It is normal for any society to look back to their past for paradigms of “greatness”. In Will and Ariel Durant’s masterful work The Lessons of History, they wrote that:

To break sharply with the past is to court the madness that may follow the shock of sudden blows or mutilations. As the sanity of the individual lies in the continuity of his memories, so the sanity of a group lies in the continuity of its traditions; in either case a break in the chain invites a neurotic reaction.

In other words, a grasp of history is important and as a historian myself, I am quite skeptical of those in public life who clearly do not have or act on such a grasp – Tony Blair in the build-up to the Iraq War being a case in point.

But what is the right history to look to? What of the rich tapestry of our past really tells us about the tenets of our national character? History will always be twisted to aid politics; but the current ahistoricism amongst the governing classes has I believe reached something of a new low – and it matters for policy. Reaching for the correct memory is as important as having memories at all.

Britain, for instance, has an imperial history which as a nation it has yet to move on from despite the best efforts of the PC brigades. The signs of it – from the remnants of actual empire (now reduced to the Falklands and Gibraltar) to the permanent seat on the UNSC – still pervade much establishment and tabloid newspaper thinking. But whereas many British subconsciously see the height of empire as the regal majesty of the Delhi Durbar, the real Britain was something altogether less dignified. The British character, I would submit, is one of unruly mobbishness at heart which can be seen throughout society from football hooligans through to the Bullingdon Club – perhaps the best representations of contemporary life being the social diversity of rioters in 2011, and the undignified rush to loot cargo from a sinking ship in 2007.

British hooliganism – two sides of the same historical coin

Rather than harking back to formal empire therefore, the British memory should look more to the Gordon Riots, to Clive of India and James Cook, than to parades at Spithead. Because in this riotous assembly, were also the seeds of Britain’s real greatness: as privateers and traders, entrepreneurs and innovators rather than organisers. In the 18^th century Britain stumbled across empires in India and America, and created the Industrial Revolution; arguably, as soon as Britain’s organization skills were brought to bear in the 19^th century, the Empire started its decline.

America, too, has the Anglospheric trait of tending towards natural lawlessness as shown by moments such as Hurricane Katrina (in contrast to an example like Fukushima). But there is a deeper romance to the American story as told in elementary schools across the land, of idealism, diversity and tolerance. This too, though, is misremembered. America became great not because of its tolerance, but because of its moments of judicious intolerance and plain ruthlessness – against indigenous people, against Britain, and later against Japan and the Soviet Union (the fraught relationship with Britain was the theme of a 2005 paper of mine). Yes, there were waves of immigration which fed into the so-called “melting pot”, but America would be much less of a country today had it been run with the kinder, gentler governance associated with neighbouring Canada for instance (even if this may also be exaggerated).

Some Americans will not like to see this as the basis of their history, but the reality is that the country’s “manifest destiny” – to rule the continent and then the world – was not built on being nice to people. The American Revolution was not mainly a principled stand of Enlightenment values, but an opportunistic socio-economic power grab by one set of elites from another*. There is a reason why Andrew Jackson, until recent events, was held high in the pantheon of bank notes. And this memory, tinged with a harsh edge and violence, is every bit as important for the country as self-congratulatory myths about the Founding Fathers or Abraham Lincoln. Just as Britain is more Clive than Hardinge, so America is more Jackson than Lewis and Clark.

Andrew Jackson,  Meriwether Lewis and William Clark

As an example of how these falsified memories impact policy, let us take the rhetoric surrounding immigration, an issue applicable to both the US and Britain. The common liberal mantra is the fallacy that “this country was built on immigration!”, a cry heard around hipster cafes from Primrose Hill to the West Village. Factually true, but rather irrelevant. Yes, there has been plenty of immigration in the past, although few have come close in scale to what has occurred in recent years. Yes, immigrants by and large contribute enormously to skills, ambition and demographics in both these countries. But it is not immigration itself which has been good; it is appropriate amounts of immigration when building on a platform of strong host culture. It is an “and”, not an “or” – the tired, poor, yearning huddled masses in the US would be nothing had not the violent ruthlessness of mostly white, protestant Anglophone Americans established a country of enormous land and resources. In other words, there are two pillars to this story of progress, not one:

1. preserve a coherent indigenous identity;
2. then add immigration as needed.

But the one-dimensional appreciation of history from those that dominate the media and education misses all this. Immigration is put on a pedestal in and of itself, as though it somehow generates positive impacts on a standalone basis. National identity is practically a dirty word – or has been captured by cynics who believe it can be watered down to nothing by adding foreign elements into the mix via the “we were all immigrants once” fallacy. To do this is the sow the seeds of destruction for any nation-state. Just as Blair had no regard for the longer sweep of history in the Middle East, so also the likes of Corbyn or Pelosi for their own country (although strangely Bernie Sanders actually did – and consequently struggled with certain corners of Liberaldom).

But the point is this: whether we are talking about British lack of self-discipline or American violence, these are not actually bad characteristics. People should not be judging these with opprobrium – they can be positives which lead to other strengths. Anglo-American consumerism and short-term thinking helps the whole world in terms of innovation and just plain growth. If Americans did not love spending money so much, the rest of us would not have iPhones. A planet of Germany’s and Japan’s would achieve nothing. Finding a place in the world is partly about adapting – but only on the basis of recognizing what one’s inherent strengths are. Politicians should not be complaining about these characteristics or still less, try to change them. They should be trying to harness them in productive ways – opportunism becomes enterprise, violence becomes robustness. The world certain needs all of these.

I will finish on a macro view. A former boss of mine once asserted that there are three types of competitiveness in the corporate world: price, quality and innovation. Capture one, and you will survive; capture two, and you will succeed; capture all three and you will rule the marketplace. Countries are not dissimilar, and it is no surprise that the one nation which comes closest to an adequate level of all three is also the only hyperpower – America. Historically, even during the Industrial Revolution, Britain was not known for quality, but rather for inventiveness in products and processes. Since emerging, Germany always had a superior record on pure quality, but they have rarely created anything completely new. Nations have their place; national identity will be a determinant of it.

Britain, post-Brexit, needs to thoroughly reflect on which of these features it possesses and how it pursues them (in my opinion, clearly led by innovation not quality)**. It may seem obvious to say that she needs to see herself as an underdog, yet shockingly few statesmen have really digested this fact. America, in this period of potential decline, also needs to rediscover which qualities it still has. Problems like the rise of China and the new “community of empires” will not solve themselves. But for either country to successfully confront their dilemmas, a closer examination of the collective, subconscious social memory is needed; for without it, we face the insanity Durant outlined so long ago.

 

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* Perhaps this will be a major point of debate, but as something of a historian in the era (see eg my 2005 paper on the Anglican Bishop Controversy) the American Revolution was by and large a moment when local elites, separately in Boston and Virginia, found Britain a convenient scapegoat for directing local discontent against. By the 1740s, ports such as Boston and the southern backcountry were facing, for the very first time in colonial history, economic stagnation and the rise of an underclass. A war (The French & Indian) put this on hold, but by 1763 the Boston families and the Tidewater oligarchies needed to stir a conflict for their legitimacy. They got one with Britain, and this, much more than tiresome debates about Lockean Liberalism vs Republicanism (rf Bailyn, Pocock et al), or “taxation without representation”, lies at the heart of the rebellion – and partly explains the surprisingly strong loyalist sentiment throughout the war.

** I will also add that one of the only intelligible and plausible post-Brexit British identities I have heard comes from a potential future guest blogger here, namely that Britain could become an Israel – in other words, a medium-sized maverick which punches above its weight simply through unpredictability. Better not decommission those nuclear weapons, in which case.