I am confused. It appears to this American (channel-surfing between PBS and the other networks) that there are two Britains: England and the UK.
Mark Shea is Senior Content Editor for Catholic Exchange. You may visit his website at www.mark-shea.com check out his blog, Catholic and Enjoying It!, or purchase his books and tapes here.
Two Nations
In the England I see on PBS, men and women move in stately procession and speak in iambic pentameter. Whether they are reading the London Times, debating questions of Truth and Justice in exquisitely refined tones on the floor of Parliament or accepting tea and crumpets from the manicured hand of an efficient servant while the sound of Handel's “Water Music” wafts across the garden at Midsummer Eve, these paragons of that island race remain what they are: English to the bone.
In contrast, the people of the UK seem to be dominated by some sort of tribal clique whose cultic practices include “moshing” (possibly related to the Canaanite deity “Chemosh”), squashing (a popular practice at soccer matches and Led Zeppelin concerts) and sloshing (a devotional practice especially popular in the pubs and keenly pursued by disaffected urban youth on the dole). For cuisine, citizens of the UK rely almost exclusively on fish and grease-sogged “chips” and never seem to have heard of fresh vegetables.
Also, in stark contrast to the urbane musings of English members of government, members of the UK Parliament seem to routinely indulge in shrill verbal fisticuffs and tawdry scandals which are reported, not in the Times as in England, but in the Daily Mail, next to the pictures of the two-headed children claiming to be Elvis's illegitimate spawn. In music, the people of the UK seem to have formed a special attachment to a screeching, incoherent punk style which is indistinguishable from the sound of 10,000 cats being fed slowly into the turbines of a 747 engine.
Inferiority/Superiority Complexes
In England, the buildings are made of stone and are forbidden by an ancient and royal decree from being newer than 1800. In the UK, people live in condos and vacation in New York.
In England, crime is virtually non-existent. That's because crime “simply isn't done.” It is, as they say, bad form. In the UK, punks and skinheads rant incoherently while 11-year-olds indulge in the grossest crimes and receive lavish media attention. In England, all the books are beautifully written and illustrated, all the artwork (which is found hanging in virtually every home of the realm) is impeccable and tastefully rendered. In the UK, the principal reading materials are newspapers which announce: “SHAME ON YOU CAMILLA: FOTOS OF ROYAL TRYST!”
The English are vastly superior to Americans in virtually every area that doesn't involve roping steers, stomping in manure, spitting in public, or acting like a yahoo. We make Wheel of Fortune; they make Hamlet. They build London Bridge; we build malls. They have the ancient mystery of Stonehenge; we have Golden Arches. They have St. Thomas More boldly defying Henry VIII; we have Britney Spears pitching a hissy fit.
But Americans don't feel this inferiority to the UK. Sure, we like certain UK heroes like Emma Peel and Dr. Who. But mostly we figure we're lucky to not have to put up with the rain and the crummy TV. In the UK they have dog obedience shows; in America, we have Star Trek films (starring Patrick Stewart, who is in exile from the UK for making an interesting television show). In America, we churn out brilliant television like Monk; in the UK they have Benny Hill. In America, the cars are cool; in the UK only James Bond has a cool car. Everyone else has teensy little matchboxes on wheels.
English vs. UKish
English romance is classier. Lovers perish from tragic misunderstanding, flinging themselves in wild grief over the prostrate form of the beloved and drinking poison. In the UK Sid Vicious and Nancy drown in vomit or stab each other or overdose on heroin or some such thing.
English war is classier. Bold admirals go down with the ship as pirates cackle gleefully. In the UK, wars are fought over rocks off the coast of Argentina noted mainly for their vast quantities of penguin guano.
But most intimidating for Americans, English is spoken perfectly in England (except of course among the ruddy and hearty denizens of London who charmingly drop their “aitches” with a Cockney zest). But even Cockneys would cringe in horror at the unlettered ruffians who swarm over American television every night. Compared to any subject of the crown, Dan Rather and Connie Chung have all the verbal finesse of squealing warthogs. You'll never see them introducing Masterpiece Theatre!
But in the UK the language is hard to follow. The words are clear enough. It's just the ideas they express that are incomprehensible. How, for example, is a bishop in the Church of England who denies the deity of Christ and the Resurrection a Christian, much less a bishop? In England, this would be coldly dismissed as “silly” with a shattering sniff more forceful than a thousand anathemas. But in the UK no one even notices the contradiction since language seems to be primarily a species of soothing noise rather than a mode of actual communication.
English Religion vs. UK Secularism
Which brings us to the last strange contrast. On the one hand, English religion is incredibly classy. Every church, resounding with awesome Baroque music, luminous with medieval stained-glass art, filled with the majestic sight of the liturgy in progress, is a thousand times classier than American churches thumping out the latest worship chorus and trying to figure out the blurry words on the overhead projector just as the Apostles commanded us to do. The quintessential English Christian is C.S. Lewis, who learned his art by simply immersing himself in the normal life of English Christendom, where all English children are conversant in Plato, Aristotle, Vergil, Dante, Aquinas, Hooker, Donne, Law and the other great minds of Western culture by the time they reach puberty.
On the other hand, we have the UK, where religion is the sole province of fuddled curates, old women with thousands of cats and Druids who contact UFOs on a regular basis. In the UK, the Christian religion is a stifling matter of tasteful prayers and studied politeness which obliges polished men and women to take off one's hat when the vicar comes for tea. It is useful in that it affords a good whipping boy for those moments when UK repression expresses itself in a royal divorce or a squalid pedophiliac scandal on the floor of Parliament (“This is what comes of trying to adhere to the tired mores of a patriarchal Church!” say the UK sociologists on National Public Radio). But, in fact, any talk of actual faith in Jesus Christ is greeted with the traditional UK response: “Good God, man! You don't mean to tell me you believe such preposterous nonsense?”
The Only Solution to the Riddle
So rather than the ancient liturgy that so dominates English religious life, citizens of the UK have instead created a complex liturgy of words which have “tion” suffixes. That is why UK newspapers are fond of discussing things like “The evolutionary socialization of the nationalisation of mechanisation” and so forth. Such polysyllabic terms hold for them the same soothing quality that Gregorian chant once had for their barbaric ancestors. And for those who do not derive deep comfort from these droning resonances of the Spirit of the Age, there is always the option of Druidism, Celtic neo-paganism and various Gaia rites plucked from the Spirit of Another Age before evil Christian influences uprooted the simple earth-affirming matriarchy that was Avalon.
So you see the problem. If my TV is right, apparently there are two Britains. And as an American committed to multiculturalism I can see only one solution to the riddle:
Tomorrow I will buy another television.
