Culture and Style în Contemporary Britain

Motivation

Britain is one of the most visited countries in Europe. Many people are fascinated with the legends of King Arthur and The Knights of the Round Table, or the mysterious Stonehenge and let’s not forget one of the most discussed legends, which still haunt the minds of many people, The Loch Ness Monster. I am one of these people. I have always wanted to see ‘Camelot’, I have always wanted to search for The Loch Ness Monster, I have always wanted to visit one of Britain’s famous Castles and talk to people who have Irish accent. But in order to do that I had to get in touch with the British culture and society. Stepping into the Third Millennium offered me the opportunity to review the past century British society and to see some of the qualities and defects of the British people. Like any other society, the British like to create an agreeable picture of themselves. The majority likes to think the important national values are things like tolerance, decency, moderation, consensus, and compromise. They are uncomfortable with terms which polarize, such as: liberation, bourgeois, capitalist, and collectivist. They like modesty and understatement, and they prefer practical common sense to pure logic. One writer, contrasting England with neighbouring France, says, ‘At times it seems that the French and English national characters could be expressed in a series of antitheses: wit/humor, logic/tradition, gallantry/courage, thrift/expenditure, taste/comfort, town/country, vanity/pride.’ Unlike elsewhere in Europe, someone described as an ‘intellectual’ usually feels embarrassed rather than flattered.

The community and the individual

In spite of having been a centralized state for longer than most European countries, British society is also deeply individualistic in a way which is inseparable from ideas of liberty and localism. This has a long history. According to one sociologist, =Individualism is built into .custom and practice., and into local work places and community organizations.‘

There is a feeling that it is the ordinary people, standing up for their rights in spite of government, who safeguard freedom, in contrast with France where in theory it is the state which upholds liberty. According to Ralf Dahrendorf, =There is a fundamental liberty in Britain not easily found elsewhere.‘

In part this liberty stems from the growth of a variety of institutions in previous centuries, which have strongly resisted the authority of central government. The tradition continues. Unlike in many other countries, local government still clings both to local identity and style. For example, some county names which were centuries old disappeared in the local government reorganization of 1974. The removal of these names was so unpopular that most of them have since been revived.

This local response illustrates another long-standing characteristic of the British. They have a strong civic sense and participate in public affairs as their birthright. It is the local level that British democracy is most meaningful. Writing approximately

80 years ago, Elie Halevy, a French writer on Britain, spoke enthusiastically of Britain as =the country of voluntary obedience, of spontaneous organization.‘ It is no less true today. The impulse to organize oneself and one‘s neighbours in some cause is a strong British tradition. William Beveridge, the1940s architect of Britain‘s welfare system, wrote at the time, =Vigour and abundance of Voluntary Action outside the home, individually and in association with other citizens, for bettering one‘s own life and that of one‘s fellows, are the distinguishing marks of a free society.