warned, you are really quite close to the line and probably well over it. I for one am deeply disappointed.

Consider this an official warning.

[Steve Ashton]

"cultural association of kilts is with celts, and the celts were caucasian"

I would like to point out the the word Celt does not refer to a culture or have a cultural basis. It is about linguistics. To be Celtic is to speak one the languages in the Celtic Language family. Because they spoke a similar language it would follow that they were culturally similar within the same region and period but saying "I am Celtic" means "I speak one of the Celtic Languages".

There were and are many Celtic language speakers that span thousands of years. But the Hallstatt Peoples were quite distinct culturally from those who created the much later circles of stones just as the Gauls who sacked Rome were culturally different from the first Welsh peoples although they both spoke a language in the Celtic language family.

This idea that there was, or could be, a shared Celtic culture is a fairly modern concept. The modern "Druids" gathering at Stonehenge today are not Celts unless they speak Celtic.

[Walkman]

I would like to point out the the word Celt does not refer to a culture or have a cultural basis. It is about linguistics. To be Celtic is to speak one the languages in the Celtic Language family. Because they spoke a similar language it would follow that they were culturally similar within the same region and period but saying "I am Celtic" means "I speak one of the Celtic Languages".

There were and are many Celtic language speakers that span thousands of years. But the Hallstatt Peoples were quite distinct culturally from those who created the much later circles of stones just as the Gauls who sacked Rome were culturally different from the first Welsh peoples although they both spoke a language in the Celtic language family.

This idea that there was, or could be, a shared Celtic culture is a fairly modern concept. The modern "Druids" gathering at Stonehenge today are not Celts unless they speak Celtic.

I agree with shutting down the race discussion, but in regard to semantics, the word Celt can refer to the language family or the people, Steve. The definitions below are simplistic, but valid. I would argue that the idea that there wasn't a Celtic culture is the modern concept. Cultures can and do contain diversity. The people in Alabama have cultural differences with the people here in Colorado, but that does not mean that there is no American culture or American people.

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/celt

Celt

1. A member of a group of peoples inhabiting much of Europe and Asia Minor in pre-Roman times. Their culture developed in the late Bronze Age around the upper Danube, and reached its height in the La Tène culture (5th to 1st centuries BC) before being overrun by the Romans and various Germanic peoples.
2. A native of any of the modern nations or regions in which Celtic languages are (or were until recently) spoken; a person of Irish, Highland Scottish, Manx, Welsh, or Cornish descent.

[Steve Ashton]

My point is valid Walkman and supported by your Oxford definition. It is language based. Yes cultures did develop among those who speak the Celtic languages, that is a given.

But this idea that people in long robes, hugging oak trees, with fairies and unicorns as is currently popular, is not honestly representative of Celtic peoples. There is no single Celtic culture. The Celtic languages spam thousands of years and much of today's Europe. Many, many different cultures. So calling yourself Celtic because of the current presented mythos is not the reality.

I'm not putting down being Celtic. I am just trying to separate actual Celtic language speaking cultures from the fairy tales currently popular.

I could say I am English, I speak English, or I come from an English speaking people and these would mean totally different things. But to lump all of these into a thinking that the word English means some long lost, magical land where people lived in total harmony and had some mystical lost knowledge is about as much nonsense as the word Celtic as it is often being used today.

I am just trying to say that we need to be cautious how we use the word Celtic.

[Walkman]

My point is valid Walkman and supported by your Oxford definition. It is language based. Yes cultures did develop among those who speak the Celtic languages, that is a given.

I'm not saying that your point is invalid, Steve, just too restrictive. It was not and is not simply language based. There was a proto-Celtic culture and people that went along with that proto-Celtic language and both changed/diversified as they spread. It was definition 1 and 2, not just 2. I think we both agree that culture, language, and people are never entirely uniform and are fluid.

But this idea that people in long robes, hugging oak trees, with fairies and unicorns as is currently popular, is not honestly representative of Celtic peoples. There is no single Celtic culture. The Celtic languages spam thousands of years and much of today's Europe. Many, many different cultures. So calling yourself Celtic because of the current presented mythos is not the reality.

I'm not putting down being Celtic. I am just trying to separate actual Celtic language speaking cultures from the fairy tales currently popular.

I could say I am English, I speak English, or I come from an English speaking people and these would mean totally different things. But to lump all of these into a thinking that the word English means some long lost, magical land where people lived in total harmony and had some mystical lost knowledge is about as much nonsense as the word Celtic as it is often being used today.

I am just trying to say that we need to be cautious how we use the word Celtic.

I agree.

[Dollander]

My point is valid Walkman and supported by your Oxford definition. It is language based. Yes cultures did develop among those who speak the Celtic languages, that is a given.

But this idea that people in long robes, hugging oak trees, with fairies and unicorns as is currently popular, is not honestly representative of Celtic peoples. There is no single Celtic culture. The Celtic languages spam thousands of years and much of today's Europe. Many, many different cultures. So calling yourself Celtic because of the current presented mythos is not the reality.

I'm not putting down being Celtic. I am just trying to separate actual Celtic language speaking cultures from the fairy tales currently popular.

I could say I am English, I speak English, or I come from an English speaking people and these would mean totally different things. But to lump all of these into a thinking that the word English means some long lost, magical land where people lived in total harmony and had some mystical lost knowledge is about as much nonsense as the word Celtic as it is often being used today.

I am just trying to say that we need to be cautious how we use the word Celtic.

Yes, but it's not so black and white. There's a lot in between "'Celtic' is a purely linguistic designation" and the New Agey "Celticism" you're describing. I consider myself, at least in part, to be a Celt because a good chunk of my ancestry is from the Celtic countries of Scotland, Ireland, and Brittany (the latter of which the above definition forgot to mention). Is that wrong of me just because I don't speak a Celtic language? I guess it's similarly wrong to think of myself as Italian since my most recent ancestors who spoke the language were my maternal great-grandparents, and gods only know how long it's been since anyone on my father's side spoke even Pennsylvania Dutch, let alone actual German. And even if it is linguistic rather than ethnic, does it really even matter? Either way, it's part of the long and varied history of humanity that eventually led to the person who is me, and I see nothing wrong with having pride in it.

And for the record, I'm a former Wiccan, and I do sometimes resent that so much of what I thought I knew about Celtic history and mythology turned out to be a neo-Pagan contrivance. But I've since managed to educate myself otherwise...not unlike how I've learned the reality of the history of tartan via this forum and elsewhere. Maybe I'll even one day manage to get over my fixation on tartans that pertain specifically to my own ancestry, and just get something in Lindsay or MacNaughton purely because I think I look good in burgundy.