In whatever shape England emerges from the war […] The intellectuals who hope to see it Russianized or Germanized will be disappointed. The gentleness, the hypocrisy, the thoughtlessness, the reverence for law and the hatred of uniforms will remain, along with the suet puddings and the misty skies. It needs some very great disaster, such as prolonged subjugation by a foreign enemy, to destroy a national culture
– George Orwell in The Lion and the Unicorn
But we live further from Orwell than Orwell from Bismarck. The current rulers of England are keen on uniforms, inspectors, permits and controls. (In 48 hours: “Ports and airports to get to discipline young offenders: Home secretary considers community work uniform.” The replacement for the Child Support Agency [not authoritarian enough], “will wield extra powers to punish parents who fail to pay, including evening curfews to prevent fathers going out after work, and having their passports confiscated to stop them taking foreign holidays, and even the threat of prosecution and prison”.) Law is treated with contempt if it gets in the way of the state’s priorities. (Last week the Home Office revealed its ideas for Serious Crime Prevention Orders, to be used to control the activities – such as telephone, travel, banking or internet use – of “known criminals” without the evidence necessary for an actual criminal prosecution.) The prohibition of suet puddings has yet to be ‘put out to public consultation’ (which is how we would know the matter had been determined). But it can only be a matter of time.
I saw Terry Gilliam’s Brazil again last night. I had not for a long while. Seen just now, its aptness to New Britain is shocking. More surprising, I think than the utter submergence of Orwell’s gentle, un-Prussian England. We knew, in petto, we had lost that.
How long before we see official signs pronouncing “Suspicion breeds confidence” and “Help the Ministry of Information help you”? Eh?
Well, socialism is the necessary precursor for Fascism, especially the German kind. People need to get used to the Socialist before you tack on the National. Once people get used to depending on the State for nearly everything you are only one overly creative tailor away from serious trouble.
Orwell didn’t live to see the terrible effect of TV on the population. The state’s dominant and hugely rich broadcasting department has provided the propaganda and trashy entertainment that makes the current authoritarian type of government all the more possible.
Orwell had a strange fixation with suet.
Brazil is indeed a tremendous film. I have watched half a dozen times and it never fails to shock or engross in a different way. I wonder how many people who watch it “get” the satire on totalitarianism? I hope most of them do.
I am not sure about the issue of uniformed border guards, Guy. My problem with this government is its shallow gesture politics in having us believe that it is somehow controlling the borders by putting folk in uniform.
What a strange brew of authortarianism and anarchy they have concocted.
How long do you think it will be before it all gets too much and we can start a popular uprising? Or is the poulation to apathetic/conditioned/coddled/comfortable/stupid (select which ever one is most appropriate) to have a revolution?
“Can we do it tomorrow, I’m watching ‘Flog A Vet In The Country For Cash And Get Me Out Of Here’?”
Orwell was right in a way. It does take a prolonged subjugation to destroy a national culture. How long has British culture been under attack from the politically correct establishment, conducting a civil war by stealth against its own people?
When it reaches the stage that a shopkeeper who sells a pound of bananas is a criminal, then your national culture is pretty well fucked.
Concerning destruction of British national culture, John K writes:
I nominate that as Samizdata quote of the week. [And this is despite my general aversion to such strong language.]
Best regards
wow
The current rulers of England are keen on uniforms, inspectors, permits and controls.
And that is the nub of it isn’t it? NuLab decided almost before it wads formed that there wasn’t a social problem that it couldn’t legislate against. And that is why we have “Street Wardens” fining people for chewing gum (although God alone knows how they’d cope with an armed rape or a bank-robber with a shooter).
Ever read Fatherland by Robert Harris? The novel is set in a 1965 where Germany won the war. The protaganist is a gestapo officer who, during a routine murder investigation, stumbles on rather more than he should…
The point at which our hero realizes that the state he works for is rotten to the core is when he visits his ex-wife, her new husband and his son. On leaving he realizes that the only creature in that house not wearing a uniform was the dog.
Tomorrow belongs to NuLab. There is almost no alternative. The Lib Dems are nonsense and Dave Cameron’s Tories have neutered themselves.
The only alternative is armed insurrection.
“Here is a receipt for your husband…and here is a receipt for your receipt…”.
Nigel Kneale of Quatermass fame was also on the button when he created The Sex Olympics – set in a house wired with cameras so an audience could observe how the people isolated therein begin to tear at each other…in the name of idle entertainment. Absolutely bang on.
I have read Fatherland (The woeful HBO attempt should be avoided). Alongside this can go IMHO the Berlin Noir trilogy (set before, during and after WWII) and The Difference Engine, which alters history as if Babbage DID get his machine working and we entered the data processing age 150 years early using steam and spinning brass wheels.
All interesting in terms of the State, information, conformity.
The British have tended to rely (without really knowing that we rely) on culture to limit the state and to do various other things.
Even back in the 1930’s the American Paul Elmor Moore (spelling alert) noted that there was little defence of freedom on principle in Britian.
Britian was nicer country than the United States (in many ways), but even in the United States of F.D.R. there were more opposition voices – and more opposition on principle that in Britian.
The British had what freedom they had by habit – and whilst that may be very nice, habits can change (without most people knowing what the changes will lead to).
The “establisment” relied too much on people being from a “good background” or (if they were not) at least having nice manners and dressing well (as much as they could within their income).
The trouble was that people could be from good familes, and speak nicely (when they wanted to) and dress with quiet style – and be total scum bags (Cambridge spies, and a whole legion of subversives in many walks of live).
Still at least before the 1960’s people had to pretend to be traditional British types (even if they despised every thing Britain stood for) – but then there was a cultural revolution of sorts (it only started then it has gone further with each passing year).
These days a family of neatly dressed father and mother and two to three children sitting round the dining table eating their suet pudding is a rather rare thing.
This cultural revolution was not really resisted in Britain – because most people had no idea that their would be political consequences (most people in Britian not thinking in terms of priniples at all).
It is like many things (such as the decline of the Churches) there was little resistance in Britian because such things were matters of HABIT not PRINCIPLE.
Such things as “family values” were always a matter of conflict in the United States (the rate of birth outside marriage was always higher than in Britian) – but in Britian such things as the family were taken for granted and to defend them was taken to be in bad taste (a vulgar matter for silly old women).
Religion (and everything else) was considered in much the same light.
Counties that went back to Alfred the Great – Ted Heath had no trouble smashing those up in the 1970’s.
Ancient coinage – again Wilson and Heath had no trouble.
And on and on.
The basic point is that in Britain nothing strong exists between the individual and the state.
Nothing that will resist.
Certainly the state does not achieve its objectives – and we are moving towards a mixture of tyranny and anarchy.
But many nations have gone through that.
As only atomised individuals exist (no strong social insitutions outside the state) resistance is very difficult – even if the overgrown government is a sick joke.
All our political leaders go along the trend (although a few M.P.s have their doubts – and not all of the Conserivate, remember Frank Field).
David Cameron makes even George Bush look good.