Simple Englishness

It is a bit of a cliche to like English things. (Could say British, but not sure... not sure...) When I was a child, I thought I was just following the crowd I grew up in, and was gullible and easily influenced. Just liking what everyone else liked.

I began to realise I had reason for liking it when I read The Lord of the Rings, but still thought I might even like that story because others I knew did. I did have concrete things I liked about English culture, but that wasn't enough to convince me there was reason to like it.

Of course, the explanation for it could just be aesthetic, but I do think I like in Englishness something different than other people do, after hearing them describe what they see in it. Not entirely different, but somewhat. (The future will tell.)

It may be in the last some years that I really figured out that English culture is different fundamentally from continental European. English philosophy was, I am told, different from continental philosophy. The continental philosophers are the ones who came up with liberal theology and Marxism, postmodernism, deconstructionism. Eventually continental philosophy seeped into English thinking and then American thinking (which in some ways might be a bit late on the uptake, for which I'm glad).

Some folks think that the American experiment itself was a result of taking the English philosophy to its logical conclusions. England, for complex reasons including the monarchy, could not do this. the US went further than even England had, though to some extent lost some of that sweet Englishness I so like. But some of it is tidily wrapped up in culture and can't easily be transplanted.

For all that the US went further than England, though, Englishness seems chock full of common-sense which resulted in a very down-to-earth, simple, self-deprecating (in a good way) culture. I've beat it into my head that of course English culture can't be perfect, but I don't care if it is or isn't: it still seems to have so much of value that I love and insist on learning from.


It would be wonderful to do a study to find out if my conclusion on this is correct, but it's confirmed by others I currently trust for information on this sort of thing, and I gathered a lot over the years of Englishness and what-is-not-Englishness, so I'm pretty certain of it at the moment.

Looking back on my life and looking at myself now, I know I've shaped my life around this to some extent- whatever was really noble in English culture and thinking, I have tried to learn from. No decadence, no ridiculous idealism, no flowing romanticism like the French (désolée), but instead good, steadfast, humble Englishness.

(It's worth noting that the culture of lower classes in England is probably somewhat cut off and different from the 'elite' in every era, who also were more influenced by foreign things than those who didn't have time to worry about all that stuff.)