SOCIETY AND SELF NATIONAL IDENTITES

E.M. Forster From Two Cheers for Democracy

faith is a sort of mental starch, which ought to be applied as sparingly as possible 'My law-givers are Erasmus and Montaigne, not Moses and St. Paul.' personal relationships are something comparatively solid in a world full of violence and cruelty for the purpose of living one has to assume that the personality is solid, and the 'self' is an entity, and to ignore all contrary evidence 'If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.'

democracy is not a Beloved Republic, and never will be. But it is less hateful than other contemporary forms of government is starts from the assumption that the individual is important, and that all types are needed to make a civilisation the society which allows most liberty is a democracy democracy allows criticism, and that is why the press and the Parliament are so important two cheers for democracy: one because it admits variety and two because it permits criticism

Perry Anderson: 'A Culture in Contraflow'

Britain in the immediate post-war decades possessed a peculiarly stable and insulated culture Britain had never known the three great solvents of fixed collective identity in the 20th c. social upheaval, foreign occupation or mass immigration the world's premier empire for two centuries gave the confidence of superiority in these conditions the frontiers of the spirit were largely one with the borders of the state the ferment of 1968 was a political and geocultural break Britain directly synchronized with counterparts outside the country

the most-contained of the larger NATO cultures, it was now to become the least closed to the surrounding world peculiar crossroads position: geographically part of Europe and linguistically tied to America the emergence of a substantial culture of the Left after 1968 unlocked the gates to Europe continental Marxism, structuralism, hermeneutics and post-structuralism were absorbed The Atlantic dimension common language and legal tradition America was more diverse because of its composite immigrant background from the 70s central social disciplines became dominated by US developments analytical philosophy, political theory, neoclassical economics

since its beginning in 1967, the New York Review of Books has become the peak literary periodical in the English-speaking world, with a circulation some four times that of its UK counterparts combined this change signalled wider energy transfers in the academic world from the 80s, a significant number of British scholars went to the US, from virtually all social disciplines the monotone political conformity became a thing of the past and British culture became looser and more hybrid

Seamus Heaney: 'Englands of the Mind'

the language of Ted Hughes, Geoffrey Hill and Philip Larkin, three of the best contemporary English poets they all return to an origin and bring something back, implying a continuity with another England a desire to preserve indigenous traditions, to keep open the imagination's supply lines to the past confirmation of Anglo-Saxon ancestry, an identity which is threatened

Hughes relies on the northern deposits, the pagan Anglo-Saxon and Norse elements; primitive myths Middle English tradition (Shakespeare and the Elizabethans) Hill Anglo-Saxon and Mediterranean mixture, early medieval Latin influence Larkin Frenchified English language Englands of the mind Hughes primeval landscape; his poet is a wanderer among the ruins

Hill more hospitable; the poet is a clerk or an illuminator; he is in possession of a history rather than a mythology Larkin an England of customs and institutions, industrial and domestic, whose pastoral hinterland is threatened betrays the sensibility of troubadour all three writers have a kind of piety towards their local origins the loss of imperial power and the diminished influence of Britain has led to a new valuing of the native English experience

Edward Said: From Orientalism

Gramsci: the starting point of critical elaboration is the consciousness of what one really is ''knowing thyself'' Said grew up in two British colonies (Palestine and Egypt) and the US Said tries to analyze the culture whose domination has been a powerful factor in the life of all Orientals since the 1950s in the West 'East' has always signified danger and threat media reinforcement of the stereotypes by which the Orient is viewed

reasons for a highly politicized view of Islam: the history of popular anti-Arab and anti-Islamic prejudice; the struggle between the Arabs and Israeli Zionism and its effects upon American Jews; the total absence of any cultural position enabling to dispassionately discuss Islam an Arab Palestinian politically does not exist in the West, particularly in America web of racism, cultural stereotypes and political imperialism

''Too often literature and culture are presumed to be politically, even historically innocent; it has regularly seemed otherwise to me ...'' society and literary culture can only be understood and studied together

Paul Fussell From The Great War and Modern Memory

data entering the consciousness during the war emerge long afterward as metaphor one result of the persistence of Great War rhetoric is that the contours of the Second War tend to merge with those of the First conflation of wars through language the diction of war resides everywhere just below the surface of modern experience

American football two-platoon system 'We've had a barrage of complaints today.' public vs the private sector television programs like Firing Line or Behind the Lines No Man's Land is even available as a joke In No Man's Land: Some Unmarried Mothers

Virginia Woolf Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid

written during the German air-raid if woman cannot fight with firearms, she can fight with the mind All the idea makers who are in a position to make ideas effective are men. Hitler embodiment of the insane love of power Lady Astor 'Women of ability are held down because of a subconscious Hitlerism in the hearts of men.'

'We must help the young Englishmen to root out from themselves the love of medals and decorations. We must create more honourable activities for those who try to conquer in themselves their fighting instinct, their subconscious Hitlerism. We must compensate the man for the loss of his gun.' creative feelings should compensate the young man for the loss of his glory