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The Bulldog and the Gentleman
- as published in Auroville Today, June 1997.
The article is written by Alan,
a longtime British Aurovilian.
What makes the English English?
A few weeks ago, a small group of English
Aurovilians met to explore what they felt was the essence of their
culture. While acknowledging the crucial contributions of the Welsh,
the Scots and the Irish to both English and British culture, the
conversation inevitably focused upon the achievements, the foibles
and particular characteristics of the English people. Here Alan
summarises their findings as well as using them as a spring-board
for further speculations.
What is the essence of Englishness or English
culture? Sri Aurobindo gave some valuable clues in The Future
Poetry. He notes, for example, that while England has thrown up
great individuals in the arts and sciences, she lacks an established
artistic, philosophical or scientific tradition. And while there are
"lacunae" in her cultural achievements - he cites
sculpture, architecture and, much more debatably, music - in
"the business of practical life there is an unqualified
preeminence".
In fact, individualism and practicality or
pragmatic ingenuity can be seen as two of the leitmotifs of English
culture. Often they complement each other. For example, in the two
great periods of English civilisation -the Elizabethan Age and the
late 18th and 19th centuries- England asserted her independence from
continental influences in areas like literature while embarking on a
vigorous expansion of trade and commerce based upon practical
ingenuity and (in the latter period) a ruthlessly successful
enlargement of her Empire. The English tradition of individualism,
which Elias Canetti ascribed to her island status and special
relationship with the sea ("The Englishman sees himself as a
captain on board a ship with a small group of people, the sea around
and beneath him. He is almost alone…"), is displayed in
various forms: it is the Magna Carta -the first charter of liberty
and individual rights- it is the English eccentric, wandering the
country-side in his tweeds and battered deerstalker as he seeks a
new species of butterfly, it is her strong nonconformist tradition
in religion, it is her rough-cut heroes who scorn convention (and
sometimes the law) - the pirate Drake who routed the Spanish Armada,
Robin Hood, Nelson putting his blind eye to the telescope so that he
was unable to see his commander's order to retreat, 'Bulldog'
Churchill refusing to admit defeat in 1940 - it is her continuing
ambiguous relationship to European union. For as Andre Malraux put
it, "England is never as great as when she is alone".
That strand in her make-up of rugged
individualism, of that stubborn almost anarchic Anglo-Saxon vein
which resists easy acquiescence to imposed authority, also powered
many working-class movements like the Luddites and the Chartists
last century, and continues to be reflected in modern phenomena like
Punk or the Travellers with their tents, collectivism, direct action
and celebration of spontaneity. Yet English culture, paradoxically,
is also preeminently a culture of convention and tradition. This is
reflected in the pride she takes in preserving her national
monuments and institutions, in the continuing (though damaged)
popularity of the monarchy, and in her class system which, in
certain areas of British life (the higher echelons of the Diplomatic
Service and banking world), still continues to exert its influence.
In this context, it's worth remembering that the English have
evolved a type of the ideal man (and, by implication, woman) which
Andre Malraux described as one of the very few examples in world
history of "une grande creation de l'homme". He is, of
course, the English gentleman. Writing in the mid 19th century,
Cardinal Newman enumerated some of his qualities:
"The true gentleman carefully avoids
whatever may cause a jar or jolt in the minds of those with whom he
is cast… his great concern is to make everyone at their ease…he
is never mean in his disputes, he never takes advantage. From a
long-sighted prudence he follows the maxim of the ancient sage that
we should ever conduct ourselves towards our enemy as if he were one
day to be our friend. He is too well-employed to remember injuries,
too indolent to bear malice…he submits to pain because it is
inevitable, to bereavement because it is irreparable and to death
because it is his destiny."
Whether or not the English gentleman according
to Newman's description ever really existed outside popular
literature is less important than the influence the idea exerted
upon the nation, an influence, it should be said, both for good and
bad. On the positive side, it emphasised the qualities of generosity
and modesty, of good manners, of fortitude, above all of fairness
and decency. These qualities are reflected in something as prosaic
as the English emphasis upon waiting one's turn, queuing - which the
English have raised to an art form - and in something as influential
as the British system of parliamentary democracy which, with varying
degrees of success, has been exported all over the world. These same
values underlie the British judicial system in which all individuals
are equal before the law (and innocent until proven guilty), in the
concept of the Commonwealth, in civil liberties, in tolerance of
religious and political minorities, in 'playing the game' or good
sportsmanship in all aspects of life, and in the extraordinary
tradition that "an Englishman's word is his bond".
There's something very sane, very low-key and
understated, about what is considered good-breeding in English
culture…and herein lies also the seeds of its deficiencies.
Because Newman's gentleman is, above all, a social animal whose most
important function is not to challenge or inspire but to put people
at their ease. And this, by definition, automatically excludes
references to controversial topics like politics and religion,
excludes the forceful exposition of ideas or feelings, excludes a
certain largeness of scope in favour of the small, the parochial,
the safe, the banal.
Good-breeding in England was often associated
with a certain affected languor, with an aversion to commerce and
'money-making', with a refusal to become too enthusiastic about
anything, and with the image of the talented amateur. The emphasis
was less upon winning than upon playing in the right
("gentlemanly") spirit, exemplified in that very English
hero, Scott of the Antarctic, who failed, but failed magnificently
(his last words, found on his frozen corpse, were "I have done
this to show what an Englishman can do.") English culture
remains suspicious of the intellect (which makes Sherlock Homes
something of an anomaly) and of the avant-garde in the Arts. 'Good'
taste tends to favour the safer products of English and European
culture - English and Dutch landscape painters, popular novelists,
Strauss - over, say, the German expressionists, Beckett and
Stockhausen. In fact, English culture has probably only been saved
from total embourgeoisement by its capacity for self-criticism
("They possess a capacity for self-criticism unequalled in any
other nation", wrote Laurens Van Der Post), by its ability to
poke fun at its more ridiculous propensities and by its 'underclass'
movements which have reacted against the stultifying influence of
the dominant culture. In modern times this counter-reaction has
thrown up some of the most interesting achievements in the Arts
including the plays of Osborne, the music of The Rolling Stones, and
independent films of life on the fringe like 'Performance' and 'Trainspotting'.
Just as the Celtic influence in the British character has served to
lighten the dominant Teutonic strain, so this raw yet creative
energy is challenging the influence of the stiff upper-lip and of
comfortable conformism and powering the revival of London as one of
the most stimulating capitals of Europe.
One other fundamental quality of English
culture that should be mentioned is the special relationship the
English have with nature and the countryside. England's greatest
painter - Turner - was a landscape painter, Elgar, Delius and
Vaughan Williams frequently evoke the countryside in their music,
her finest poets - Spencer, Shakespeare, Marvell, Keats, Words
worth, Shelley, Blake-all celebrated nature, often opposing it to
the evils of city or court life or the "dark Satanic
mills" of the Industrial Revolution, and the ivy-clad country
cottage or the grander country house with its croquet lawn, peacocks
and topiary were two of the defining images of "ye olde
England". Unlike the French who, as at Versailles, tried to
shape nature to their own conceptions, the English aimed at artfully
enhancing nature, combining lawns, winding paths, wild areas and
lakes to achieve an always varying but charming perspective. Even
today, if an Englishman's home is his castle, his garden remains one
of his favourite places of recreation.
It seems fitting then, that if the English
(who are, essentially, an ethical nation) can be said to have made
any approaches to spirituality, it seems to have been in their
relationship with nature. The poetry of Words worth, Shelley and
Hopkins, for example, attempts at times to pierce the material veil
and to invoke subtler regions of experience, Dr. Bach, the
discoverer of the flower remedies, often had near-mystical
experiences as he searched out flowers, and today the Findhorn
community in Scotland is world-famous for its pioneering work on
communicating with the subtler forces of nature.
Clearly if a British pavilion were ever to
take shape in Auroville it should focus not only upon that society's
more typical manifestations (rose gardens, a cricket pitch… a
pub?!) but also upon its glories, upon that which it has contributed
to world culture. This, preeminently, would include the English
language, that uniquely flexible and subtle vehicle of communication
which serves today in many spheres as the unofficial world language,
the great achievements of English literature and the best products
of its educational and communication cultures - the Open University,
the BBC, the Royal Shakespeare Company. But in terms of Auroville
itself at present, there is a very specific area in which a certain
quality of English culture is needed. Shraddhavan, an English
Aurovilian, puts it like this:
"I don't think that England is one of the
great nation souls. Just as Britain itself is a land of modest
scale, modest charm, so our strength is more in the middle region of
pragmatism and ethics than of idealism and spiritual discovery. But
if we look at Auroville at present, we're missing that middle
ground. We have the visionaries, we have the grass-roots people, but
we lack the social thread-makers and binders, those who ease
tensions and maintain a certain quality of social relationship, of
harmony, reliability and stability. And this is something that the
English have always been good at."
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