The British are famous for elevated conversation, politeness, and refinement and for drunken vomit-splattered rants, battering foreign soccer fans to death, and a coarseness that defies verbal description. This report from the BBC is symptomatic of the problem, which I have always found puzzling. (And a problem on the receiving end of which I found myself at Oxford, when I was beaten rather badly — starting with having a bicycle crashed onto my head from behind, and followed by having my tie grabbed and then being kicked in the head and sides by 9 or 10 young men [Yobs} with booted feet — one day when coming out of one of the colleges in academic gown, apparently just for the fun of it.) I discussed the issue with some Portuguese and Dutch and American colleagues last night and none of us, it seemed, had a good explanation.
I don’t know, Tom. There was a recent event like that here in Las Vegas: http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2006/Apr-20-Thu-2006/news/6952163.html and it appears to be a mob activity. The event here seems to have followed several mobbing thefts by the same kids in local gas stations and mini-marts. There would be about ten kids running into the store, grabbing anything they could, and then running out. The latest was just running up to some gardener, beating him up, and then running off.
Like a pack of wolves, getting more dangerous each time they go on a hunt.
Just a thought.
Just Ken
kgregglv@cox.net
http://classicalliberalism.blogspot.com/
Tom,
I know exactly what you’re talking about. It’s a big puzzle. One suggestion I have comes in the form of a question: are the polite and refined Britons the same as the yobs? Or is this a class phenomenon?
Although I’m tempted to say the latter, in Britain the yobbish culture of drinking, loutishness and excessive casual sex has made strong inroads in all classes. It’s become a national culture in a way that it is not in Holland, Belgium or Germany. And those are three countries that are also known to like their beer and to have sex.
Again, it’s a puzzle, but not one that makes Britain much of a nicer place.
I think that this is one of those puzzles that arises from our assumptions and careless perceptions, rather than from facts of reality. First, the Brits aren’t a homogeneous bunch, nor are their beliefs, values, & behaviors. Second, I think that other peoples are at least as contradictory.
There’s nothing to say more on the first point. On the second, think of China, Russia, Africa, and U.S. — Chinese can be incredibly polite and concerned with preserving face, including yours, yet also unbelievably crude, pushy and rude. (If I had a nickel for every time a Beijinger spits in public or shoves his neighbor, I’d rival Bill gates.) Russians can be extremely hospitable and friendly and concerned with (of all things) others’ rights, yet also ruthlessly cutthroat, enough so to kill 20 million of their comrades for little reason other than Stalin rewarded them for it. Africans (at least Liberians and Guineans) can be the most welcoming people who will share their last bite of food with you…but also, if circumstances change, a fair number would apparently willingly cut your throat (literally) as in their recent brutal civil war. And Americans — well, they brought the world the Declaration of Independence AND the New Deal. ’nuff said?
What I found puzzling wasn’t quite like what the cases that Charles mentions. It’s that the British population is so dramatically bifurcated between two radically different kinds of behavior (although Anglophile suggests that that is becoming less the case). I know that Brits aren’t a homogeneous bunch (neither is any other nation), but the bifurcation seems both remarkably pronounced and remarkably extreme, from high tea and witty bon mots to pavement pizzas and head butting.
Perhaps English rather than British.
The Scottish and Irish are much, much scarier than the English. To make things worse, the Scots don’t know how to take a joke, unlike the English. (disclosure: about half my ancestors were Scottish)
At the top of my head, it’s an urban/agrarian and workingclass/middleclass thing, respectively.
If you then add entrenched cultural habits of heavy drinking and brute football-fandom mixed with a seriously depressing weather, my amateur sociological analysis is: don’t know.
I wonder how Dr. Palmer would react to a statement about gays — or about Jews — that was parallel to his own statement about Brits.
Let’s try:
“The British are famous for elevated conversation, politeness, and refinement and for drunken vomit-splattered rants, battering foreign soccer fans to death, and a coarseness that defies verbal description.”
“Jews are famous for sharp intelligence, hard work, and
productive patience and for sexual repressiveness,
spreading their unwanted influence, and a predatory
greed that defies verbal description.”
“Gays are famous for cleanliness, punctuality, and
good manners and for molesting children, breaking up
marriages, and an acute bitchiness that defies verbal
description.”
I await the Master’s response.
JR
To Jeff:
I dont know who you are but it was a completely pointless remark that you made it here…sorry, but really nonsense.
What Tom points out is clear in everywhere. I am myself Azeri, we have a lot of British expats in my country (due to recent oil boom in Azerbaijan and consequently arrival of many British companies)and if you come to Baku today you can see that huge behavioural contradiction out in the streeets and in a daily work life. So dont get me wrong, i have nothing negative against british but there is a bifurcation that is obvious everywhere British people lives/travels to.
Next time, try to be more clever when you write such things. And dont get me wrong: I am not Jew, am Muslim (100%), but do not accept what you write about Jews.
I had the same experience while I was on my semester abroad at Oxford. Almost every professor had their story about “the time the townies got me.” One night in particular comes to mind: My friends and I were at a formal event (in tuxedos) and one of our group decided to make the walk back to his house alone. Big mistake. Let’s just say that he was unable to return the (rented) shirt because his attackers got blood all over it. We quickly got the message that students simply didn’t go out on Friday or Saturday nights–then the city belonged to the townies.
Most of the professors attributed the tension to class issues but pointed to some unpleasantness in town-gown relations during the fifteenth century as the root cause of the problem.
Jeff does not know the differences between such statements? What an idiot he shows himself to b e. Anyone who has been to UK knows there is a big difference among the behavior of British people, with much politeness and good manners on the part of most, but also most violent and dangerous drunkenness, such as on part of many British football fanns, who are most dangerous in Europe. It is not an insult to observe such violences, but it is a insult to say such things about gays or jews, who are not guilty of such behaviors. As also most British people are not; that is the question why there is such different behavior in that country.
Thanks for such interesting and fruitful hypotheses to explain the co-existence of such contradictory behavior in the UK, to a degree I have not seen in other European countries.
As to Mr. Riggenbach, perhaps he doesn’t understand the word “famous.” It generally means “well or widely known” and refers to the beliefs of others, not to inherent qualities. Thus, were one to tell — without any qualifications — a continental hotelier to expect “British visitors,” a reasonable European hotelier could anticipate either a visit by refined guests or a visit by a group of Lager Louts of the sort who bash Belgian soccer fans to death and start drunken brawls in Czech pubs. I doubt that the typical hotelier has the same range of expectations regarding an anticipated visit by, say, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, or Hungarian visitors.
Mr. Riggenbach plays off of a seeming ambiguity in the phrase “are famous for.” Let me explain. One does not expect such widely different behavior from the same individuals, whom one might otherwise (were one Jeffrey Riggenbach) expect to alternate between quoting Housman and smashing beer bottles over the heads of fellow discussants. That the expectations are likely to be so polarized is, to my mind, a puzzle. But then, Mr. Riggenbach may not acknowledge the existence of puzzles (at least, those to which one does not already know the answers). Since he seems not to have spent time with polite and civilized British people, on the one hand, and with Lager Louts vomiting on trains, shouting out racist remarks, and threatening fellow passengers to Belgium with death when on their way to Brussels for a football match (or even had to step around numerous “Pavement Pizzas” on the sidewalks of some British cities), he doesn’t see any need to wonder about the coexistence in one country or nation of such polar opposite kinds of behavior. Such a mental attitude must be very comforting. To live in a world without puzzles must be a very fine thing, indeed, at least for some minds.
(Mr. Perraut’s story is indeed a common one in Oxford. And the attribution of town-and-gown violence to the early modern period or before is common, as well, but I don’t find it very convincing, since the vast majority of such attacks don’t seem to come from “townies” per se, but from a much smaller group of people who just think that smashing people in the head is great fun. They’d do it to virtually anyone for the merriment it provides, but students seem easier game.)
Dr. Palmer’s reply is, of course, incoherent — who would have expected anything else? But at least it was somewhat more literate than those of his loyal fans (whose attempts at English are displayed above).
JR
Dr. Palmer’s reply seemed coherent to me.
JR’s, on the other hand, did not. Instead of showing how or why Dr. Palmer’s reply is “incoherent,” he just said “of course — who would have expected anything else?” I’m sorry, but that doesn’t convince me. Then JR makes fun of people who are writing in a foreign language. Ha ha ha ha….! What a fun it is to point out that foreigners make errors in writing English! Of course, I could understand what they were saying, whereas JR’s comment has nothing to say. Maybe he should have tried to write it in a foreign language, like some of the other commentators did. But even that might not have covered up what a fool he has made of himself.
I’m sad to report that there is indeed a Yob problem in Britain. Dr. Palmer is not the only person who finds himself puzzled by the continued existence of such brutish behavior. Attending a football match often offers the best opportunity to witness it firsthand.
Great Britain still has a class system, but a rather distinctively fluid one: entry into ‘higher’ classes is possible by changing one’s behavior, as is entry into ‘lower’ classes. There are, then, reasons other than a rigid class system to explain why such loutish behavior persists.
Jeff’s comment does raise the question of the conduct of Israeli citizens abroad. I can say that virtually every hotel/bar owner who brought up the topic with me said they tended to behave in a completely impudent and unreasonable manner.
This might have something to do with the young Israeli backpackers being fresh out of the army, but whatever the case, they weren’t exactly the most popular tourists.
Jeff is right. Such collective comments are always very unprecise and should be avoided. Lump statements about the British have the same value like lump statements about Jews or Gays.
Morken is way off base about what people have said on this thread. No one made any “lump statements about the British.” People recognize that Britain does have an unfortunate reputation for citizens with very different kinds of behavior. Morken says that you can never say anything about the diversity of the members of any group because it would be a “lump statement.” For example, one could not say that Britain has a “class system” because it would be a lump statement. One couldn’t say that racial prejudice against blacks is common in Japan because it would be a “lump statement.” One couldnt’ say anything about what percentage of Italians are Catholic because it would be a “lump statement.” Jeff’s bigoted statements about gays and Jews are about the characteristics of the group as such. But no one has said anything like that about British people. The other commentators have pointed out that some Britons are civilized and others are notorious for a lack of civilization, not that Britons are both civilized and uncivilized.
Is it a “lump statement” to say that the U.S. has a higher rate of violent crime than Canada and then to ask why that might be so? If so, then Morken is unable to say anything asbout any group because he can’t distinguish between statement about crime rates in the U.S. and racist, anti-semitic, or bigoted homophobic statements. It’s another little case of thoughtless PC-ness making it impossible to say anything sensible at all.
What’s obvious from the original post and (especially) the follow-up comments is that there are a lot of ill-informed, blinkered idiots out there who are content to use their personal experiences (positive or negative) to make ridiculous value judgments about the 60 million people who live in Britain. If it were directed at any other identifiable group of people you’d be rightly condemned as horrible little racists.
Here’s how to solve the problem you have with the Brits:
1. Leave your disgusting prejudices at home.
2. Don’t believe everything you read.
3. Don’t make stupid assumptions about an entire nation after looking at the behaviour of a few people.
4. Get a grip.
5. Grow up.
I was born in the UK (but don’t live there now) and I’m happy to condemn our very own lager louts. It’s not about ’60 million people who live in Britain’ or ‘about an entire nation ‘ – it’s about the few who disgrace the nation by their behavior. I see no reason not to point that out, just as I see no reason not to point out that Russia has a greater problem with alcoholism than other countries and that it is contributing to the terribly high early death rate among Russian men.
I am as disgusted by anyone else by the drunken behavior you can see any weekend from the yobs who stagger out of the pubs in Prague. If Russians can talk about their alcoholism problem, why can’t we talk about our lager louts?
As an Englishman, not long out of undergraduate education, I would like to say that the yobbish drinking culture which undeniably exists here, and of which I have certainly taken part, although not to the point of grievous bodily harm to an innocent pedestrian, is simply the result of a historically contingent liberalisation of the unique class-based cultural spheres that once marked, and to some extent still mark, British society. Once upon a time, the drunken violent proclivities of any class would be contained within the accepted geographical areas of that particular class e.g. the difference between the Bronx and Wall Street. However, now town centres in Britain have become these strange forums where the old class barriers have broken down, and where irrational drunken violence is visible and indeed experienced by the kinds of people who were previously sheltered from the extremities of drink-fuelled behaviour indulged in by people with little else important in their lives, i.e. the morally-concerned middle class.
i just visited the Uk and i found that the british reserve as they call it to be rude. the british i found to be arrogent.. and they feel that they are above all others..as for me i will never go back to a place where they talk about americans as if they were trash and I as an american will not be push down or talked down to again. no wonder they are not the world power like the U.S
“i just visited the Uk and i found that the british reserve as they call it to be rude. the british i found to be arrogent.. and they feel that they are above all others..as for me i will never go back to a place where they talk about americans as if they were trash and I as an american will not be push down or talked down to again. no wonder they are not the world power like the U.S”
Woops!! …. What a howler of an own goal!
Loutish behaviour is certainly a serious problem in the Britain, but I’m not convinced it’s uniquelya ‘British’ problem. The same idiots can be found in/from France, Germany, the Netherlands and yes, even those sleepy Scandinavian nations (The Swedish have left such an indellible mark on the Danish popular psyche with their drinking shenanigans that the latter now regularly use the word svenskerfuld, which basically means, drunk as a Swede).
The difference, to me, seems to be that Britain exports its unsavoury citizens to a much greater extent than other nations. Hence the recent email from my American friend – currently on holdiay in Amsterdam – lambasting ‘my people’ for being a bunch of boozed-up cretins. I’m not sure why; perhaps because the worst elements of our society just happen to have more disposable income than than the worst elements of other societies, or have a greater urge to carry their lunacy to far and distant lands. That said, a trip to the Algarve will show you the nastier end of other nations’ societies, particularly German and Dutch.