Keep calm and carry on

Stereotypes about nations are dangerous things.  I read recently that national stereotypes exist for a reason.  Maybe, but they can breed prejudice – in the sense of “pre-judging” people or places based on a stereotype before you encounter them.

What of stereotypes about Britain?  I hope many of  my previous blogs have challenged some of those that might have been held by readers about my country.  I also hope what I’m about to say doesn’t reverse my efforts to paint what, I think, is a more realistic and up to date impression of my country.

I’ve been struck by how many times in the few days my country has been described as “foggy Albion”.  And recently, in Minsk, I’ve seen one particular slogan – “keep calm and carry on” – which has spread rapidly around the world and has become a “meme for Englishness” or British-ness.  (As I set out before, my state – the United Kingdom – has multi-identities, and is made up of more than one nation.)

I hadn’t realised that the original poster campaign was conceived just before the start of the Second World War, and the poster of the slogan “keep calm and carry on” was never actually displayed.  The authorities considered it a failure and pulped nearly all the posters.  So it’s a case of failed propaganda in one period becoming a symbolic success in another.

But is the slogan a true reflection of our nature?

There is a vein of evidence that suggests we value calmness under pressure.  We have lots of expressions for the importance of being “steady under fire” (as in the fire from guns of the enemy), to “hold firm” or “hold steady”, of “gritting our teeth” in the face of danger or difficulty, in other words of keeping quiet.  We tell each other not to “make a drama out of a crisis”.

We have a tradition, dating from the 19^th century, of keeping a “stiff upper lip”, of not expressing emotion but being reserved.  It was part of the cult of Victorian England, at the height of our imperial might, when the most manly thing to do was to keep control of one’s emotions.

The literature from the period has lots of examples.  I’ve previously quoted the poem “Invictus” in my blog about fate and free will which includes the lines “

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henry wrote the poem when he was recovering from the amputation of one leg and operations to save the other.

The work of Rudyard Kipling, who was the leading pro-imperial writer, was full of such ideas.  Perhaps his best known poem is “If”with its lines:

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

They are engraved above the players’ entrance to the centre court at the All England Tennis club, where the Wimbledon tennis championships are held.

Some foreigners agreed.  The American journalist and critic Alexander Woollcott wrote that “the English have an extraordinary ability for flying into a great calm“.  His father was British, so he may not have been the most objective.  Luigi Barzini, the Italian journalist, wrote in his study of other Europeans of “the imperturbability of the British”.  Like Woollcott, he was born in America, but unlike Woollcott, he travelled widely in the world.

As ever, the ancient Greeks had got there first.  They had a school of philosophy based on the control of emotions:  stoicism.  One of their thinkers divided mankind into four basic personality types or temperaments, one of which was “phlegmatic”.  Phlegmatic people were supposed to be thoughtful, reasonable, calm, steadfast, if a bit slow.

During the Second World War, we faced some difficult moments when we needed resolve and “grit”.  The future looked very bleak from the late summer of 1940, after Germany had defeated so many European countries and looked set to invade Britain.  Even after the invasion of the Soviet Union, we still faced major problems especially attacks on our shipping by German submarines.

Thankfully, we had a Prime Minister who had resolve and grit and was determined to lead us to victory.  Under Churchill, the whole of British society was mobilised to contribute to the war effort.  We had other campaigns that exhorted us to “make do and mend” and “dig for victory!”

That’s history – what about now?  Are Britons – or the English – as calm as they used to be?

Anyone who was in Britain 17 years ago at the time of the death of Princess Diana wouldn’t have thought we were so phlegmatic.  There was an outpouring of emotion that was surprising even to ourselves, although the circumstances of her death were particularly tragic.

Nowadays there are modes of behaviour from the “celebrity” world, that transcend national boundaries.  At public spectacles, like sporting or “show business” events, participants tend towards more extravagant expressions of emotion.  Perhaps that is the pressure from television and other media as they need close-ups of winners and losers.  Their tears or wild joy make for better pictures.

Our more emotional age may be a result of the social changes that took place in the 1960s, when teenage culture became more mainstream and young people were allowed to express themselves more freely.  As I noted in a recent blog, there seems to me to be little difference between the youth of Britain and Belarus.  But I think I could have said the same for young people I’ve met in France or Poland – two countries I’ve visited this year.

In the age of rapid communication, fashions also spread much more rapidly.  But I don’t know if there are lasting influences, that affect “character” and how we interact with each other.

I think there are a few stereotypes about Britain that hold true.  We still drink a lot of tea.  We still live in a damp and generally mild climate, and even if we don’t have as many fogs or mists as we used to, the climate seems to temper our behaviour.

And the wide spread use of the “keep calm and carry on” slogan first in Britain, and then taken up by others around the world, suggests we are still telling ourselves – and others – to stay calm.  It must be important to us.