English traits
Lawrence Auster writes:
All that Britain means to this supposedly pro-British, moderate Muslim immigrant is liberal values, not an actual country, people, tradition, and way of life.What are the characteristics of the British nation, people, tradition, and way of life? George Orwell informs us of some of them in his The Lion and the Unicorn. The whole passage is too long to type out, so I'll just list a few things he mentions.
1."Hitler's June purge could not have happened in England."
2. "The English are very highly differentiated."
3. The beer is bitterer (than in Europe).
4. The coins are heavier.
5. The grass is greener
6. The advertisements are more blatant.
7. Solid breakfasts.
8. Gloomy Sundays.
9. Smoky towns.
10. Green fields.
11. Red pillar-boxes.
12. The English are not gifted artistically.
13. The English are not intellectual.
14. They have a horror of abstract thought.
15. Their "world-famed hypocrisy".
16. The English love flowers.
17. The culture is communal but not official, centered around the pub, the football match, the back garden, and the 'nice cup of tea.
18. "The most hateful of all names in an English ear is Nosey Parker."
Would any of my British readers like to comment on how these things have changed since 1940, the year Orwell wrote this?
Incidentally, The Lion and the Unicorn opens with what is, in my opinion, one of the great sentences in literature:
As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me.
posted by Dennis Mangan @ 11:26 AM
18 comments
18 Comments:
Dennis,
You should know by now that my opinion of Auster is not high; and neither is my opinion of Orwell, for that matter.
Eric Blair was a product of the British (strike that - English) elite. For all his voluminous meanderings on The Nature of Life, The Universe and Everything (a philosophical odyssey observed with vastly greater insight and elan by his allegedly less serious compatriot Douglas Adam), the best that Blair could do was boil the whole damn thing down to cups of tea, postboxes and the colour of the grass.
Blair had no deep connection to the UK - in many ways he was the reincarnation of the moralising liberal internationalists who have dogged our steps since the days of Thomas Arnold and the Clapham Sect.
You might care to check out the ramblings of one not English, and an Irish heathen to boot, here -
http://martinkelly.blogspot.com/2006/08/what-being-british-means-to-me-if.html
"Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen: all know how to die. But the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytising faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science - the science against which it had vainly struggled - the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome."
-Winston Churchill
I don't know that anything Orwell wrote in 1940 is a terribly reliable guide to the essence of Englishness. Orwell is most famous for his two great anti-leftist books Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, but they were written in the late 1940s, and even then he would still have considered himself a man of the left. The trivial, denigrating quality of most of his descriptions of Englishness suggest someone who does not have a large vision of his own country.
Martin Kelly is a riot. He periodically attacks my character at his blog, describing me as just an awful person. Then he writes:
"You should know by now that my opinion of Auster is not high; and neither is my opinion of Orwell, for that matter."
Mr. Kelly seems not to realize that by saying he has a low opinion of me, and then adding that he has an equally low opinion of one of the most respected writers of the 20th century, he's just discredited his own attacks on me.
Orwell was obviously picking out idiosyncrasies for their humour value. And there is, as Martin mentioned in an earlier comment, an element of patronization involved here. Nonetheless, it is still evocative of the Britain of 1940.
As for modern Britain: the beer is exactly the same as everywhere else; lacking industry, the towns are no longer smokey; and no 'hypocrisy' can now exist as non-judgementalism is ubiquitous.
Still, the grass is very green thanks to all the rain we have had this summer.
'Lawrence Auster',
You 'Blogger' profile is of very recent origin.; nevertheless, the prose style is the same.
You write that,
"Martin Kelly is a riot. He periodically attacks my character at his blog, describing me as just an awful person."
Given that the character traits indicated by your blog's content include hypocrisy, bullying, pitilessness and a commitment to the virtue of ideological purity which makes Robespierre look cuddly, well, then, to be dreadfully English about it you do seem absolutely awful - the last effort of yours upon which I commented, criticising a police officer who had just taken on a suicide bomber, was one of your worst efforts.
To you, Larry, absolutely nothing is sacred; not even another man's marriage -
http://martinkelly.blogspot.com/2006/11/defending-derb.html
In my book that makes you pretty awful.
Is it true you once threatened to sue Peter Brimelow for plagiarism after he'd offered to promote your work?
Orwell? Respected? Not by me.
For the avoidance of doubt,
Doesn't he mention cricket, the quintessential English game? It's a curious fact that the Victorians practically invented, developed and/or codified just about every popular sport there is, outside silly American sports and the modern rash of extreme sports (all of which involve speed and helmets).
One important thing about British history is that we got our political and religious wars out of the way quite early, by the 17th century. This, I think, allowed a degree of social conformity that held the country together during the Industrial Revolution, political revolutions abroad and intermittent wars.
With typical English understatement, I can say that Britain, for all her faults, has the best history and the best people in the world. Well, it produced me, didn't it? Is that no proof?
I was just thinking yesterday that the allegation that we've had no revolution is silly. The reformation in Scotland was a revolution - perhaps the English one was too. The Civil War - or War of the Three Kingdoms - was. So was the Glorious Revolution. Which is pretty much what Lupus said. What was the most revolutionary event for Americans? My money is on the Civil War or the New Deal, rather than the War of Independence.
Having just gone through a selection of German beers overnight I must say they are excellent. They were quite sweet but not cloyingly so.
I tried a Czech Pilsener the night before and was awed by the crisp quality. I will be getting a collection to try out properly soon.
I'll let you know what I think of English beers next month when my pom brother-in-law puts on the next grog session which will be English themed.
It is surprising, as Freddie notes, that Orwell doesn't mention cricket. With this sport they civilised the Commonwealth. The success of the pom cricket team seems to correspond with the fate of their nation. Lately they have been dismal much to Oz delight and got their collective arse handed back to them as they returned the Ashes which rightfully belong on our shores.
Cheers,
Pat
The sort of facile provocation you'd expect from Daaarn Under, but I was right about Orwell mentioning cricket:
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"Cricket is not in reality a very popular game in England," George Orwell wrote in 1944, "nowhere near so popular as football… but it gives expression to a well-marked trait in the English character, the tendency to value 'form' or 'style' more highly than success. In the eyes of any true cricket-lover it is possible for an innings of ten runs to be 'better' (ie more elegant) than an innings of a hundred runs: cricket is also one of the very few games in which the amateur can excel the professional." As often with Orwell, the penetrating insight is wrapped in gross exaggeration—an innings of 73, like Flintoff's at Edgbaston, can be more important than one of 140, but "ten" is absurd. But he was broadly right about the hegemonic role of cricket in English life.>
http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=7002
Orwell shows himself to be a complete ignoramus when it comes to cricket with that statement. If the English (as he apparently wrote in 1944) valued "'form' or 'style' more highly than success" then how on earth would he explain the sheer bloody mindedness (for the times) of the Bodyline series Ashes tour of Oz in 1932-33?
I can appreciate that Americans would have no knowledge of the impact of that series and the giant leap in tactics employed but for Orwell? - I am stunned.
For those unaware, cricket till that time ran on the convention that the bowler does not deliberately aim at the batsman. The English in an attempt to constrain the batting genius of the most prolific scorer of all time devised a plan to bowl short and at the body or head thus limiting run scoring opportunity.
There was nothing illegal about the tactic.
But "cricket" as the gentleman's game changed forever after. That tour was pivotal in changing cricket from form and into the total dedication to winning at all costs.
For anyone who is interested Wiki has a short history of "Bodyline".
I would challenge the notion that "Cricket is not in reality a very popular game in England" as well but I don't wish to bore the board. In short Orwell, with that one sentence, has shown himself to be completely clueless about England. Perhaps he's confusing his own Public School disdain for the commoners with what is the essence of England. Don't know - better that the poms on the board answer that one.
Pat
I just skimmed through the article which is quite good and deserves a thorough reading at a later date.
I particularly liked: "If cricket once gave expression to well-marked traits in the English character, it now displays the infantilism of modern England. The old three-day cricket has passed out of fashion because it had to be taken seriously, and expected some degree of knowledge, concentration and connoisseurship. Twenty20 is cricket for New Brits, a nation with the concentration span of children. Even test matches have now become fancy-dress parties, with groups of grown men dressed as pirates, nuns, SS officers or whatnot. Maybe that all too accurately sums up our country today, which has adopted the old Viennese motto: "The situation is hopeless but not serious."
This is why poms deserve scorn and ridicule, which I know upsets Auster so. They are infantile.
Only an infantile nation could let themselves, urge on even, the total annihilation of their culture on the pretext of enjoying the feasts and colour of multiculturalism.
One need only look through their Test team to see how rampant and deep this urge for national suicide runs. South Africans, Zimbabweans, Pakistanis and Indians. It's getting harder to hate the poms cause there just doesn't seem to be any left.
Perhaps Auster can see in that light that hating the poms doesn't mean one wants them to dissapear. That hatred is a rivalry with a great history behind it. That rivalry makes for great sport and social interaction. Despising the poms is far better than pitying them.
Pity is for lost causes.
Pat
Will the Aussies ever get over Bodyline!?
CLR James in Beyond A Boundary:
Bodyline was not an incident, it was not an accident, it was not a temporary aberration. It was the violence and ferocity of our age expressing itself in cricket. The time was the early thirties, the period in which the contemporary rejection of tradition, the contemporary disregard of means, the contemporary callousness was taking shape.
Ginnny, you misread me. I think Bodyline was fantastic. Jardine had to come up with a solution to Bradman and that solution changed the game forever. And for the better IMO.
The series had massive repercussions and would have to go in my top ten sporting events of all time (wish I was there).
The point I was trying to make (obviously none too well) is that Orwell knew nothing of this event (and if you read the Wiki piece the series had political and economic ramifications, so intense were the feelings aroused) hence his comment on the English and cricket is from a position of complete ignorance.
Pat
Though you are right, Bodyline is on my list of 10 reasons why I despise the poms ;-)
Cheers,
Pat
Well, Orwell would have known about the miserable conditions of workers during the Industrial Revolution, the horrors of WWI, the gunboat diplomacy of Empire, etc. but I don't see how this disqualifies his observations on British cultural life.
BTW, on Bodyline, have you read David Frith's Bodyline Autopsy? Highly recommended. Though nothing beats that Aussie-made-for-TV dramatisation with Hugo Weaving as Jardine. Terrible, yet terrific.
Sir Les, the thing about the English (as opposed to the British - often incorrectly confused) is that they have always consumed their own.
Orwell speaks from a position of left-wing disdain for the common man he champions in metaphor only.
Auster, being a wannabe Englishman in New York, just doesn't get the reality and sees the world through glasses tinted by a Night at the Proms, singing Rule Britannia and waving the Union Jack as if such a day or era ever existed in time and space. He's an English half caste orphaned, wailing, at the doorstep of rejection.
From the time of King Henry filling up the French wall with English dead, through the forgotten Welsh at Rorke's Drift, to the trenches of WWI the English have consumed their own and Empire with the ultimate reward of - disdain.
English society has been forever at war with itself. Nothing has changed.
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