Watching the English

by Kate Fox

  So, when you read about surveys showing that around 70 per cent of us think that our national identity is or should be based on ‘Christian values’, it’s worth remembering that what many of the respondents mean by this has little or nothing to do with Christ, God, the Church or religion. Indeed, our current deputy prime minister, the Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, is an avowed non-believer who nonetheless says that ‘Christian values’ are ‘central’ to his party’s policies.

  The clever researchers at MORI have done at least one survey asking their ‘religion’ questions in a way that is better suited to the woolly beliefs and noncommittal attitudes of the English, offering the following options:

  ‘I am a practising member of an organised religion’: only 18 per cent of us tick this one, and that includes all the Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and so on, who really are practising.

  ‘I am a non-practising member of an organised religion’: a bit like ticking the ‘C of E’ box, then; 25 per cent of us go for this undemanding option.

  ‘I am spiritually inclined but don’t really ‘belong’ to an organised religion’: vague enough to appeal to 24 per cent of us – which presumably covers some of the 31 per cent who believe in astrology, the 38 per cent who believe in ghosts, the 42 per cent who believe in telepathy, the 40 per cent who believe in guardian angels, etc., etc.

  ‘I am agnostic (not sure if there’s a God)’: requires too much thought, only 14 per cent.

  ‘I am atheist (convinced there is no God)’: ditto, and too decisive, only 12 per cent.

  ‘None of these’: well, they’d covered pretty much every possibility, just seven per cent.

  ‘Don’t know’: with so many ambivalent, evasive options on offer, it would be churlish not to choose one, only one per cent.

  So although only 12 per cent, at the last count, will go so far as to call themselves atheists, I think that the former Archbishop’s notion of a prevailing ‘tacit atheism’ among the English is fairly accurate. If we were real atheists, he and his Church would have something to get their teeth into, someone to argue with. As it is, we just don’t care enough.118

  We are not only indifferent but, worse (from the Church’s point of view), we are politely indifferent, tolerantly indifferent, benignly indifferent. We have no actual objection to God. If pushed, we even accept that He might exist – or that Something might exist, and we might as well call it God, if only for the sake of peace and quiet. God is all very well, in His place, which is in a church. When we are in His house – at weddings and funerals – we make all the right polite noises, as one does in people’s houses, although we find the earnestness of it all faintly ridiculous and a bit uncomfortable. Otherwise, He impinges very little on our lives or thoughts. Other people are very welcome to worship Him if they choose – it’s a free country – but this is a private matter, and they should keep it to themselves and not bore or embarrass the rest of us by making an unnecessary fuss about it. (There is nothing the English hate more than a fuss.)

  In many other countries – America, for example – politicians and other prominent public figures feel obliged to demonstrate their devoutness and invoke their deity at every opportunity. Here, they must do the exact opposite. Even to mention one’s faith would be very bad form. The former prime minister Tony Blair was known to be a devout Christian, an affliction we tolerated in our usual grudgingly courteous fashion, but only because he had the good sense to keep extremely quiet about it – and was apparently under strict instructions from his spin-doctors never to use ‘the G-word’. (His press spokesman once famously told reporters, ‘We don’t do God.’) Despite this precaution, he was caricatured in Private Eye as a pompous and self-righteous country vicar, and his speeches and pronouncements were scrutinised for any sign of unseemly piety, the slightest hint of which was immediately pounced upon and ridiculed. (Here it is worth reminding ourselves again that satire is what the English have instead of revolutions and uprisings.) When it was alleged that Mr Blair and President Bush had actually prayed together during his visit to the White House, the media had a field day, and Blair is still denying that any such inappropriate act took place.

  Our benign indifference remains benign only so long as the religious, of any persuasion, stay in their place and refrain from discomforting the non-practising, spiritually neutral majority with embarrassing or tedious displays of religious zeal. And any use of the G-word, unless obviously ironic or just a figure of speech (God forbid, God knows, Godforsaken, etc.) counts as an improper display. Earnestness of any kind makes us squirm; religious earnestness makes us deeply suspicious and decidedly twitchy.

  Another Blair example illustrates these unwritten rules: when some representatives of the Salvation Army came to visit Mr Blair, they asked to end the meeting with a prayer. Blair’s aides were horrified at the suggestion, and when Blair insisted, one of them hissed, in disgust, ‘For God’s sake!’ According to the rules of Englishness, this gritted-teeth protest was probably the only ‘correct’ use of the G-word in the entire meeting. It is hardly surprising that Blair waited until he was safely out of office before converting to Catholicism. He himself admitted, in 2007, that he was wary of talking about his Christian faith while still in office in case he was labelled a ‘nutter’. We will tolerate a C of E prime minister, providing he is suitably discreet about his faith, as the Anglican Church barely counts as religion. Catholicism, however, is known to require actual religious beliefs – with no polite fudging or sidestepping – and a prime minister with such explicit and unambiguous convictions would be frightfully embarrassing. We knew perfectly well that Blair had been a ‘closet’ Catholic all along, of course, but openly declaring this is a different matter. There are plenty of openly gay politicians in our Parliament, but when it comes to religion, the unspoken rule is not entirely unlike the former ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy on homosexuality in the US military.

  HATCHINGS, MATCHINGS AND DISPATCHINGS

  So much for religion.119 But what about those rites of passage that still often take place in churches, or involve vaguely religious ceremonies of some sort, if only by default or for the sake of convenience? The term ‘rites de passage’ was coined in 1908 by the anthropologist Arnold van Gennep, who defined them as ‘rites which accompany every change of place, state, social position and age’. Van Gennep had presumably noticed that while all animals are born, reach maturity, reproduce and die, only humans seem to feel the need to make an almighty song-and-dance over each of these life-cycle transitions – and quite a few calendrical ones as well120 – surrounding them with elaborate rituals and investing every biological and seasonal change with deep social significance. Other animals also struggle for dominance and status within their herd or other social group, and form special bonds and alliances with selected peers. Again, humans make a big production number out of such matters, marking every rise in rank or affiliation to a sub-group with yet more rites and rituals and ceremonies. (Well, van Gennep didn’t actually mention animals, and he certainly didn’t make jokes about song-and-dance numbers, but he was French and rather earnest.)

  There is nothing peculiarly English, then, about rites of passage. Every human society has these transitional rituals, and although the details and emphasis vary from one culture to another, van Gennep showed that these rites always have roughly the same basic structure, involving three stages or elements: separation (pre-liminal), marginality/transition (liminal) and re-incorporation (post-liminal).

  Even in their details and emphasis, most English rites of passage are broadly similar to those of many other modern Western cultures: our babies are christened in white and have godparents; our brides also wear white and have bridesmaids and honeymoons; we wear black at funerals; we exchange gifts at Christmas – and so on. There is not much about the basic formula and sequence of events at, say, a typical English wedding or funeral that would seem particularly strange or unfamiliar to an American, Canadian, Australian or European visitor.

&nb
sp; Ambivalence Rules

  So what, if anything, is distinctively English about English rites of passage? What, if anything, might seem odd or different to a visitor or immigrant from even a closely related modern Western culture? I started by taking the rather obvious step of asking them. ‘It’s not the customs or traditions,’ said a perceptive American informant, who had herself participated in weddings (one as bride, one as mother-of) on both sides of the Atlantic. ‘You’re right, they’re pretty much the same. It’s more the attitude people have, something about their whole manner. It’s hard to describe, but the English just don’t seem to participate fully in a wedding the way we do – they always seem a bit, I don’t know, a bit detached, kind of cynical but awkward at the same time – just not really into it, somehow.’ Another transatlantic informant told me, ‘I’d always thought the English were supposed to be good at ritual – you know, pomp and ceremony and all that. And you are: there’s no one better when it comes to the really big public occasion – royal weddings, state funerals, that kind of thing; but when you go to ordinary private weddings and so on everyone just seems so . . . uncomfortable and stiff and stilted. Or they get completely drunk and stupid. There doesn’t seem to be much in between.’

  The problem is that rites of passage are by definition social occasions, involving a sustained period of obligatory interaction with other humans – and, worse, many are social occasions at which ‘private’ family matters (pair-bonding, bereavement, transition to adulthood) become ‘public’. On top of all that, one is expected to express a bit of emotion. Not much, admittedly: the English do not go in for extravagant weeping and wailing at funerals, frenzied joy at weddings, or excessively gooey sentimentality at christenings; but even the minimal, token display of feeling that is customary at English rites of passage can be an ordeal for many of us.

  (Most of us cannot even stomach ‘the peace’ – a ritual introduced into ordinary church services by well-meaning vicars, which merely requires us to shake hands with the person next to us and mumble, ‘Peace be with you.’

  ‘Everyone I’ve ever met hates “the peace”,’ said one informant. ‘It sends shivers up my spine just thinking about it.’)

  Life-cycle transitional rites can be tense affairs in other countries as well, of course. The events marked by rites of passage often involve major transformations, which may be a source of considerable anxiety and fear. Even events regarded as positive transitions, occasions for celebration – such as christenings, coming-of-age or graduation ceremonies, engagement-parties and weddings – can be highly stressful. The passage from one social state to another is a difficult business, and it is no accident that such events, in most cultures, almost invariably involve the consumption of significant quantities of alcohol.

  But the English do seem to find these transitional rites particularly challenging, and I think that our uneasiness reflects a curious ambivalence in our attitude towards ritual. We have an intense need for the rules and formalities of ritual, but at the same time we find these ceremonies acutely embarrassing and uncomfortable. As with dress, we are at our best when we are ‘in uniform’ – at those grand-scale royal and state rituals when every step is choreographed and every word scripted, leaving no room for uncertainty or inept social improvisation. The participants may not enjoy these occasions, but at least they know what to do and say. I pointed out in Dress Codes (page 385) that although the English do not like formality, and resent being dictated to by prim little rules and stuffy regulations, we lack the natural grace and social ease to cope with informality.

  The rituals involved in private weddings, funerals and other ‘passages’ are just formal enough to make us feel stiff and resentful, but also informal enough to expose our social dis-ease. The formal pieties and platitudes are too affectedly earnest, too contrived and, in many cases, too embarrassingly religious, making us squirm and tug at our collars and shuffle our feet. But the informal bits where we are left to our own devices are even more awkward. Our difficulties at weddings and other transformational rites are essentially the same as those of a ‘normal’ English social encounter – those painfully inept introductions and greetings where nobody knows quite what to say or what they should do with their hands – only here our problems are magnified by the importance of the occasion. We feel we should try to say something suitably profound to a bride, proud parent, widow or graduate, without sounding pompous or sentimental, or resorting to worn-out clichés, and that we should arrange our features into a suitably pleased or downcast expression, again without overdoing either joy or grief. And we still don’t know what to do with our hands, or whether or not to hug or kiss, resulting in the usual clumsy, tentative handshakes, stiffly self-conscious embraces and awkward bumping of cheeks (or, at weddings and christenings, bumping of hat-brims).

  Hatching Rules

  Only around a quarter of the English have their babies christened. This perhaps tells us more about English indifference to religion than about our attitude to children, but about a third of us do get married in church, and a similar number end up having a Christian funeral of some sort, so the relative unpopularity of christenings may reflect a certain cultural apathy towards children as well. It is not as though those who do not go in for christenings compensate with some other kind of momentous celebration to welcome the new arrival.121 The birth of a child is a positive event, certainly, but the English do not make nearly as much of a big social fuss about it as most other cultures. The proud new father may buy a few rounds of drinks for his mates in the pub (a custom curiously known as ‘wetting the baby’s head’, although the baby is not present, which is probably just as well), but then the English will happily seize upon almost any excuse for a celebratory drink or six. The child is not even the subject of conversation for very long: once the father has been subjected to a bit of good-natured ribbing, and a brief moaning ritual about the curtailment of freedom, sleepless nights, loss of libido and general noise and mess associated with babies, the topic is regarded as pretty much exhausted, and the head-wetters resume their normal pub-talk.

  Grandparents, other close relatives and the mother’s female friends may take more of a genuine interest in the infant, but this is largely a matter of informal private visits rather than any big social rites of passage. The American custom of a ‘baby shower’ for the new mother is sometimes adopted, but has not really caught on here to the same degree, and in any case usually takes place before the birth, with no actual baby involved. Christenings tend to be relatively small and quiet affairs122; and even at christenings, the baby is only the focus of attention for a very brief period – the English as a rule do not go in for too much excited goo-ing and coo-ing over infants. In some cases (enough for Debrett’s to comment and frown upon the practice) christenings are merely an excuse for social-climbing parents to secure ‘posh’, rich or influential godparents for their child – known as ‘trophy godparents’.

  Please don’t misunderstand me. I am not suggesting that individual English parents do not love and cherish their children. They clearly do, and they have the same natural parental instincts as any other humans. It is just that as a culture we do not seem to value children as highly as other cultures do. We love them as individuals, but we do not ritually welcome them into the social world with the same degree of enthusiasm. It is often said that the English care more about their animals than their children. This is an unfair exaggeration, but remember that our National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children was not founded until some sixty years after the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which gives some indication of the cultural order of priorities.

  Kid-talk and the One-downmanship Rules

  English parents are as proud of their children as parents in any other culture, but you would never know this from the way we talk about them. The modesty rules not only forbid boasting about one’s offspring, but also specifically prescribe mock-denigration of them. Even the proudest and most doting of En
glish parents must roll their eyes, sigh heavily, and moan to each other about how noisy, tiresome, lazy, hopeless and impossible their children are. At a party, I heard one mother try to pay another a compliment: ‘I hear your Peter’s doing ten GCSEs – he must be terribly clever . . .’ This was deflected with a snorting laugh and a disparaging complaint: ‘Well, he’ll have to be, as he certainly never seems to do any work – just plays those mindless computer games and listens to that Godawful music . . .’ To which the first mother replied, ‘Oh, don’t tell me – Sam’s bound to fail all his: the only thing he’s any good at is skateboarding, and they don’t have A levels in that, as I keep telling him, not that he takes a blind bit of notice of anything I say, of course . . .’ The children in question might have been academic paragons, and both mothers perfectly aware of this – indeed, the lack of any real anxiety in their tones suggested that they were confidently expecting good results – but it would have been bad manners to say so.

  The correct tone to adopt when talking about your children is a kind of detached, cynical, humorous resignation – as though you are moderately fond of them but nonetheless find them a bit of a bore and a nuisance. There are parents who break these unwritten rules, who show off and brag about their offspring’s virtues and achievements, or gush sentimentally over them, but such behaviour is frowned upon as affected and pretentious, and such parents usually find themselves shunned and subtly excluded. Among family and close friends, English parents may express their real feelings about their children – whether bursting with love and pride or sick with worry – but among acquaintances at the school gates, or in other casual social chat, almost all of them assume the same air of mildly amused, critical detachment, and compete in bad-mouthing their hapless offspring.