Red foam of the River Thames

In the course of a different debate, I read this article from Townhall.com. Those familiar with this site might know what to expect – it’s a USAian site that bills itself as “Conservative News and Information”. However, this article isn’t just right-wing. It is superficial and uninformed on the matters that it addresses, and that’s always bad.

The article posits that Britain is a declining nation, and that a prime sign of this is that we don’t regard our national flag (the Union Flag) as especially precious or holy, in contrast to USAians, who regard their Stars and Stripes as the supreme symbol of their nation. And this, of course, is the crux. The thing about the flag that USAians always seem to forget is that the US attitude towards it is actually a substitute for a monarch. In the USA, schoolchildren (for example) daily swear allegiance to the flag, and their national anthem is even “The Star-spangled Banner”. In the UK, we swear allegiance to the monarch and our national anthem is “God save the Queen”. Personally, I think that our attitude is considerably more healthy; I’d rather trust a person than a symbol :-) But that’s why USAians see flag burning as an actual attack on the country – it’s much the same as how we would see burning the monarch in effigy.

This article, though, is classic cultural imperialism – simply assuming that US attitudes are the same as those of another culture and ignoring anything that doesn’t fit. The author should be ashamed of his superficial piece of puffery. Meanwhile, in the real world, we can at least learn one more detail of how countries differ in these odd little ways. And learn not to let them divide us.

pax et bonum

Article posted at 12:23pm on 21 July 2005
Category: Politics, Struggling, General

What a stupid article. It makes me be embarrassed to be an American. Today’s TV news coverage of the new London bombings is particularly infuriating: American news commentators can’t understand why the Brits aren’t hysterically foaming at the mouth like we did after 9/11, and they seem quite indignant about their inability to fathom why. The tendency that we Yanks have to assume that everyone is just like us, and to get nasty when we discover that we aren’t the moral and political paradigm we think we are, is very disturbing.

Karen () (URL)
7:23pm on 21 July 2005

its a shockingly ill-informed article. I have to admit its the first time I’ve heard Enoch Powell described in such glowing terms by someone not standing infront of a flag. Novelty Value alone makes it read-worthy ;)

James () (URL)
10:36am on 22 July 2005

John,
You are shockingly ill-informed. US Soldiers DO NOT swear allegiance to the flag. We “swear to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States”. THAT is our substitute for a monarch – and it works much better than swearing fealty to a person.

In our country, it is legal, according to said Constitution, to burn the “sacred” flag. Did you know that? Since you clearly cannot legally burn the Queen, do you see how poor the analogy is?

I say the sun has yet to set on the British Empire. Too bad the Town Hall columnist does not see it.

Hammertime () (URL)
9:42pm on 24 July 2005

My apologies – I confused the military oath with the Pledge of Allegiance sworn daily by US schoolchildren: “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands…_” (I’ve edited the post to reflect this). Which only supports my main point of the centrality of the Stars and Stripes to the heart of the USA. In either case (Constitution or person), saying that it works “better” is arguable. There are benefits to either position; my point was that I prefer our way because it is easier to establish exactly what a person says and means (by asking them!) than it is to establish exactly what a Constitution means (witness the huge number of constitutional lawyers…).

It is legal in the UK to burn the monarch in effigy; it’s legal in the USA to burn the flag. It would raise a huge stink in the UK if anyone did so; it would (and regularly does) raise a huge stink in the USA when people burn the US flag. (Burning the monarch would be more equivalent to assassinating the President and burning all the US flags in existence!)

pax et bonum

[John] () (URL)
09:49am on 25 July 2005