Your top bit about scones & Paddington is the death cult that is British twee. It needs putting out of its misery asap.
I agree with you about the 20th C. “The machine has no tradition” and so many British traditions are paper thin in the face of rapidly developing technology.
I agree too about Norman and Saxon. But as you suggest in your discussion on the class system, the Norman Conquest is still playing itself out: the feudal (and related deferential) aspect of British culture remains underemphasised imo.
Excellent piece. I think the focus on individualism is right – down with tweeslop. Reminded me a bit of Orwell’s own ‘The English People’. Might re-read before kick-off against Argentina!
A culture does not last unless it adapts and evolves. What about your immigrants, of which you have and have had many? Are they not included in Britishness? Because in Canada they are definitely part of what it means to be Canadian. To be an immigrant from India living in Brampton is as Canadian as is being Sir John A. Macdonald, Pierre Trudeau, Lester B. Pearson, or Inuit living in Nunavut.
Lots of words, but it doesn't seem to get much beyond John Major's warm beer. Preferable, in terms of analysis at least, are Raymond Williams , Perry Anderson, Francis Mulhern, Eric Hobsbawm, Stuart Hall. Missing especially is a cartographer of English myth - an English Roland Barthes. There is Ian Nairn, Peter York and Jonathan Meades.
What is Britishness? Englishness began with Athelstan and continued in a remarkably straight line through Magna Carta, the Reformation, the Glorious Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, the World Wars, the Beatles and Margaret Thatcher, before quietly becoming Britishness in the final paragraph. I actually enjoyed the middle bit to be fair.
The tension between Englishness and Britishness is barely acknowledged. That gives this essay some of its force. At some stage, however, it might need to be addressed.
Bizarre, esp as it’s exactly in the recent past that first devolution, then the prospects of Scottish independence and Irish reunification have become far stronger. But then, that wearisome and tbh honest simplistic conflation of English and British is present throughout. An Englishman writing about English culture is fine, but there are other nations being figuratively annexed by such language, to the irritation of many within them.
Great essay!
Your top bit about scones & Paddington is the death cult that is British twee. It needs putting out of its misery asap.
I agree with you about the 20th C. “The machine has no tradition” and so many British traditions are paper thin in the face of rapidly developing technology.
I agree too about Norman and Saxon. But as you suggest in your discussion on the class system, the Norman Conquest is still playing itself out: the feudal (and related deferential) aspect of British culture remains underemphasised imo.
yeah it is fair enough to say I am presenting one part of the story
Excellent piece. I think the focus on individualism is right – down with tweeslop. Reminded me a bit of Orwell’s own ‘The English People’. Might re-read before kick-off against Argentina!
A culture does not last unless it adapts and evolves. What about your immigrants, of which you have and have had many? Are they not included in Britishness? Because in Canada they are definitely part of what it means to be Canadian. To be an immigrant from India living in Brampton is as Canadian as is being Sir John A. Macdonald, Pierre Trudeau, Lester B. Pearson, or Inuit living in Nunavut.
Lots of words, but it doesn't seem to get much beyond John Major's warm beer. Preferable, in terms of analysis at least, are Raymond Williams , Perry Anderson, Francis Mulhern, Eric Hobsbawm, Stuart Hall. Missing especially is a cartographer of English myth - an English Roland Barthes. There is Ian Nairn, Peter York and Jonathan Meades.
What is Britishness? Englishness began with Athelstan and continued in a remarkably straight line through Magna Carta, the Reformation, the Glorious Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, the World Wars, the Beatles and Margaret Thatcher, before quietly becoming Britishness in the final paragraph. I actually enjoyed the middle bit to be fair.
The tension between Englishness and Britishness is barely acknowledged. That gives this essay some of its force. At some stage, however, it might need to be addressed.
Bizarre, esp as it’s exactly in the recent past that first devolution, then the prospects of Scottish independence and Irish reunification have become far stronger. But then, that wearisome and tbh honest simplistic conflation of English and British is present throughout. An Englishman writing about English culture is fine, but there are other nations being figuratively annexed by such language, to the irritation of many within them.