Excellent essay for the morning coffee. I've come to look forward to the morning substack essay with coffee the way I used to enjoy the morning newspapers with coffee in more civilized times.
The evolution of British identity is something I've become very aware of in my own life, despite not being British. The American perception of the British was traditionally one dominated by a certain type of Britishness - the upper class, stiff upper lip, well educated, well-mannered, mildly conservative and simultaneously mildly liberal Englishman, for, after all, this was the class that dominated British politics and culture and for most of the world, the British they encountered outside Britain, for the poor rarely ever travelled. This was the consensus for the British identity during the empire, and naturally, it lingered for some time afterwards. And a great number of Americans, particularly the Protestant establishment, did highly respect it, seeing a shared common heritage in political values and classic liberalism and cultural traditions.
Certainly, not all Americans responded well to the concept of the British. Irish Americans were zealously anti-British, and the rural white populations (usually Scots-Irish) were forever jeering that they'd defeated the British in the Revolutionary War, and the American lower middle class often only saw Britain as a land of class and snobbery. So one can see the twin side of the well-mannered upper class/upper middle class British man or woman would be snobby, intolerant, bigoted, obsessed with class and manners, all distinctly against the egalitarian spirit of America.
Nonetheless, regardless of which side of the coin you preferred, the perception of who the British were had a pattern to it. And it was bourn out by the leagues of British literature, both fiction and non-fiction, that flooded American libraries, and British speakers and visitors. My mother, growing up in the 1950s, commented that based on British children's books and later, the mystery novels, she was left with the vague impression all children in Britain went to boarding schools and had nannies, to the point that on a family trip to England in the early 1960s she was startled to encounter clearly working class people and accents and behaviors - some of which too closely mirrored certain parts of her hometown city that we'd impolitely call white trash. And flash forward to 2022? The public perception of the British outside Britain is probably more defined by loutish behavior and excessive drinking and vulgarity.
Anecdote aside, the evolution of the British identity in the last 40 years has been remarkable. In reading various British presses one is aware that the idea of the British spirit or British values still holds some weight, or at least obsession among the talking heads, but one also gets the impression it is only growing weaker and weaker. It's now evolved to being little more than a vaguely liberal concept that has to be weak enough for anyone to adopt, regardless of whether they are British or not. Someone from a very different part of the world can migrate to Britain and within a few years demand to be called British, without having to share in any of the old responsibilities usually associated with citizenship and culture and heritage, something that would have been immediately understood by the Britain of up till the 1990s, regardless of where in Britain you came from. So Britishness become a brand, hence the Singaporean with the Keep Calm and Carry on mugs and a Mini and an obsession with London. But as a brand, it has no depth to it, and that is the challenge for the future.
I'm also seeing a similar problem emerge in the United States. The loss of a cohesive American identity has only worsened, and it's happened very rapidly. 20 years ago, both the don't tread on me Texan cowboy and the prissy New England progressive dedicated to good causes would be both part of the great American family, still sharing common values despite differences in politics. Today, they are increasingly not of the same family. A substantial portion of the country, especially the progressive left, no longer has any meaningful attachment to the old American creed of free speech, free rights, meritocracy, egalitarianism, and now often see these principles as oppressive! I left the US in 2008 for a long expat stint abroad and at the time I knew exactly what it meant to be an American, warts and all. Today? I no longer know.
Speaking of anglo antipathy for the Irish, this from 30 Rock:
"Liz Lemon : I don't leave my house on St. Patrick's Day. Criss and I are going to ride out Hurricane Shamrock holed up in my apartment, laughing at excerpts from "Angela's Ashes."
Jack Donaghy : You know, some people might find your attitude offensive.
Liz Lemon : Oh, what are they going to do about it, write a meandering play about how amazing the Irish are at not overcoming adversity?
Jack Donaghy : Well, I'm sorry we can't all belong to ethnic groups as beloved as the Germans.
Liz Lemon : Please, without Germans, you wouldn't have any of the "Indiana Jones" movies."
Could Liverpool be considered part of an unofficial 'Greater Ireland' along with Boston, Mass.? Both cities have a distinct semi-Irish culture, and Boston seems to have held on to its distinctive (and similarly unpleasant) accent, likewise resisting a tendency towards greater linguistic homogenization (most Americans seem to speak a generic Midwest English nowadays, with a few notable exceptions). Demography really is destiny.
Excellent essay for the morning coffee. I've come to look forward to the morning substack essay with coffee the way I used to enjoy the morning newspapers with coffee in more civilized times.
The evolution of British identity is something I've become very aware of in my own life, despite not being British. The American perception of the British was traditionally one dominated by a certain type of Britishness - the upper class, stiff upper lip, well educated, well-mannered, mildly conservative and simultaneously mildly liberal Englishman, for, after all, this was the class that dominated British politics and culture and for most of the world, the British they encountered outside Britain, for the poor rarely ever travelled. This was the consensus for the British identity during the empire, and naturally, it lingered for some time afterwards. And a great number of Americans, particularly the Protestant establishment, did highly respect it, seeing a shared common heritage in political values and classic liberalism and cultural traditions.
Certainly, not all Americans responded well to the concept of the British. Irish Americans were zealously anti-British, and the rural white populations (usually Scots-Irish) were forever jeering that they'd defeated the British in the Revolutionary War, and the American lower middle class often only saw Britain as a land of class and snobbery. So one can see the twin side of the well-mannered upper class/upper middle class British man or woman would be snobby, intolerant, bigoted, obsessed with class and manners, all distinctly against the egalitarian spirit of America.
Nonetheless, regardless of which side of the coin you preferred, the perception of who the British were had a pattern to it. And it was bourn out by the leagues of British literature, both fiction and non-fiction, that flooded American libraries, and British speakers and visitors. My mother, growing up in the 1950s, commented that based on British children's books and later, the mystery novels, she was left with the vague impression all children in Britain went to boarding schools and had nannies, to the point that on a family trip to England in the early 1960s she was startled to encounter clearly working class people and accents and behaviors - some of which too closely mirrored certain parts of her hometown city that we'd impolitely call white trash. And flash forward to 2022? The public perception of the British outside Britain is probably more defined by loutish behavior and excessive drinking and vulgarity.
Anecdote aside, the evolution of the British identity in the last 40 years has been remarkable. In reading various British presses one is aware that the idea of the British spirit or British values still holds some weight, or at least obsession among the talking heads, but one also gets the impression it is only growing weaker and weaker. It's now evolved to being little more than a vaguely liberal concept that has to be weak enough for anyone to adopt, regardless of whether they are British or not. Someone from a very different part of the world can migrate to Britain and within a few years demand to be called British, without having to share in any of the old responsibilities usually associated with citizenship and culture and heritage, something that would have been immediately understood by the Britain of up till the 1990s, regardless of where in Britain you came from. So Britishness become a brand, hence the Singaporean with the Keep Calm and Carry on mugs and a Mini and an obsession with London. But as a brand, it has no depth to it, and that is the challenge for the future.
I'm also seeing a similar problem emerge in the United States. The loss of a cohesive American identity has only worsened, and it's happened very rapidly. 20 years ago, both the don't tread on me Texan cowboy and the prissy New England progressive dedicated to good causes would be both part of the great American family, still sharing common values despite differences in politics. Today, they are increasingly not of the same family. A substantial portion of the country, especially the progressive left, no longer has any meaningful attachment to the old American creed of free speech, free rights, meritocracy, egalitarianism, and now often see these principles as oppressive! I left the US in 2008 for a long expat stint abroad and at the time I knew exactly what it meant to be an American, warts and all. Today? I no longer know.
Fascinating and foreign!
You couldn't have squeezed in a mention of The Liver Birds? https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063924/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
I still cherish the memory of Beryl drying her knickers with a toasting fork in front of the electric fire.
Speaking of anglo antipathy for the Irish, this from 30 Rock:
"Liz Lemon : I don't leave my house on St. Patrick's Day. Criss and I are going to ride out Hurricane Shamrock holed up in my apartment, laughing at excerpts from "Angela's Ashes."
Jack Donaghy : You know, some people might find your attitude offensive.
Liz Lemon : Oh, what are they going to do about it, write a meandering play about how amazing the Irish are at not overcoming adversity?
Jack Donaghy : Well, I'm sorry we can't all belong to ethnic groups as beloved as the Germans.
Liz Lemon : Please, without Germans, you wouldn't have any of the "Indiana Jones" movies."
Could Liverpool be considered part of an unofficial 'Greater Ireland' along with Boston, Mass.? Both cities have a distinct semi-Irish culture, and Boston seems to have held on to its distinctive (and similarly unpleasant) accent, likewise resisting a tendency towards greater linguistic homogenization (most Americans seem to speak a generic Midwest English nowadays, with a few notable exceptions). Demography really is destiny.
Boss tha’