Why do people in the UK often pretend they're not in Europe?

[Final-Fan]

Kasz216 said:

Final-Fan said:

Kasz216 said:

Final-Fan said:

Kasz216 said:
I've already rebutted that point twice in the thread as to why Europe ISN'T culturally distinct from asia... to which nobody has offered a proper reply. If you were to divide Asia and Europe into two continents by culture... the Middle East and Indian areas would in fact be part of "Europe". Due to those nations being closer to Europe culturally then asia. When people make the cultural arguement... what they really mean is "White people live here! Non white people live in Asia!" It's an artificat of past racism.

Isn't it true that, although people often think of Asia as "entire Eurasian supercontinent minus Europe", if you actually ask them about it they'll consider India and the Middle East separate entites from "Asia"?  IMO that both supports your point and undercuts your position. 

At the very least wouldn't you agree that when you say "part of Europe" you mean that only if forced to choose between "it's Europe" and "it's Asia"?  BTW I think this whole culture argument is a big mess you might well be underestimating; well, the Middle East is probably closer to Europe, but India ... I dunno, it's pretty different from both IMO. 

I don't see how that actually undercuts my point. Even if they were saw as seperate entities they aren't seen as continents... when their claim is stronger because geographically... at least they are sub continents while Europe is nothing more then a pennisula... even England itself would have more of a claim to continent then England would... due to it not being connected to mainland europe by land. This does bring me around to my central point though that people missed in their rage over geographical and geological fact. Europe as a continent was created out of europeon vanity on sketchy scientific terms... the same is true for the UK not being part of europe. If your going to use subjective measures in place of scientific measures... you can't rightfully say the UK is part of europe since continents then become something simply a matter of opinion... meaningless designations to vaguely define cultural and poltical situations when there already exist better terms for it since terms like this still combine countries like Slovenia with England.

Europe is as much of a subcontinent as either of those (more cuz it's bigger ), it's just that the other two were more recently attached. 

Also technically isn't England connected by land via the Chunnel? 

Size is irrelevent when deterimining a sub continent. You may as well say i'm more a millionaire then Bill Gates because i'm taller. As for the Chunnel... that's underground isn't it? Even if it isn't... it's certaintly no bigger then Panama or the Suez canal areas which aren't big enough geographically or geologically to be considered a continent.

I thought you just said size doesn't matter, but now I guess the Baja California peninsula isn't a subcontinent either

And I thought the winky face made the joke evident, but that was in fact a joke. 

Finally, it's an interesting question whether underground tunnels "count" geographically as connecting two areas that are separated on the surface.  I am sympathetic to the position you hold that they do not.  But in any case the size of the connection would not matter.  I don't know what you are even referring to here, unless you mean the artificial waterways could be seen as separating the two formerly united landmasses but don't count because of the small width of said passages. 

P.S.  Are you now agreeing that Europe is a subcontinent?