England Your England, 1941
As I write, highly civilised human beings are flying overheard, trying to kill me.
They do not feel any enmity against me as an individual, nor I against them. They are "only doing their duty," as the saying goes. Most of them, I have no doubt, are kind-hearted, law-abiding men who would never dream of committing murder in private life. On the other hand, if one of them succeeds in blowing me to pieces with a well-placed bomb, he will never sleep any the worse for it. He is serving his country, which has the power to absolve him from evil.
One cannot see the modern world as it is unless one recognises the overwhelming strength of patriotism, national loyaly. In certain circumstances it can break down, at certain levels of civilisation it does not exist, but as a positive force there is nothing to set beside it. Christianity and international socialism are as weak as straw in comparison with it. Hitler and Mussolini rose to power in their own countries very largely because they could grasp this fact and their opponents could not.
Also, one must admit that the divisions between nation and nation are founded on real differences of outlook. Till recently it was thought proper to believe that human beings are very much alike, but in fact anyone able to use his eyes knows that the average of human behaviour differes enormously from country to country. Things that could happen in one country could not happe n in another. Hitler's June Purge, for instance, could not have happened in England. And, as Western people go, the English are very highly differentiated. These is a sort of backhanded admission of this in the dislike which nearly all foreigners feel for our national way of life. Few Europeans can endure living in England, and even Americans often feel more at home in Europe...
...And above all, it is your civilisation, it is you. However much you hate it or laugh at it, you will never be happy away from it for any length of time. The suet puddings and the red pillar-boxes have entered into your soul. Good or evil, it is yours, you belong to it, and this side the grave you will never get away from the marks it has given you.
Meanwhile England, together with the rest of the world, is changing. And like everything else it can change only in certain directions, which up to a point can be foreseen. That is not to say that the future is fixed, merely that certain alternatives are possible and others are not. A seed may grow or not grow, but at any rate a turnip seed never grows into a parsnip. It is therefore the deepest importance to try and determine what England is, before guessing what part England can play in the huge events that are happening...
...An illusion can become a half-truth, a mask can alter the expression of a face. The familiar arguments to the effect that democracy is "just the same as" or "just as bad as" totalitarianism never take account of this fact. All such arguments boil down to saying that half a loaf is the same as no bread. In England such concepts as justice, liberty, adn objective truth are still believed in. They may be illusions, but they are very powerful illusions. The belief in them influences conduct, national life is different because of them. In proof of which, look about you. Where are teh rubber truncheons, where is teh castor oil? The sword is still in the scabbard, and while it stays there corruption cannot go beyond a certain point. The English electoral system, for instance, is an all but open fraud. In a dozen obvious ways it is gerrymandered in the interest of the monied class. But until some deep change has occurred in the public mind, it cannot become completely corrupt. You do not arrive at the polling booth to find men with revolvers telling you which way to vote, nor are the votes miscounted, nor is there any direct bribery. Even hypocrisy is a powerful safeguard. The hanging judge, that evil old man in scarlet robe and horsehair wig, whom nothing short of dynamite will ever teach what century he is living in, but who will at any rate interpret the law according to the books and will in no circumstances take a money bribe, is one of the symbolic figures of England. He is a symbol of the strange mixture of reality and illusion, democracy and privelege, humbug and decency, the subtle network of compromises, by which the nation keeps itself in familiar shape.
Friday, July 9, 2010
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"Hitler's June Purge, for instance, could not have happened in England."
ReplyDeleteSure it could have. I mean, it isn't as if England never had tyrants of the very murderous variety - Oliver Cromwell springs to mind obviously. Then of course there is the Bolton Massacre of the 17th century, the British acts of genocide in India and Ireland in the 19th century, Peterloo, Croke Park, etc.
This was British - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jallianwala_Bagh_massacre
ReplyDeleteOliver Cromwell is perhaps the closest - but he was fueled by religious animosity that simply wasn't a factor in the UK in the 20th century (or the 21st for that matter), except perhaps in Northern Ireland.
ReplyDeleteYou have to remember, Xenophon, that what Orwell is refering to here is political purges. Is the state capable of brutal violence? Of course it is. Is a parliamentary democracy like Britain capable of violent political purges during a transfer of power? Probably not unless something drastic changes. Orwell goes even further than this to suggest probably not at all, given the character of the people.
But it's an entirely different question from "can the British state be violent".
Of course I have to bring up a Keynes quote here too. He had a nice saying (I believe in "The End of Laissez Faire") about the difference between French and British monarchs (a saying I reminded Kate of when we were touring Versailles this week). He said something to the effect of "we British shear monarchs of their powers - the French shear the of their heads".
Keynes was of course wrong (as he was with so many things) ... and this is demonstrated by the fact that Britain executed more monarchs than France did (indeed, even during the periods when France's monarchy was most often in trouble - between the start of the Hundred Years' War and the end of the Wars of Religion with Louis XIII - Britain lost far more monarchs to regicide than France did). Keynes proves himself once again to be an idiot.
ReplyDelete"Is a parliamentary democracy like Britain capable of violent political purges during a transfer of power?"
For most of British history it wasn't a parliamentary democracy and there more than enough elements in Britain to create a nationalist, fascist government. That it did not go that way was not because of some special British nature, it was merely due to the chance which is history.
"Keynes proves himself once again to be an idiot"
ReplyDeleteYou better be a 75 year old man, Xenophon, because you're way too crabby and you jump the gun way too much for your age if you're not.
Considering the fact that The End of Laissez Faire covers a period in history long after the events you mentioned, Keynes is fine and if he's an idiot I'd hate to know what that makes the rest of us.
For most of British history it wasn't a parliamentary democracy and there more than enough elements in Britain to create a nationalist, fascist government. That it did not go that way was not because of some special British nature, it was merely due to the chance which is history.
See above point, and please think a little more about context when you post.
And since when does the existence of fascists or nationalists in a polity negate the nature of its institutions? How is your point even relevant, much less contextualized?
"Considering the fact that The End of Laissez Faire covers a period in history long after the events you mentioned, Keynes is fine and if he's an idiot I'd hate to know what that makes the rest of us."
ReplyDeleteAs I always say, never consult an economist for an useful appraisal of the historical record - what you will largely find is regurgitations of commonly held opinions.
"And since when does the existence of fascists or nationalists in a polity negate the nature of its institutions?"
Britain not becoming fascist was a very close thing. Arguments made to hide these sort of unpleasantries - say the special nature of a polity - tend to mythologize away such facts.