Very interesting. I didn’t know this about British culture.
I think the culture in Britain is complicated and it is changing rapidly. On the one hand, people are, in general, exaggeratedly polite. If somebody walks into you, you apologise, because you assume that it was your fault for being in their way, although they will also apologise because they walked into you. When two people are going through a door, they both want the other person to go first. When somebody eventually returns your phone call after a month, you assure them that it’s fine and you’re really not at all annoyed. Of course, this is a stereotype, and there are plenty of rude people here as there are everywhere, but it’s a stereotype that is based on a degree of reality.
But with regard to first names, people really do use first names almost exclusively now, except for the most formal of settings. You would use title and surname in court, for example, but there aren’t a lot of other settings in which you would use that exclusively. Thinking about my inbox, pretty much the only people with whom I use title and surname are people with whom I am pursuing some kind of dispute where it would seem disingenuous to begin using first names. But pretty much everyone else switches to first names after a more formal initial contact.
You don’t like dissenting opinions and wish everyone at CAF agreed with you.
Not at all. I am very happy for people to disagree with me. I have friends who are so left-wing they think I’m reactionary and I have friends who are so right-wing they think I’m a communist. I know people who belong to the Conservative Party, the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party. I used to work with somebody who stood for Parliament for the British National Party and we always got on just fine. I have friends who voted Remain and friends who voted Leave. I know people who are Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Anglicans, Baptists, Pentecostal, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists. I count a pagan and a Freemason among my closest friends.
I only asked the question because I was interested that this forum seems to attract a very different range of opinions to the range of opinions that I hear expressed by the vast majority of Catholics I meet in my actual life. I have also found myself disappointed by the tone that some people adopt when discussing topics on here. Your post on this thread is, in fact, a perfect example of the kind of intolerance that I have encountered here.
