As someone who is English who has experienced culture outside of England it’s given me a lot of hope for humanity lets say. Especially in settler colony nations where they retained a lot of the legal and individualistic mindsets while having a much more egalitarian culture. When I mention the fact that Americans are more culturally egalitarian fellow English folk look with shock because of the economic situation. Of course what I mean is what you are referring to. Not simply economic differentiation but a layer of social on top of it. A well off plumber is unlikely to be middle class in the British sense ie speak closer to rah rah and have a keen interest in art history (maybe some im not sure). There is a much greater element of keeping up appearances - a lot of people who live the socially middle class lifestyle may actually do so by means of fraud or lifestyle inflation they cannot actually afford. It’s a very strange phenomenon for sure and unfortunately it’s usually combined with patronising and snobby behaviour they often haven’t actually earned the right to give out (ie I know a lot of these folk who have paid their way through university or else then speak down to others saying they don’t have the same willingness to work hard). Of course Americans can go to private school but if you stood them next to one who didn’t so long as one didn’t immediately start speaking Ancient Greek you’d be hard done by to tell socially what the difference is. Maybe you might see some economic indicators or regional/racial. In fact in Britain people have different class masks often when interacting with each other which usually trends upwards. In their job they may speak more ‘eloquently’ but when they get home return to their dialect (especially my mother when shouting). It’s a funny thing because where I live a lot of folk actually say something closer than tomayto to tomatoe. The stereotype of what British English is in a sense is very class focused and it encompasses a group with a variety of British ethnicities ie Scottish welsh etc. also. It’s a shame that to a lot of people most of what we know English culture of comes from that very top class. The traditions and cultures of say the Cotswolds or the West Country etc. east Anglia are often overlooked and even trampled on by neoliberal legislation. I think one of the only things we have left as a unifying point is the crown - which I do not particularly aspire to myself.
Like your good self, Professor (and a great many other 'First Nation Britons') I am 50/50% Anglo-Scots: conceived in Elgin, Moray; but born through happenstance in Redruth, Cornwall. However, writing as a rather old student of Theology, I think you need to define your terms more precisely, before using them in a short post like this one. Like yourself (though from a completely different Class!) I experienced the last vestiges of the British Empire; spending a full calendar year, aged twelve, in Aden, during the Radfan War with 'FLOSSIE'. We, (authentically) British, may be a bit strange: but I am proud of that 'oddity', and of the legacy I have inherited. I'm not sure whether you are: or whether you belong to the BBC mentality.
In most countries those two are equivocated. In England though we apply different standards onto the outgroup and Ingroup and that’s why the preservation of the English ethnicity is seen as racist whereas the preservation of red squirrels or a particular African ethnicities/ Tibetan etc. is seen as humanitarian (not the squirrels so much). People also tend to question English history and identity in a postmodern sense which they do not apply unto other cultures. For example they’ll say things like St George’s story wasn’t even about England etc. say pseudo intellectual things about their own culture yet praise other nonsensical cultures as diversity - they rationalise and break down their own conditions but not others so much. Not understanding that national mythos is a point of social cohesion which as an already individualistic nation we are greatly losing. Random rant 🏴🏴
Is Mr.MacFarlane ultimately saying, in this video, that the English were/are very authoritarian? Or that they're just peculiar? The English didn't always play games, no more than anybody else. It was empire and colonialism which made many of these games and which they then proliferated them through hegemony. Surely as an anthropologist he'd know that all people play games, in whichever culture, word games too? It's not an English peculiarity. Professor?! I don't see what irony has to do with anything much. Don't other peoples have irony?! I think there's alot of gumph here, with maybe a glimmer of truth here and there. As for saying the English "were" individuals with a particuar self interestedness, Que? Surely Mr. MacFarlane knows a bit of English history. Feudalism (similar to on the European continent and the Asian world had their own form too), where people were no more individualistic than many others. Then Capitalism came in and for many years the English were still altrusitically inclined, as evidenced in the fight from below, for better rights for workers and then for all the other more modern rights- this doesn't come from above, but has always been fought for because we're not peculiar individuals with a peculiarly English self interestedness only, but the English rail against authoritarianism, like many other people around the world. But since Thatcher, maybe, his thesis may be said to more real, as she was an evil witch who forced through the idea of self interestedness. And since the advent of tv in particular, people have been easily brainwashable towards these evil Thatcherite ideas. Studying witchcraft should have told Mr.MacFarlane about Thatcher! The law he talks about, was/is there to protect the elites, predominately, and then they imposed it in their colonies and empire to control those people-maybe that's peculiarly English? ie the English were/are very authoritarian with their laws. Mr.MacFarlane seems to be propounding some racist tropes here, such as the English have the rule of law (unlike other countries, supposedly). I was thinking of buying a book of Mr.MacFarlane's as I'm interested in the change from feudalism to capitalism, but I don't think I'd glean much. All this coming from a Cambridge don, I'm put off!
I Like you sir
So glad to be this early to the video!
As someone who is English who has experienced culture outside of England it’s given me a lot of hope for humanity lets say. Especially in settler colony nations where they retained a lot of the legal and individualistic mindsets while having a much more egalitarian culture.
When I mention the fact that Americans are more culturally egalitarian fellow English folk look with shock because of the economic situation. Of course what I mean is what you are referring to. Not simply economic differentiation but a layer of social on top of it. A well off plumber is unlikely to be middle class in the British sense ie speak closer to rah rah and have a keen interest in art history (maybe some im not sure). There is a much greater element of keeping up appearances - a lot of people who live the socially middle class lifestyle may actually do so by means of fraud or lifestyle inflation they cannot actually afford. It’s a very strange phenomenon for sure and unfortunately it’s usually combined with patronising and snobby behaviour they often haven’t actually earned the right to give out (ie I know a lot of these folk who have paid their way through university or else then speak down to others saying they don’t have the same willingness to work hard).
Of course Americans can go to private school but if you stood them next to one who didn’t so long as one didn’t immediately start speaking Ancient Greek you’d be hard done by to tell socially what the difference is. Maybe you might see some economic indicators or regional/racial.
In fact in Britain people have different class masks often when interacting with each other which usually trends upwards. In their job they may speak more ‘eloquently’ but when they get home return to their dialect (especially my mother when shouting).
It’s a funny thing because where I live a lot of folk actually say something closer than tomayto to tomatoe. The stereotype of what British English is in a sense is very class focused and it encompasses a group with a variety of British ethnicities ie Scottish welsh etc. also.
It’s a shame that to a lot of people most of what we know English culture of comes from that very top class. The traditions and cultures of say the Cotswolds or the West Country etc. east Anglia are often overlooked and even trampled on by neoliberal legislation. I think one of the only things we have left as a unifying point is the crown - which I do not particularly aspire to myself.
Nepal
Like your good self, Professor (and a great many other 'First Nation Britons') I am 50/50% Anglo-Scots: conceived in Elgin, Moray; but born through happenstance in Redruth, Cornwall. However, writing as a rather old student of Theology, I think you need to define your terms more precisely, before using them in a short post like this one. Like yourself (though from a completely different Class!) I experienced the last vestiges of the British Empire; spending a full calendar year, aged twelve, in Aden, during the Radfan War with 'FLOSSIE'. We, (authentically) British, may be a bit strange: but I am proud of that 'oddity', and of the legacy I have inherited. I'm not sure whether you are: or whether you belong to the BBC mentality.
Within the UK is ‘English’ an ethnicity or a nationality?
In most countries those two are equivocated. In England though we apply different standards onto the outgroup and Ingroup and that’s why the preservation of the English ethnicity is seen as racist whereas the preservation of red squirrels or a particular African ethnicities/ Tibetan etc. is seen as humanitarian (not the squirrels so much).
People also tend to question English history and identity in a postmodern sense which they do not apply unto other cultures. For example they’ll say things like St George’s story wasn’t even about England etc. say pseudo intellectual things about their own culture yet praise other nonsensical cultures as diversity - they rationalise and break down their own conditions but not others so much. Not understanding that national mythos is a point of social cohesion which as an already individualistic nation we are greatly losing.
Random rant 🏴🏴
Is Mr.MacFarlane ultimately saying, in this video, that the English were/are very authoritarian? Or that they're just peculiar?
The English didn't always play games, no more than anybody else. It was empire and colonialism which made many of these games and which they then proliferated them through hegemony. Surely as an anthropologist he'd know that all people play games, in whichever culture, word games too? It's not an English peculiarity. Professor?!
I don't see what irony has to do with anything much. Don't other peoples have irony?!
I think there's alot of gumph here, with maybe a glimmer of truth here and there. As for saying the English "were" individuals with a particuar self interestedness, Que?
Surely Mr. MacFarlane knows a bit of English history. Feudalism (similar to on the European continent and the Asian world had their own form too), where people were no more individualistic than many others. Then Capitalism came in and for many years the English were still altrusitically inclined, as evidenced in the fight from below, for better rights for workers and then for all the other more modern rights- this doesn't come from above, but has always been fought for because we're not peculiar individuals with a peculiarly English self interestedness only, but the English rail against authoritarianism, like many other people around the world.
But since Thatcher, maybe, his thesis may be said to more real, as she was an evil witch who forced through the idea of self interestedness. And since the advent of tv in particular, people have been easily brainwashable towards these evil Thatcherite ideas.
Studying witchcraft should have told Mr.MacFarlane about Thatcher! The law he talks about, was/is there to protect the elites, predominately, and then they imposed it in their colonies and empire to control those people-maybe that's peculiarly English? ie the English were/are very authoritarian with their laws.
Mr.MacFarlane seems to be propounding some racist tropes here, such as the English have the rule of law (unlike other countries, supposedly).
I was thinking of buying a book of Mr.MacFarlane's as I'm interested in the change from feudalism to capitalism, but I don't think I'd glean much. All this coming from a Cambridge don, I'm put off!
You must first understand what English law is to be able to comment on individual rights.
Go to Finland, you ain't seen nothing yet!