The Elusive Mr. Right

A while ago, a researcher working for an advertising agency came to visit me. His client had a problem, summarised in a simple diagram. A square of paper was divided into quadrants. In the first was written “Traditional Man”, for which you read masterful, silent, strong. The second box said “New Man”. You know him: sensitive, nurturing, caring. A third box was marked “New Lad”: thelark-about, the iconoclast, the rogue. Three familiar archetypes, each a distinguished servant of British advertising industry who, when skillfully associated with the things men tend to buy, has helped to push those products into your homes.

But now there is a problem. As the researcher explained, it is that all these shorthand male identities have become such clichés, such caricatures, such jokes that they have only brought the companies debts. And you can see what he means. You are only amused now by one memorable advert with Traditional Man, the cold-eyed, rock-jawed tamer of nail-painted women who praise Denim aftershave, “for men who don’t have to try hard”. At the same time 1980s New Men have become ridiculed as wimps. And even the relaxed, lager-swigging scallywags who represented New Lad are looking tired, as if suspecting that for “lad” the world now just reads “loser” or even “lout”.

That brings us on to quadrant number four. On the researcher’s diagram, this was assigned to a character called “Ideal Man” and to him was attached an urgent question mark. Who exactly is he, the researcher enquired? What are his passions, his perspective on the world? What qualities does he possess that other guys aspire to? Where is Ideal Man to be found?

Good question and one being asked not only by confused creatives in Soho advertising agencies. The difficulty with defining a plausible male ideal is a symptom of much deeper difficulties that western societies have lately been having with men, masculinity and what we think they ought to mean. The search of Ideal Man is continuing against the background of the great debate about the moral, mental and physical condition of men and boys.

Topic 18

The adage is that geography makes history. But if such a thing as a national psychology exists, it too may be made by geography. The first profound influence upon the English is the fact that they live on an island.

England remains the only European country in which apparently intelligent can use expressions like “joining Europe was a mistake”, or “we should leave Europe”, as if the place can be hitched to the back of the car like a holiday caravan. An analysis of the British market for the French Tourist Office in 1996 advises, in measured disdain, that “even though they have a well-developed sense of humour and can laugh at themselves, they remain conservative and chauvinistic. The British are profoundly independent and insular, constantly torn between America and Europe.” They are right: one of the consequences of living on an island is that everywhere is overseas. And once they had committed themselves to the sea, the English were inclined to see the rest of Europe as nothing but trouble.

In 1882, the idea was canvassed of driving a railway tunnel under the Channel. It was just the sort of an engineering challenge. Instead, Nineteenth Century magazine organized a petition opposing the idea, on the ground that “such a Railroad would involve this country in military dangers and liabilities from which as an island, it has hitherto been happily free.” This was no voice crying from the rural backwoods: the letter rapidly gained signatures from the Archbishop of Canterbury, the poets Tennyson and Browning, the philosopher Herbert Spenser, 5 dukes, 10 earls, 26 MPs, 17 admirals, 59 generals, 200 clergymen and 600 other worthies.

The Englishman sees himself as a captain on board a ship with a small group of people, the sea around and beneath him. He is almost alone; as captain he is in many ways isolated even from his crew.

Seabound security gave the English an early self-confidence and their relative isolation promoted the growth of an idiosyncratic intellectual tradition. It produced some very odd geniuses, like Blake or Shakespeare. It probably has something to do with the fact that England has produced so many very good travel writers. And nautical gangsters – how else are we to think of a figure like Sir Francis Drake? Freedom from the fear of sudden invasion also promoted individual freedoms.

We all need enemies, and the French were so wonderfully convenient – near to hand and yet apparently oblivious of the interests of anyone else. This is how we thought of our nearest continental neighbours. Obscene drawings were “French postcards”. Prostitutes were the “French Consular Guard”. If a man used their services, he would “take French lessons”. Well into the 1950s, English people were still excusing their swearing by asking people to “pardon my French” and talking of unauthorized absences as “French leave”. Once upon a time, when England was at war with Spain, syphilis was “Spanish pox” and cooption was “Spanish practices”. By the time the Dutch had become the main trading rivals, the English were inventing phrases like double Dutch for gibberish, or Dutch courage for the bravery of drunkenness. The pattern applies across Europe, but the Anglo-French rivalry is in a class of its own. Centuries of hostility cannot be overcome so soon.

Insularity gave the English a great self-confidence, but it did nothing for their sophistication. It is hard to escape the conclusion that, deep down, the English care little for foreigners, but scoff and laugh at them. Visitors commented on the remarkable vanity of the English. In 1497, a Venetian noticed that “the English are the great lovers of themselves, and of everything belonging to them; they think that there are no other men than themselves and no other world but England.” The picture had hardly changed by the middle of the 20^th century.

English People’s Way of Life. The English Character

The national character of the English has been very differently described, but most commentators agree over one quality, which they describe as fatuous self-satisfaction, serene sense of superiority, or insular pride. English patriotism is based on a deep sense of security. Englishmen as individuals may have been insecure, threatened with the loss of a job, unsure of themselves, or unhappy in many ways; but as a nation they have been for centuries secure, serene in their national successes.

Many books have been written – even more, perhaps by Frenchmen, Americans, Germans, and other foreigners than by Englishmen – on English traits, English ways of life, and the English character. Their authors are by no means always in agreement, but they tend to point out what seems to them puzzles, contrasts, in the way the English behave. A few of these contrasts may serve to sum up how the world looks at the English.

First, there is the contrast between the unity the English display in a crisis, their strong sense for public order, indeed for conformity, and their extraordinary toleration of individual eccentricities. Germans are usually astounded by what they regard as the Englishman’s lack of respect for authority and discipline. Frenchmen are often puzzled by the vehemence of English political debates, by the Hyde Park public orator, and similar aspects of English life, which in their own country would seem signs of great political disturbance. This sort of contrast has led to the common belief held by foreigners, and indeed by Englishmen themselves, that they are a most illogical people, often preferring practical compromises to theoretical exactness.

Second, there is the contrast between English democracy, the English sense of the dignity and importance of the individual, and the very great social and economic inequalities that have hitherto characterized English life. There has recently been some tendency to allow greater social equality. But Victorian and Edwardian England – which foreigners still think of as the typical England – did display extremes of riches and poverty, and draw an almost caste line between ladies and gentlemen and those not ladies and gentlemen.

Third, there is the contrast between the reputation of English as practical men – the nation of shopkeepers – and as men of poetry – the countrymen of Shakespeare and Shelly. The apparent coldness of Englishmen and their reserve has been almost universally noted by foreigners; but foreigners also confess that they find English reserve not unpleasant, and that once one gets to know an Englishman he turns out to be very companionable fellow.

American tourists.

The ways of tourists are strange, and one afternoon as I sat in the Plaza Mayor, I heard some Frenchmen at the next table tearing Americans apart. To the first barrage of criticism, I could not logically protest: Americans were uncultured, lacked historical sense, were concerned only with business, had no sensitivity and ought to stay at home. The second echelon of abuse I did want to interrupt, because I felt that some of it was wide of the mark: Americans were all loud, had no manners, no education, no sense of proportion, and were offensively vulgar in dress, speech, eating habits and general comportment, but I restrained myself because, after all, this was a litany one heard throughout Europe, here expressed rather more succinctly than elsewhere.

Sitting as quietly as my French companions would permit, I tried to discover what my true feelings were in this matter of honest description. In my travels, I had never met any single Americans as noisy and crude as certain Germans, none so downright mean as one or two Frenchmen, none so ridiculous as an occasional Englishman, and none so arrogant as some Swedes.

But each of the national examples cited I am speaking only of a few horrible specimens. If one compares all English tourists with all Americans, I would hate to admit that taken in the large the American is worse. If some European wanted to argue that seventy percent of all American tourists are regrettable, I would agree. If he claimed ninety, I suppose I wouldn’t argue too much. But when like the Frenchman on my left he states that one hundred percent are that way, then I must accuse him of being false to the facts.

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 1135