Most of what is written about nationality consists of vague waffle. Everyone feels entitled to sound off about the "crisis of English identity" but not many have ever glanced at the various studies of the nation written over the past 20 years-by Tom Nairn, Anthony Smith, Benedict Anderson and others.
During the miners' strike in 1984 I went to a Chile Solidarity meeting. Chilean exiles wore national costume, danced national dances and sang national songs. It made me wonder what I could do to express my Englishness if I was ever exiled. No national costume (pinstripe and bowler hat?), no national food (curry and chips?) and no dancing. Would I do a Stanley Holloway monologue, or organise a game of cricket?
There is a good reason for this absence. You can't push other nations around for three centuries in the name of your own country; you must make some claim to be acting for a universal idea-God or law or civilisation. When the English became an imperial power they had to give up the obvious signs of their own identity. That is why "Britain" means very little-it is a word to obscure English domination of the Irish, Welsh and Scots.
Many nations carry something on their backs which they can't see properly: Germany-the final solution; Russia-the gulag; France-Vichy; the US-Vietnam. The English still bear the burden of empire and loss of empire. Thatcher's solution was to reinvent a kind of post-modern imperialism. It didn't work because her idea of England was too narrow. Since the last election we have been offered a more inclusive sense of national identity-one with a place for Lenny Henry and Elton John. Yet the English remain uneasy about believing in it.
Nevertheless, it is still possible to define Englishness, up to a point. The English tradition is about empiricism or "common sense." This begins with Francis Bacon, is continued by Hobbes and reaches most complete expression in Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Besides these philosophical statements, a notion of common sense pervades English life. It is based on three assumptions: reality is just there and you can experience it directly; language is a clear window through which you can judge reality; because you are a free individual, all you need to do is observe reality without prejudice and you won't go far wrong.
These attitudes are everywhere-in car magazines, literary criticism, cooking recipes, television news. A problem the English face abroad is discovering that other nationalities don't work from the same basis in common sense.
Common sense explains huge tracts of English discourse (sorry, can't avoid the word). An example is the plain style, the would-be transparent or style-less style first developed in the pamphlets of the Civil War. A glance at a French or Italian newspaper is enough to tell you that they are writing in a more rhetorical tradition. From Bacon to the present day, the English have detested what they call "jargon." They are sure that, if you take care, you can write language so clear it will show reality as it is. This encourages a sense of irony-irony, that is, which says one thing but really means something else. When Locke says of someone who claimed a dream could simulate reality, "I believe he will allow a very manifest difference between dreaming of being in the fire, and being actually in it," he really means "he will know for certain." Irony is not confined to England but has a privileged place here. In the 18th century irony was used to affirm class solidarity among the gentry, by mocking anyone who didn't get the ironic meaning. Today it appears at all levels in society, particularly if directed against yourself. I have tried to pass a day strictly without irony and have never got past breakfast.
Profoundly secular, English culture treats only one thing as transcendental: the English sense of humour. The English like to think of their humour as beyond description. But the French recognise it quickly enough when they come across it. Features of comedy are shared between cultures but English humour is particularly related to common sense. From Restoration comedy via Jane Austen to David Lodge we are shown-through irony-how characters deceive themselves (while we know what's going on). Then there is the "silly" tradition, from A Midsummer Night's Dream to Lewis Carroll and beyond. It indulges fantasy and excess, as a deliberate escape from common sense.
It will take dynamite to change these inheritances of English discourse that come down from the 17th century. Whenever two English meet they are still likely to share ingrained attitudes, ways of talking, a sense of humour.
In 1995, the think-tank, Demos, published Freedom's Children about attitudes to work and politics. The report described how many "young people now take pride in being out of the system." But in what sense are they out of the system? I am sure young people are as versed as their ancestors in the attitudes of common sense; I would be surprised if they didn't talk and write in plain language, draw on irony, and make use of the English sense of humour.
