- Fort England Vs ‘Europe’ and other people from 'abroad'
MERRYE ENGLAND
The media lead us to believe that we are mono-faceted in terms of who we are culturally; It sells more papers, as it can outrage us, or play to our emotions, if we are more polarised. A regular, and one of the most salient examples, is newspapers exploiting the idea of being ‘English’ – to be accused of such is a reductive accusation. I feel I can be English, British and European all at the same time.
The human is a seething mass of contradictions and complexity, whether we like it or not. It is a useful and necessary guide to designate certain characteristics on people, but it is not actual; merely an adumbrate representation of one aspect of our personality as it outwardly appears – an impression only. If it were really the case, such a designation would be an impoverishment of the human spirit.
Although, a constant battering can weaken a spirit until, to all intents and purposes, a person becomes an accumulation of that reduced mode of thought. I am of course thinking of that neo-fascist rag, the ‘Daily Mail’ – a most pernicious publication.
MID-WEEK EPIPHANY
There is an apparent difference between the English (as opposed to British – the Welsh and Scottish have a more defined endemic sense of culture) and our continental (sic) counterparts. It is much referred to both positively and negatively. The ‘Mediterranean’ lifestyle is much envied, more so because it is an idealised and non-existent; easier to idealise because it is non-existent.
Despite the innumerable number of examples of quotable differences between them, to pare down the essence of what the difference is between ‘English’ and ‘European’ however, is quite a different thing.
I have been pondering this issue for many years with no clear outcome - until recently. Earlier this month I went to the Theatre Royal Haymarket, London (great theatre) to see ‘Waiting for Godot’ (excellent play) with the protagonists being Ian McKellen and Patrick Stuart (superb actors – McKellen being better for being less ‘theatrical’). None of this however was having much bearing on me at all: The theatre was stiflingly warm; the ‘glass’ of wine in my hand was undrinkable; and, the ‘glass’ was a white polystyrene cup – the kind children might drink from at birthday party.
What struck me most clearly was how everyone else in the audience (my partner excepted thankfully – although she is ‘European’) seemed oblivious to all of these debilitations. It was at this point that the realisation of the essential nature of the English is: we can take the constituent elements of any situation and isolate them, thus allowing us to focus on just one. Being able to ignore the worst and latch onto the best, or least bad, of them all, and blinker out the rest – a ‘fractured’ endemic psyche.
This explains so much of the English mind-set: It allows us to admire the excellent decor of a restaurant while the food is mediocre and wine overpriced; It allowed us two hundred years ago to sit on a terrace in humid colonial India drinking tea whilst oblivious to everything else - it is essentially a survival technique for bad environments. In contrast to mainland Europeans, it is the lack of an integrated experience.
[Digression: But not integrated in a technological sense. Apple has acknowledged recently that i-Phones have a discrete ‘kill’ switch, which allows them to access and delete applications they deem inappropriate. Where is the sense of ownership, personal control and rights as a citizen?
Also, recently it has emerged that Amazon is able to, and has, deleted e-books from peoples e-readers, downloaded from other service providers. They claim rather than ownership it is more about a relationship with a service provider. And the book they were deleting? 1984; how ‘1984’ is that.]
CHICKENS IN THE ROOST
It is though, a double edged sword (sword of Damacles?). It means there is a great flexibility to change to new circumstances, which means we can be successful commercially, linguistically and financially, but that is because there are few deep cultural roots, so it is a diminished mode of existence, leading to an ever increasing pace, as we seek and need more and more imagery to consume and entertain us. This leaves the lowest sectors of society feeling it most keenly, as the gap between expectation and reality widens.
The notion of the double edged sword, both allowing the English to be quantitatively ‘successful’ but also left qualitatively impoverished, touches on the ironic implications of what, or who, are the ‘English’. The English colonisers of the final quarter of the last millennium, predominantly in India and the Caribbean (following in the footsteps of our mainland European counterparts in the middle of the last millennium in the Southern Americas), created an idealised notion in the minds of the colonised of the ‘homeland’. This may have been as a result of people simply being homesick, and idealising what they no longer had, as we are all wont to do. Perhaps also seeding the early manifestations of this ‘fractured’ endemic psyche, by dealing with new surroundings by ignoring the unfamiliar aspects of them.
England has regularly experienced immigration, or at least for most of the last millennium, so the notion that being ‘English’ is a monolithic thing is not only non-sensical, but simply not true. It is this regular stream of people that has enriched us culturally and socially, which we would benefit more from if we would be more accepting and positive about it.
This idealised notion of homeland more recently manifests as ‘illegal’ immigration, as many ‘English’ try to ignore the tacit responsibility for previous actions, and forget that we colonised and forever fundamentally changed many parts of the world. Is the desire for people wanting to come to the ‘home’ country of their former colonisers the ultimate conclusion of having pressed onto the colonised, through ignorant behaviour, that the oppressor’s way of life was somehow better? If we had been more integrating instead of dominating, as we were initially in India, we would perhaps be on a different path now. But this attitude is premised on seeing immigration as necessarily a bad thing. Personally, I feel my life enriched for the variety of people I see on the street.
CIVILLY HARMONIOUS
Chinese (living in traditional housing arranged along informal alleys - Lungs) treat semi-public space as semi-private, whilst English treat semi-private space as semi-public. Chinese neighbourhoods have manned gateways, but the gates are never closed, while the spaces between houses are used for all manner of domestic activities – semi-private activities in a semi-public place. In contrast, the English in the common stair (semi-private) of a block of flats, for example, will only give an awkward and begrudged ‘morning’ to people who we know to be our neighbours. This pushes (English) behaviour to the extremes of the public; semi-public; semi-private; private sequence of the spatial and psychological spectrum, which in turn leads to erosion of any sense of community; it is the two central parts of the chain (semi-public and semi-private) that cultivate the subtle bonds that constitute community.
In this regard, the distinction between British and English is highlighted by the healthy Scottish tradition and appetite for housing blocks with communal gardens in the centre. The English love of terraced houses (or semi’s now we are all middle class) should perhaps be embraced if it is endemically difficult to achieve a proper sense of community; better to acknowledge something’s true nature and go with that, than to see it as admitting defeat, or worse continue to foist inappropriate ‘European’ housing models on an unappreciative English public.
This polarised sense of altruism is at least partially rooted in the English lack of (non-formal) social skills or emotional collateral, which tends towards us behaving stiffly, which is often interpreted as arrogant. Over time, there is a compound effect between this ‘stiff upper lip’ and the ‘fractured’ endemic psyche, that leads to behaviours such as typical English not considering it necessary to learn a ‘foreign’ language when travelling ‘abroad’ – further exacerbating people’s perception of us, and fuelling the continuation of our ‘superior’ attitude, even if it does just stem from social awkwardness. This awkwardness is evidenced by the odd phenomenon of avoiding work colleagues on the commute to work. Again, not because we don’t like them or want to talk to them, but a mortal fear that we may not be able to think of anything to say, or simply ‘not want to bother them’. In a social situation it manifests as an overtly gregarious behaviour pattern.
Most deeply felt is the lack of sense of the civic; we do not feel affinity to the streets or places around us as part of our mental space. They are something we navigate to get to other places – from one ‘castle’ to another. This compounds the lack of integration of strands of society that can meld to spiral positively, so the whole is more than the sum of the parts – as in mainland Europe, although that is not without it’s issues. But what ‘Europe’ retains is a core, and essence if you like, of a decent (genuine) quality of life, comprised of simple things, that can be enjoyed by all.
The loss and current lack of significant endemic culture (not art, theatre, etc – culture in a national sense) has led to the diminishment of cultural festivals (again, not literary or music type of festivals – but the ‘fiestas’ of Spain, for example, which we envy so, drawing from long forgotten, but deeply embedded cultural patterns). The implications of this are the loss of certain times of year when everyone comes together in a community to revel: celebration, release and perhaps a little drunken debauchery. Even our beloved ancient Greeks based their culture on dream and rapture. This release fulfilled a need in society to escape the pressures and repetitive drudgery of the rest of the year. Although it was a way to keep the masses tame from an aristocratic perspective, it re-connected us to nature when held on auspicious dates such as solstice, maintained the memory of the past and reinforced community bonds. With festivals now so scooped out of meaning, the need is fulfilled by the likes of hen and stag parties, where an isolated group causes disruption to others, so further isolates us from our fellow citizens – at least in a proper festival everyone is drunk together.
THE POLITICS BIT
Over a long period of time, the ‘fractured’ endemic psyche has been a contributing factor to the inherent short term thinking that has led England to be the disjointed and dysfunctional place that it is today. Whether you consider transport, health, education, housing, or employment – lack of ongoing investment over many decades has left these key aspects of society impoverished and without any sense of cohesivity or integration.
And yet we cling on to the idea that they are the ‘best in the world’ – most laughably our every-day cuisine. Whilst great cuisine and design, for example, exists, it is produced and consumed by a small tier of people; the majority have a reduced quality of life.
After any disaster or weakness has been exposed we always hear how there will be an inquiry so it will never happen again and our [insert latest embarrassing government failure] will be the best in the world. It doesn’t need to be the best in the world, it just needs to work properly. It is a sad indictment that we try to live on the laurels of a (very questionable) past – a touch of the emperor’s new clothes syndrome, but the facade is fast crumbling.
The unholy trinity of media, politicians and (dis-informed) raw public opinion de-rails a proper democratic process: discussion pulled from pillar to post, with certain topics brought forward inappropriately due to public pressure arbitrarily swayed by media playing to polarised opinion and beliefs previously primed by earlier cant. A further strand seems to be marketing pressures; advertisers demand a certain minimum number of units shifted, so a publishers primary goal becomes that, rather than reporting on events of significance and relevance that have recently occurred. The media is a contributory factor to society, not a benign observer, with growing influence. For example, whilst not an actual cause, we have seen it hugely exacerbate the economic meltdown of recent months. Recently the Eighties are back in fashion, but most worryingly it is 1984 that seems to be the year we are approaching most keenly.
Conflict, rather than dialogue and process, comes about when leaders fail to fulfil their responsibilities. In some ways, we are all leaders. Not accepting proper responsibility, is to be irresponsible.
... AND FINALLY
The recent spate (well two) of high profile gem raids has interesting resonances with broader societal shifts. As we are increasingly led to desire and expect more things, and ever more rapidly, and that the lives of vacuous entertainers are pushed ever higher as models of aspiration, so we further diverge from reasonable possibilities of achievement for the populus. It is no coincidence that these raids were for gems: the highest symbols of status and wealth. That gems are an embodiment of these skewed aspirations in miniature (as well as being really glittery), we can only expect more such raids in the future, and hope it is a release valve for increasing revolutionary verve (?)
