The British are very pragmatic. This has good and bad effects.
For example, a good effect is that many things work pretty well, such as the government. This also helped industry develop.
A bad effect is that they sometimes settle on local minima forever. Examples:If it ain't totally broken, just let it continue forever! See also: Section "History of the University of Oxford".
- as of 2020, they are still using imperial units in everyday life, rather than International System of Units, which was setup by the French, who are much more idealistic, and can therefore can break from such insanity more often.
- the persistence of the insane system of colleges of the University of Oxford
- the incredibly late date of the decimal day in 1971, and that was partly due to the advent of the computer. That one was too much, even for the Brits, or maybe it helped that the greedy financiers were involved
- the British train system as of the 2010's, which is completely not unified, each part operated by a different company with different standards. Private and public unification efforts are ongoing, Trainline being one of the best/only private buy from any line unification approaches.
- Church of England priests can marry, which reduces the proportion of pedophiles. Also women were accepted starting in the 1970's in certain dioceses (non uniform rules as usual, typical of English pragmatism), including for bishop