Exam Advice PDF

**Exam:** Teacher advices: - Chaining of the events; - What is the position of the author? - Was it after or before a certain event? - Test: close reading on excerpts but with an historical notion / background - we can make informed interpretations - Exam: use expression like...

**Exam:** Teacher advices: - Chaining of the events; - What is the position of the author? - Was it after or before a certain event? - Test: close reading on excerpts but with an historical notion / background - we can make informed interpretations - Exam: use expression like One could say/ I might believe - Exam: join form and content more from an analytic perspective rather than a (what was the intent, why was it instrumental) = develop an analysis - **Question 2:** detailed definition + cultural perspective - **Question 3:** historical context + personal opinions and speculation **Question 1: Englishness** **Main things:** difference between Britain (all the isles) and England (just the country) **Important concepts:** a. **Cool Britannia:** a name for the period of increased pride in the [culture of the United Kingdom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_the_United_Kingdom) throughout the mid and second half of the 1990s -- time of national pride, optimism, and cultural renaissance. Despite the initial optimism, **the idea of Cool Britannia had its critics**. As early as 1997, the term was becoming increasingly ironic. Some began to see it as **a superficial marketing tool** that commodified youth culture for political and economic ends. b. **Rule, Britannia!**\" is a British [patriotic song](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriotism), originating from the 1740 poem \"Rule, Britannia\" by [James Thomson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Thomson_(poet,_born_1700)) and set to music by [Thomas Arne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Arne) in the same year.[^\[2\]^](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule,_Britannia!#cite_note-2) It is most strongly associated with the [Royal Navy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Navy), but is also used by the [British Army](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Army). c. **St George's flag (symbolizes religious roots of England) VS Union Jack (multiculturalism):** The Union Flag represents the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and incorporates the flags of England, Scotland and Wales = represents the union of its constituent states; the St. George Flag represents England, meaning, nationalism. The Union Flag is a combination of the Flag of Scotland, England and has a St. Patrick\'s stripe for Northern Ireland. "It nearly exclusively belongs to sports fans. Being English is a relatively sports related phenomenon (...) If you asked for 'the nation's flag', you'd be pointed to the Union Jack. That's the flag hung by residents' intent of displaying their patriotism. The flag is, therefore, mentally relegated to its main users, the far right --  [over a quarter of adults have a negative view of those who fly the St George's flag](https://yougov.co.uk/society/articles/49223-quarter-of-adults-in-england-have-negative-view-of-those-flying-st-georges-cross). The use of the St George's flag is inherently political. English nationalism occupies a different space to its Scottish and Welsh counterparts. In the public consciousness, left-wing beliefs and nationalist ideals seem somewhat incompatible. The St George's flag is the flying banner of nationalism, linked with the kind of glaring nationalism that the middle classes shy away from. Reminding people of their privilege of being born English is uncomfortable. Flying the St George's flag, bellowing that we should be proud to be English, just seems ignorant and boastful. To reclaim the flag would be to embrace the idea that England has its merits." d. **New Jerusalem:** \"And did those feet in ancient time\" is a poem by [William Blake](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Blake) from the preface to his epic [*Milton: A Poem in Two Books*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton:_A_Poem_in_Two_Books), one of a collection of writings known as the [Prophetic Books](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blake%27s_prophetic_books) and was printed in 1808. Today it is best known as the hymn \"Jerusalem\", with music written by [Sir Hubert Parry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert_Parry) in 1916. The poem draws on an older story, repeated in [Milton\'s *History of Britain*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_History_of_Britain_(Milton)), that Joseph of Arimathea, alone, travelled to preach to the ancient Britons after the death of Jesus. The poem\'s theme is linked to the [Book of Revelation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Revelation) describing a [Second Coming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Coming), wherein Jesus establishes a [New Jerusalem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Jerusalem). Churches in general, and the [Church of England](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_England) in particular, have long used Jerusalem as a metaphor for [Heaven](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven_(Christianity)), a place of universal love and peace. In the most common interpretation of the poem, Blake asks whether a visit by Jesus briefly created heaven in England, in contrast to the \"dark Satanic Mills\" of the [Industrial Revolution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution). Blake\'s poem asks four questions rather than asserting the historical truth of Christ\'s visit. The 2^nd^ verse is interpreted as an exhortation to create an ideal society in England, whether or not there was a divine visit. e. **John Bull:** created in 1712 by [John Arbuthnot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Arbuthnot), originated as a [satirical](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satire) and political character. It 1^st^ appeared in Arbuthnot\'s pamphlet *Law is a Bottomless Pit*.  The same year, he published a four-part political narrative *The History of John Bull,* characterizing his depiction of Bull as 'honest, choleric, bold' with a 'very inconstant temper' and 'very apt to quarrel with his best friends especially if they pretended to govern him' and 'no man spent his money more generously'. Around 1701-14, England was involved in the War of the Spanish succession, a prolonged and expensive European conflict. The country was part of an alliance against Spain and France, but, over time, the British public grew frustrated with the high costs of the war. Arbuthnot wrote this to express his discontent, so it's a satire to British external politics saying England was manipulated by its allies and enemies (France), believing England is paying a hard price for conflicts that don't benefit directly: - a mirror and not a praise so England could look at herself - pointing out things that can be changed - a mirror to English people In this satirical treatment of the [War of the Spanish Succession](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Spanish_Succession), John Bull brings a lawsuit against various figures intended to represent the kings of France (Louis Baboon) and Spain (Lord Strutt). Later, the figure of Bull was disseminated overseas by illustrators and writers like American cartoonists. Starting in the 1760s, Bull was portrayed as an [Anglo-Saxon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxon) country dweller. He was almost always depicted in a buff-colored [waistcoat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waistcoat) and a simple [frock coat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frock_coat) (in the past Navy blue, but more recently with the [Union Jack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Jack) colors). [Britannia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britannia), or a lion, is sometimes used as an alternative in some [editorial cartoons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Editorial_cartoon).. Unlike [Uncle Sam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Sam) later, he is not a figure of authority but rather a [yeoman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeoman) who prefers his [small beer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_beer) and domestic peace, possessed of neither patriarchal power nor heroic defiance. [Arbuthnot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Arbuthnot) provided him with a sister named Peg (Scotland), and a traditional adversary in Louis Baboon. John Bull himself continued to frequently appear as a national symbol in posters and cartoons as late as World War I. 1. **Dear England Letter** (see end of page 3 + beginning of 4) What he associates with **England:** - Heroic - Sacrifice - **Pride** - Queen and royal weddings - Patriotism (patriot) - Military - "Humble, proud, liberated in their true selves" - Responsibility and (England) duty - Equality, inclusivity, racial justice - Protection of values and traditions without losing introspection and progress This idea of not being racist just because is not associated with the idea of 'Englishness'. 2. **"Englishness and English National Identity", Krishan Kumar** **2.1. How to separate English from British** (the reverse problem is different): Non-English members of UK are usually the ones who are most aware of this difference and never mixed the terms and the 'lordy English habit' of subjecting British under English. A reminder for them of what they perceive to be (rightly) **'English hegemony over the rest of the British Isles'.** Confusion that reveals the hard time English people have in distinguish themselves from the other inhabitants of the British Isles -- they know of the existence of Welsh, Scots, Irish, etc., and even make jokes about them -- example of exception to the general rule = to see major events of national life as English while seeing minor groups as merely supporters. a. **The dictionary *Modern English Usage* of Fowler** arouses native Englishmen (not Englishwomen): - No **Englishmen** calls himself **Briton** without a feeling of absurdity or hears himself called a Britisher without squirming; - An Englishmen cannot say the word **'Great Britain'** with the same emotion with which he says **'England'**; - Things implicit in the word ENGLAND and not in the word BRITAIN: 1. to outsiders, his sovereign is **'Her Britannic Majesty'** while to him is **'Queen of** **England**'; 2. he has been taught **English history**; 3. he heard the wors English and aspires to be an **English gentleman** 4. he knows England expects him to fulfill his **duty** (link to Dear England letter) **His conclusion:** it's unreasonable to ask people to stop using the only names associated with **patriotic emotion.** **Englishness and its relation to Britishness:** even though we are talking about a multicultural state, why did neither Britain nor Britishness gain ascendency? And **why does patriotic emotion only attach to England?** b. **A state with a variety of titles:** 1. The **UK** 2. **Great Britain:** imperial 3. **Britain:** boring, without the glow of 'England' 4. **England:** poetic but troublesome 5. **British Isles:** too geographical 6. **'This Country':** within the family 7. **'This Small Country of Ours':** defensive Shakespearian 8. **'Ukania':** satire by Mussil to the Habsburg Empire -- a domain that also suffered from the abundance of nomenclatures (Austria, Austria-Hungary, etc.) c. Significance of Empire and the role it plays in the development of national identities: **Britain was, and still is** to some extent, **an Empire**, at its height in the early 20^th^ century the largest the world has ever known, ruling over a variety of people from different ethnicities. Therefore, its identity had to be related to its imperial character so it could not afford to be closely associated with an ethnic group. **British state:** classic example of **state-nation = the state identified not by ethnicity but by state institutions** (Parliament and the monarchy) + imperial in a double sense: 1. **British Empire:** state with colonies 2. **Great Britain or United Kingdom:** political entity regarded as an empire = an **internal empire** as the result of **intern colonialism**. In this view, England was the imperial nation that had annexed the territories and subjugated the populations of Wales, Scotland and Ireland. **Conclusion:** The question of **English Identity** is connected with this **double identification** and England and Englishness had to be seen within the framework of this **imperial history.**\ **Kumar's goal:** understand Egland's self-perception and identity firstly from a wider picture, from the outside in, through its engagement with its colonial project and its perception of their mission in the world. 2. **Protestant Nation (page 3)** **English nationalism:** for many people there was only patriotism, royalism, imperialism but not nationalism as it came to be known from its 19^th^ century development on the Continent. It only in fact surged in 19^th^ century despite some attempts of saying it was before, like in the latter half of the 18^th^ century with the growing rivalry with France. **Nationalism =** populist doctrine that declares a bond between all the members of a nation. **Qualities of belonging:** blood + language + religion + history and all who share this are members of the nation and by that be participant members of any state (nation-state) formed by the nation. That is the reason to why most theorist place the rise of nationalism in the aftermath of the French Revolution, with its fundamental doctrine of the equality of all citizens. It is then impossible to talk about nationalism in England before the late 19^th^ century. The English nation (political nation) was an estate and remained so at least a century after the French Revolution. There were moments of patriotic fervor at the time of the Spanish Armada and other occasions during Elizabeth's reign; claims of equality during the English Civil War; a popular mobilization against the French during the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars -- but none of this amount to nationalism. Despite the fact monarchs and statesman evoking 'nation', English during this time was resistant to the **notion 'the people'** constituted an equal body of citizens with equal rights. A good part of the English people **didn't belong in this sense to the English nation**, which remained the preserve of the upper and middle classes. English nationalist consciousness developed towards the end of the 19^th^ but there were other **identities** available in England before: - **18^th^ and 1^st^ half of 19^th^:** the inhabitants of the newly founded Great Britain (Acts of Union, 1707) saw themselves as Britons and their country as Britain which did not implicate the suppression of the other identities based on the previously existing English, Welsh and Scottish lands; it meant that on all occasions which called for a mass collective response (Jacobite threat; struggles with France, etc.) the most important identity was to be British rather than the other available alternatives. Not a national identity but an identity framed in terms of common membership of an ethnic community -- its attachment was institutional (Church, Parliament, and mainly, Crown) in the shape of the un-English Hanoverian dynasty that had succeeded to the throne. **Conclusion of this 1^st^ identity: 'For King and Country'** was its motto of this specific kind of national belonging = **nationalism of the state rather than of the people.** Other crucial part is religion -- the British Nation was a Protestant Nation = portrayed itself as defender of Protestantism faith ready to stand against Catholic Europe, in this period represented by France, the Catholic threat -- English, Welsh and Scottish Protestants (Catholic Ireland being as usual the odd man out) could unite in common denunciation of the reactionary French monarchy. The English (like the Scotts and Welsh) had a sense of their distinctiveness during this period. **John Bull**, created in 1712, for this purpose and his bluff English virtues were contrasted with the mean ways of the enemy, especially the France = **Englishness was always a useful tool to use against foreigners**, including sometimes the Scots and the Irish, who lived among the English themselves. In this sense, Englishness did not require the further definition of an exclusive national identity -- the circumstances of the period actually called for the opposite. The New Hanoverians (post Glorious Revolution, 1688, 17^th^) faced with the Jacobite movement had to do all they could to secure a Scottish allegiance so any stress on English identity would have the opposite effect and the same was true for their position as rulers of an increasingly overseas empire = it was British not English, kings, ruling over, British subjects, that they declared their authority over their colonies in North America and the West Indies. The inadequacy of a purely English National identity stood out clearly in their role as the protectors and promoters of Protestantism. It might even be said that England was the 'heart of this mission'. But to emphasize this, the contribution of a particular partner in the Protestant Coalition would have diminish the grandeur of the task and diminished its missionary quality -- England's glory shone the brighter for being reflected in a much more magnificent cause than the advancement of national identity = English national identity was willingly buried in the service of a missionary cause that was global -- World civilizations do not need something as insignificant as a national identities, being nationalism for lesser nations. In here relies the English disdain for nationalism. 3. **Moments of Englishness** **End of 19^th^:** developed a firmer sense of Englishness. Paradox: time when Britain reached the height of its influence as world power. Its Industrial Revolution was British and not only English. Having lost one empire, it won another which, close to the 1^st^ World War, had ¼ of the world's population -- under British not English guidance. It is more expected an increased Britishness and not a newly found Englishness. This also occurred, given the prominent role of Scots and Irish in the British Empire (though the ideas they followed were English in origin. There emerged at the same time a movement to define more closely what was meant by Englishness and to celebrate it. **Reasons for this:** 19^th^ century developments lost one of the central parts of Britishness = the idea of a protestant nation. This was the result of a European secularization, more particularly with the rise of Germany and the US to world prominence, the catholic threat (mainly France) receded (a development helped by the ascension of Ireland to the Union in 1801). Britain's main rivals were now themselves prominently Protestant. If Britain wanted to continue to proclaim its mission in the world in would increasingly have to do so in non-religious terms, but secular. **Most important reason = ideological.** A century of the **age of rationalism** and in all the Continent the **rise of nationalist movements**. In the UK too, Welsh and Scottish nationalism also from this period, while, in the form of the 'Irish question', Irish nationalism threatened, as still does, to tear the fabric of the nation apart. This kind is cultural nationalism opposed to the older kind that stood for common citizenship, this one stood for common ethnicity, being the marks of ethnicity language, blood, religion, history and 'race' -- these express the 'soul of the nation'. English intellectuals responded to this felt need -- in literature, language, etc. arose a cultural movement to define and celebrate Englishness. The movement seemed to declare that England too had a soul and one different from the rest of the kingdom in which for so long had lain. **Marks of this movement: clearing up of the English language** and the establishment of the 'received', that is, authoritative manner of spelling and speaking English -- the language was purified and purged its regional dialects. The great mark of this activity was the *Oxford English Dictionary on Historical principles* of Murray, whose goal was capturing the genius of the English language. In this, the English language was nationalized and standardized for the 1^st^ time. **Literature:** was also nationalized = elaboration of a national tradition of literature, the canon of English Literature, influential to the definitions of Englishness. English culture is seen as created by a series of great national poets, dramatists and novelists because their writings embody values, a whole way of life, which express aspirations of the national culture. Its study and dissemination were seen in missionary terms. The definition of a canon of English literature was seen as 'the Whig interpretation of English literature' -- it parallels the Whig interpretation of history that celebrates England's political and historical distinctiveness. The markers are certain texts -- selection of writers from Chaucer to Victorian poets was meant to illustrate not only the greatness of English literature but its distinctive national qualities -- sincerity, individuality, concreteness and a sense of richness and diversity of life + contrast with the classicism of much continental literature, especially France. These qualities imply Romanticism was aways high in the national estimation -- it indicates the English preference for feeling over intellect and literature over political thought and an enduring hold of the countryside in English life and anti-industrial and anti-urban feeling. **Ex:** southern English countryside with a utopian status, the heart of good society. While these imaginative qualities might suggest a certain unworldliness and there was in fact something whimsy present in English culture, it is also matched by pragmatism. In this period there is also an intellectual culture that also came to be defined as English -- English thought = empirical, utilitarian, concrete, individualist (exemplified by Locke, Stuart Mill, Darwin) hostile to the abstract present in continental though, responsible for extreme and ideological forms of continental politics. **Other area 19^th^ century produced a powerful current of Englishness: historical consciousness** = intensification of the 'Whig interpretation' of English history = a self-congratulatory myth that portrayed English national development in glowing tones. **Elements of this:** idea of antiquity of the House of Commons + the 'myth of Magna Carta' as the foundation of the liberties of all Englishmen + the belief in a tradition of constitutional rule, limiting monarchy, stretching from the Middle Ages through to the 17^th^. This classical version of the Whig interpretation of English History represented all things as having been there all time -- story of ancient English freedom as a constant. What 19^th^ did was temporalize the myth -- English history was capable of change and improvement and the face of the nation was turned from the past to the future. "England was seen as having had a blessed inheritance allowing it to avoid the fanaticism and bitterness, born of countless revolution and civil wars, that had disfigured the politics of its continental neighbors." (my note: remember revolutions of 1848 except England). This legacy allowed it to become the most powerful country in the world, so she would continue to grow and prosper, an example to other nations. 4. **English Nationalism?** **Moment of Englishness at the end of 19^th^ century:** not only an historical marker but it also defines the essence of Englishness (in this period a cultural definition). **Other developments in the 1^st^ half of 20^th^ century that silenced the political effects on Englishness: new Labour movement + the rise of Labour Party** -- a British and not English movement because it didn't get its 'impulsiveness' from England, but from Wales and Scotland. This movement linked the parts of UK together -- this reduced to just English, but Welsh and Scottish nationalisms. **All this changed in the period of 1960s:** Empire and Britain's position as an industrial world power gone. Lacking influence and profits of a world role, Britishness capitulated in the face of a declaration of Irish, Welsh and Scottish nationalisms. England, the core nation, was no longer protected by a 'mask' of Britishness. The other nations of the UK started to imagine a better future as separate members of the European Community -- forced with facing this prospect, England reevaluates its identity. **One consequence of the decline of Britishness: renewed emphasis on Englishness** -- it moved from culture to politics. Cautiously, it can be said that an English nationalism came into being. 'New right' conservative politicians, starting with Enoch Powell, joined by a group of right-wing historians opposed to British membership of the European Union. While they often spoke of 'Britain', it was used as a code for 'England'. The former conservative Prime Minister John Major evoked the nation in an image that seemed to exclude not only Welsh, Scotts and Irish but also women, the English working class and the majority of the non-white population. **'Little Englander'** views have found an echo among considerable sections of the English population (ex: observe their behavior at football matches) -- particular section of society, much of the time, upper and upper-middle classes. It was their politics, church, manners, universities, way of speaking, view of history that provided much content for the 'national character'. In recent years this concept has been attacked by women, black people, gays, workers. These all are clearly forms of criticism, but what do they offer as alternatives? Englishness is an ideology and today an 'armed' practice and concept. It's out of touch with much of the reality of the contemporary British society, but it can still generate enthusiasm and mobilize considerable support, like, Mrs. Thatcher's popularity. That explains the urgency and difficulty of the task. 3. **Notes on Nationalism** **Definition:** the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation placing it beyond good and evil and recognizing no other duty than that of advancing its interests. **Different from Patriotism:** devotion to a particular place or way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people while nationalism is inseparable from the desire for power. **A Nationalist:** one who thinks solely, or mainly, in terms of competitive prestige; sees history as the endless rise and decline of great power units + he doesn't go on the principle of simply ganging up with the strongest side. On the contrary, having picked his side, he persuades himself that it is the strongest. Every nationalist is capable of the most flagrant dishonesty, but he is also---since he is conscious of serving something bigger than himself---unshakeably certain of being in the right. People of strongly nationalistic outlook often perform this sleight of hand without being conscious of dishonesty. The habit of mind Orwell is talking about is widespread among the English intellectuals. **In England:** the dominant form of nationalism is old-fashioned British jingoism (extreme [patriotism](https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=d0f09d0ddcc37b6e&rlz=1C1CHBD_pt-PTPT905PT905&q=patriotism&si=ACC90nyOnVY18Aw7zUtkWPYo5mTnhrxNxIlN4DOqGdEM9yrXiMTjdHEh5SmXT1g3J2JKHdF9KuimhXszU6KLai9ROBqyZUSOFx1adRA66tPZp9jQLvYRv6o%3D&expnd=1&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=2ahUKEwjMqOjGypWKAxWEWEEAHXMXOtgQyecJegQIMBAO), especially in the form of aggressive or [warlike](https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=d0f09d0ddcc37b6e&rlz=1C1CHBD_pt-PTPT905PT905&q=warlike&si=ACC90nypsxZVz3WGK63NbnSPlfCBfnhM5rnHB9vP2LKoSnfWxrZLB9aLqLQl_On1zBYnqL5jGmBurw-RtjQB_q1kly3xTUPGbg%3D%3D&expnd=1&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=2ahUKEwjMqOjGypWKAxWEWEEAHXMXOtgQyecJegQIMBAP) foreign policy.) Within the intellectuals, jingoism and even patriotism of the old kind are almost dead, though they now seem to be reviving among a minority, among them, the dominant form of nationalism is Communism. Example of Chesterton which form of Communism was political Catholicism and the idealization of the Latin Countries; however, he would be the 1^st^ to mock someone who wrote the same 'romantic rubbish' about Britain and British Army. In home politics he was a Little Englander, a true hater of jingoism and imperialism, and according to his lights a true friend of democracy. But, his almost mystical belief in the virtues of democracy did not prevent him from admiring Mussolini. His hold on reality, his literary taste, and even to some extent his moral sense, were dislocated as soon as his nationalistic loyalties were involved. **Principal characteristics of nationalist thought:** 1. **Obsession:** no nationalist ever thinks, talks, or writes about anything except the superiority of his own power unit: All **nationalists** consider it a duty to spread their own language to the detriment of rival languages, and among English-speakers this struggle reappears in subtler forms as a struggle between dialects. Anglophobe-Americans will refuse to use a slang phrase if they know it to be of British origin 2. **Instability:** The intensity with which they are held does not prevent nationalist loyalties from being transferable. The founders of nationalist movements, do not even belong to the country they have glorified. Sometimes they are outright foreigners (Ex: Hitler, Napolean). **Re-transference** is also possible. A country or other unit which has been worshipped for years may suddenly become detestable, and some other object of affection may take its place with almost no interval. **What remains constant in the nationalist is his state of mind: the object of his feelings is changeable, and may be imaginary. Transferred nationalism,** like the use of scapegoats, is a way of attaining salvation without altering one's conduct. 3. **Indifference to Reality:** All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts: A British Tory will defend self-determination in Europe and oppose it in India with no feeling of inconsistency. Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, which does not change its moral color when it is committed by 'our' side. History is thought of largely in nationalist terms, for example, the Reign of Terror or Cromwell's soldiers slashing Irishwomen's faces with razors, become morally neutral or even meritorious when it is felt that they were done in the 'right' cause. Not one single case were atrocities of the past quarter of a century believed in and disapproved of by the English intelligentsia as a whole. Whether such deeds were reprehensible, or even whether they happened, was always decided according to political predilection. **The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them --** many English people have heard almost nothing about the extermination of German and Polish Jews during the present war. In nationalist thought there are facts which are both true and untrue, known and unknown. A known fact may be so unbearable that it is habitually pushed aside or not even ever being admitted as a fact. **Every nationalist** is haunted by the belief that the past can be altered (ex: forgery -- material facts are suppressed, dates altered, quotations removed from their context; events which it is felt ought not to have happened are left unmentioned and ultimately denied). The nationalist is often somewhat uninterested in what happens in the real world. What he wants is to feel that his own unit is getting the better of some other unit, and he can more easily do this by scoring off an adversary than by examining the facts to see whether they support him. **How varieties of nationalism flourishing among the English intelligentsia:** 1. **Positive** 1. **Neo-toryism:** the desire not to recognize that British power and influence have declined. Even those who are realistic enough to see that Britain's military position is not what it was, tend to claim that 'English ideas' must dominate the world (neo-Tories are anti-Russian and anti-American) 2. **Celtic-Nationalism:** Welsh, Irish and Scottish nationalism -- anti-English orientation. Not the same thing as Anglophobia. Its motive force is a belief in the past and future greatness of the Celtic peoples, and it has a strong tinge of racialism. The Celt is supposed to be spiritually superior to the Saxon. One symptom of it is the delusion that Eire, Scotland or even Wales could preserve its independence unaided and owes nothing to British protection 3. **Zionism:** flourishes almost exclusively among the Jews themselves. In England, the intelligentsia are mostly pro-Jew on the Palestine issue, but they don't feel strongly about it. 2. **Transferred** **2.1. Communism** **2.2. Political Catholicism** **2..3. Color Feeling:** The old-style contemptuous attitude towards 'natives' has been much weakened in England and the superiority of the white race have been abandoned. Among the intelligentsia, color feeling only occurs as a belief in the innate superiority of the colored races. **2.4. Class Feeling:** Among upper-class and middle-class intellectuals, only in the transposed form--- i.e. as a belief in the superiority of the proletariat (working-class people) and most vicious theoretical hatred of the bourgeoisie (middleclass) **2.5. Pacifism:** Hating of western democracy + admiration of totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda saying that one side is as bad as the other but they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the US; they do not as a rule condemn violence as such, but only violence used in defense of western countries. The Russians, unlike the British, are not blamed for defending themselves by warlike means. After the fall of France, the French pacifists mostly went over to the Nazis. Pacifist writers have written in praise of Carlyle, one of the intellectual fathers of fascism. Pacifism is secretly inspired by an admiration for power and successful cruelty. 3. **Negative** 4. **Anglophobia:** attitude towards Britain. English left-wing intellectuals did not, of course, actually want the Germans or Japanese to win the war, but many of them wanted to feel that the final victory would be due to Russia, or perhaps America, and not to Britain. In foreign politics many intellectuals follow the principle that any faction backed by Britain must be in the wrong. As a result, 'enlightened' opinion is quite largely a mirror-image of Conservative policy. 5. **Anti-Semitism:** appears to be widespread. But antisemitism comes more naturally to people of Conservative tendency, who suspect Jews of weakening national morale and diluting the national culture. Neo-Tories and political Catholics are always liable to succumb to antisemitism 6. **Trotskyism:** Anarchists, democratic Socialists and Liberals. A doctrinaire Marxist whose main motive is hostility to the Stalin regime. The Trotskyist is against Stalin just as the Communist is for him, and, like the majority of Communists, he wants not so much to alter the external world as to feel that the battle for prestige is going in his own favor. If one harbors anywhere in one's mind a nationalistic loyalty or hatred, certain facts, although in a sense known to be true, are inadmissible. Facts which it is impossible for that type of nationalist to accept, even in his secret thoughts: BRITISH TORY: Britain will come out of this war with reduced power and prestige. COMMUNIST: If she had not been aided by Britain and America, Russia would have been defeated by Germany. IRISH NATIONALIST: Eire can only remain independent because of British protection. TROTSKYIST: The Stalin régime is accepted by the Russian masses. PACIFIST: Those who repudiate violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf. The intelligentsia have been more wrong about the progress of the war than the common people. The average intellectual of the Left believed, for instance, that the war was lost in 1940. He could believe this because his hatred for the British ruling class forbade him to admit that British plans could succeed. There is no limit to the follies that can be swallowed if one is under the influence of feelings of this kind. The point is that as soon as fear, hatred, jealousy and power worship are involved, the sense of reality becomes unhinged and the sense of right and wrong becomes unhinged also. There is no crime, absolutely none, that cannot be condoned when 'our' side commits it. Even if one does not deny that the crime has happened still one cannot feel that it is wrong. Loyalty is involved. 4. **English and French National Identity** Page 15: the most important one **Introduction:** The English and the French being both imperial people have common features in national identity like the missionary sense of themselves, but due to a different experience of empire and contrasting domestic histories -- evolutionary in the English case, revolutionary in that of the French leads to different self-conceptions and even different national identities. **More intense sense of nationhood and a stronger national consciousness among the French than among the English.** 1. **History and identity** **English-French:** different attitude to their history. **For the English:** despite the cultivation of 'heritage' and the celebration of 'Olde England', the past is past; it has done its work; rather, it's an assumption of a continuity so seamless that the past dissolves into the present. Continuity knits the past to the present -- a perception of continuity that affects national identity: - In England "'have maintained the threads between past and present we do not, like some younger states, have to go hunting for our own personalities. We do not have to set about the deliberate manufacture of a national consciousness, or to strain ourselves, like the Irish, in order to create a 'nationalism' out of the broken fragments of tradition, out of the ruins of a tragic past". **For the French:** suffered from precisely those violent ruptures and abrupt discontinuities that it had been England's good fortune to avoid. After the seventeenth century Civil War, the English recovered continuity, healed; The French by contrast, 'after the cataclysm of 1789, didn't heal -- the result was a permanent war between 'Tradition' and 'Reason' in French society. The turbulence of recent French history means that the past remains alive and present in contrast with the complacent view of English history. **Purpose of the text:** how the experience of defeat has colored French perceptions of national identity and shaped the character of its nationalism. This becomes clearer in a comparison with England and how French and English share much features. **'Union':** From the time of the Norman Conquest of 1066 to the break with Rome under Henry VIII in 1534, the French and the English had a common history. Even the bitter conflicts between French and English, such as the Hundred Years' War of the 14^th^-15^th^ centuries, had the appearance of family quarrels, in which rival kings fought for the joint supremacy of France and England. **'The Break':** **The Protestant Reformation and the loss of English power in France drew clearer lines between French and English developments.** Anglo-French patrimony that united them but, as great powers, competition and conflict for world domination. With the removal of the Dutch challenge at the end of the seventeenth century, the stage was set for an epic confrontation between the established power of France and the rising power of England. **'The Contrasts':** The line between English -- and British -- Protestantism and French Catholicism. Another contrast was between free, maritime, commercial and Protestant nations, such as the English and the Dutch, and the despotic, continental, Catholic powers, hostile to trade, such as the Spanish and the French = emerging competition between France and England. **Note:** imperial factor and imperial rivalry, in the making of English national identity. **18^th^ century:** rivalry with the English begun to make its mark on French self-conceptions. Ressentiment is a great factor in the growth of European nationalism; and nowhere was it more keenly felt than in this century France in the face of the rising power of England. Conclusion: The making of French national identity, just like the making of English national identity, has to be seen at least in part as a product of imperial ambitions and imperial rule. What separated them, what produced the contrasting character of their sense of nationhood, were the striking differences in outcome. The different ways in which the English and French came to conceive themselves as a nation. 2. **Imperial Nations** Between 18^th^ and 20^th^ centuries, the English and the French shared the struggle for the mastery of Europe and the world. In the early period the wealthy state created under the 'Sun King' Louis XIV appeared likely to emerge as the eventual winner. Bourbons sat on the throne not just in France but in Spain and several of the Italian states. French was the language of the educated classes all over Europe; French culture the culture to admire and imitate. As a result of the Seven Years War (1756--63), the French were largely driven out of North America, the Caribbean and India. Britain set itself on the road to world power. The French got their revenge by aiding the American colonists against British rule, and later Napoleon spectacularly renewed French imperial ambitions. Once more, French hopes were thwarted by defeats in the battles of Trafalgar (1805) and Waterloo (1815), allowing further territorial gains by Britain. Other rivals had already succumbed to Napoleon, who thereby aided Britain's rise to be 'the first modern superpower'. French intervention in Vietnam in 1858 on the side of Catholic missionaries led to increasing French involvement and imperial ambitions in the region. These were substantial gains, and France was undoubtedly the 2^nd^ imperial power in the 19^th^ century. 2^nd^ is not good enough. Once more it was their old enemy, the English/British, who took the lead, expanding into every corner of the world. The French, routed by the Prussians in 1871 and with no hope of avenging the defeat in Europe itself, sought to compensate themselves by gaining glory in the great spaces of Africa, but British diplomacy and military power ensured that the French remained shut up in the northwestern corner of Africa. The contrast with Britain could scarcely be greater. Britain consolidated its rule in India and in south Asia. It ousted France in the Caribbean, leaving it with Martinique and a few other islands. It became the dominant power in Africa. British Empire at the height of its power -- just after the First World War -- occupied nearly a quarter of the world's land surface and included a quarter of the world's population and the worldwide dominance of Britain's 'informal empire', in manufacturing, trade and finance. In the mid-19^th^ century Britain accounted for more than half the world's trade in manufactured goods. How could all of this not be galling to Gallic pride, in the light of France's own great past as the leader of Europe? Repeatedly frustrated by Britain in the competition for world power, the French were led again and again to reflect on the reasons for their failure. Imperial failure led to crisis of anguished national soul-searching. What was it about France that had brought it to this pass? The dissolution of empire was also contrasting -- while British withdraw from their empire almost peacefully and quickly, the same didn't happen with the French, which turned the French society divided and leading to the collapse of the Fourth Republic and the real prospect of civil war. 3. **Imperial Legacies** **Introduction:** The pattern of race relations in the respective countries as a result of their policies towards the subject peoples of their empires -- contrasting attitude to nationhood and national identity. The policies adopted during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars, of exporting French ideas, culture to the people of Europe and in the French Colonies. The French had as missionary a purpose as the English, indeed perhaps more so -- **civilizing mission**. Conservatives stressed Catholicism and the need to convert the heathen to Christianity. Liberals and radicals -- those that were not hostile to empire in the first place -- played up Reason, Science and Progress -- the hallmarks of the secular French Enlightenment. **Goal:** producing French citizens, as alike the citizens of France. The civic republicanism of the French Revolution, made into something like an official ideology. **Post-imperial period:** with the arrival of millions of non-European former subjects into the home country as immigrants should conform to the basic model of secular republican citizenship. Extreme right-wing groups fanned the flames of French nationalism, predicting the loss of French national identity under the waves of immigrants. In the face of an intolerant conception of French republican identity they drew upon French traditions of equality and individual freedom which proclaimed respect for the equal rights of all. **Question:** Is the republican inheritance of the French Revolution a clear and sufficient guide to French identity, or has it, as some claim, stifled awareness of alternatives from within its own past through its 'hegemonic' position. **Britain:** Such debates about national identity have also been stimulated in Britain, and especially in England, by the onset of mass immigration from former colonies in the period after 1945, but unlike the French, the English have little tradition of reflection on nationalism and national identity. However, Threats of the 'break-up of Britain', coupled with the pull of the European Union and fundamental uncertainty about where England stands in relation to the United States, have precipitated an urgent debate about English national identity that makes the earlier period of pluralism seem remote. English politicians have come to stress a tougher policy towards immigrants, and to define a stronger sense of Englishness (or Britishness) to which immigrants must conform. **French vs British:** A policy of creeping assimilation seems to be in the making, shown to striking effect by the recent decision to make newly naturalized British citizens take a 'citizenship oath': a declaration of their commitment to the nation that is clearly designed to indicate a stricter conformity to cultural norms. But still there is nothing in Britain as radical as the banning of headscarves among Muslim girls in French public schools, and the attendant attack on other symbols that offend against the secular republicanism that is the official definition of French national identity. Here as before, a strong sense of national identity in France, compared with a weak one in England, have produced different outcomes. The French, many of them at least, think they know who they are; the English are still searching. The French think they have a model of citizenship and belonging to which all must conform; the English are alarmed at the pluralism they have so far encouraged, but find it difficult to define the model of English or British identity to which they might expect people to conform. 4. **Threats to nationhood: France and England** **Introduction:** French imperialism, as much as English/British imperialism, has to be related to its domestic history. **The English** can congratulate themselves on an orderly evolution, at least since the seventeenth century. Their revolution is far enough back in time to be decently buried. The 'whig interpretation' of their history, which became the national myth, stresses progress through continuity and gradual change, rather than abrupt shifts and revolutionary convulsions. Despite the disruptions of the industrial revolution, despite the wholesale replacement of a rural by an urban way of life, despite the rise to global dominance and its subsequent demise, there was a sufficient approximation to reality in the whig interpretation of English developments to make the English look complacently on themselves and their history, especially as compared with the French. Such complacency, such an impression of orderliness in their affairs, did not encourage English introspection. **The French Revolution of 1789** created fissures that, even if they have now healed, bitterly divided French society throughout the 19^th^ and for much of the 20^th^ centuries. The unifying effects of suffering, it was the very horror of that war, and the example of the thousands of men who sacrificed their lives for the nation, that helped to reconcile the various parties and gave the Third Republic a new lease of life. But traditional divisions revived in the 1930s, with violent clashes between communist and fascist parties. Such episodes in the life of a nation have their inevitable consequences -- they forced upon the political class in France a constant process of reflection on the national character and purpose. This process begun with the 1789 Revolution. Marx once wrote that 'France is the only country of the ''idea''; that is to say, the idea it has of itself'. The continuing stream of works on the 'idea' or 'destiny' of France is powerful testimony to the continuing vitality of that tradition. **Conclusion: English case** -- The creators first of an 'inner empire' -- the UK of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland -- and later of a second 'outer empire' -- their vast empire overseas -- the English developed a sense of 'missionary nationalism' that gave them an identity and a role in the world, as the carriers of particular 'missions': Protestantism, parliamentary liberties, free trade, the rule of law. Such an identity carried with it suppression of, or better yet indifference to nationalism, as that ideology came to be conventionally expressed in its nineteenth century forms. The result is a conspicuous absence in the English case of any sustained tradition of reflection on English nationalism and English national identity. **France** too is an imperial nation. Like the English, they too built up an 'inner empire', starting with the conquest of the independent territories. France too is an imperial nation. Like the English, they too built up an 'inner empire', starting with the conquest of the independent territories. Like the English, indeed as their principal rivals, they too built up a second 'outer empire', a large overseas empire, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. And like the English, they too saw themselves as the carriers of a mission (of civilizing), the mission to carry the torch of the Enlightenment. But, unlike the English, the French developed a strong sense of nationalism and national identity. The difference has to do with the difference in histories. **The English and the French differed as imperial nations**: compared with the internal development of the English, modern French history was punctuated by conflicts and crises that repeatedly put whole classes at war with each other. The result of both these experiences was to create a long and fertile tradition of national self-reflection in France -- something absent in the English case. 5. **The Lion and the Unicorn** **Main theme:** National characteristics/traits of England\~ **1º the privateness of English life:** The liberty of the individual is still believed in, almost as in the 19^th^ century. **2º the gentleness of the English civilization** is perhaps its most marked characteristic: English **hatred of war and militarism**; The mass of the people are without military knowledge or tradition, and their attitude towards war is invariably defensive. **3º** the **respect for constitutionalism** and legality **4º insularity** of English **5^º^ lack of artistic ability** **6º** **lack of philosophical faculty**, the absence in nearly all Englishmen of any need for an ordered system of thought or even for the use of logic. **7º** its **emotional unity**, the tendency of nearly all its inhabitants to feel alike and act together in moments of supreme crisis -- the sense of national unity is a substitute for a "world-view" (sense of national solidarity) **8º** Vein of **political ignorance** runs right through English official life - Problem of British capitalism to actually face the 2^nd^ World War and why socialism is better and a need (definition of fascism as well) - How war will prove the rottenness of capitalism and the need of socialism - Need of revolution: What is wanted is a conscious open revolt by ordinary people against inefficiency, class privilege and the rule of the old; break the grip of the monied class as a whole - 'We cannot establish anything that a Western nation would regard as Socialism without defeating Hitler -- that means that there will have to arise something that has never yet existed in England, a Socialist movement' (page 22-3) My ideas: - **missionary sense:** with the Irish, colonizers (poem: Edmund Spencer); New Jerusalem - **superiority:** as colonizers, but in receiving refugees from the war - **hatred for war:** glorious revolution and critiques of the French revolution + in the context of the revolutions of 1848, England having a peaceful one - **insularity:** poem about the spread of the ideals of French revolution - **duty, pride, patriotism:** Gareth Southgate, 'Dear England'