It’s called the ‘Special Relationship’ and it means the Yanks specially love the Brits and the Brits specially hate the Yanks.
You Yanks are all yearning to go to the UK, and if my children with their sweet Brit accents came to visit you, you would fall in love with them and tell them all about your family history, but mainly you would just want to hear them talk so you could marvel over the charming way they say mummy and petrol and car park.
It would no doubt hurt you to know how thoroughly most Brits, on the other hand, sneer with all the relish they can muster at Americans. (Though I have noticed recently at Oxford a certain grudging recognition of the politeness of most American visiting students. I think it is the way they call all the secretaries ma’am — a title that is here normally reserved for the Queen.) Nevertheless, do not imagine that the Brits love you, because they do not. Mostly they don’t even like you.
As for me, now that I am home, I have been, as usual, listening to the radio: the wonderful BBC that I missed so much all the months I was away.
During an election year, and this year perhaps even more than ever, there is an extraordinary interest in the UK in what makes America tick; American politics matter, however much the rest of the world might resent it, or wish it were not so, and the BBC is full of talented people who want to understand what that might mean. They investigate it using my taxpayer dollars and I don’t begrudge them a penny.
The current offering is, Monday to Friday, a 15 minute potted history called, “America, Empire of Liberty”. (Or you can have an hour on Friday night if you prefer; like much of what you get on the BBC it really is like going back to university.) Typically, I am interested in the analysis from afar which examines how we (Americans) got to where we are. So far they have considered from ‘freedom and faith in New England’ to a ‘house divided’ just before the civil war.
That seems an appropriate place to linger for a bit, as America is clearly once again a house divided.
Alas, just before yesterday afternoon’s thoughtful history, there was a brief essay read out on the radio by someone unknown to me. I had just been bailing a sink (blocked drains) and doing some serious dusting (because none had been done for six months or so) and sucking hard on on my asthma inhaler (no dusting for six months op cit).
I heard the radio voice say, Mumble mumble if you don’t believe mumble mumble England, you should try living in America. In England we still live in a world where most people would not step over a person fallen in the street…
I stopped bailing and paid attention.
I have now listened to this 3 more times (hurrah for the internet) and I still don’t have a clue what his point is, but there is no question that whatever else he meant to say, he was suggesting that Americans would, on the whole, step over someone lying unconscious in the street and go about their business.
This kind of gratuitious, stupid, anti Americanism is what I have put up with for nearly 3 decades. Most of it I just ignore. Now and again I stop all conversation and say, Wait, let’s just think about what you have said in another way. Maybe we can substitute the word ‘Black’ for the word ‘American’ and you can imagine how offensive what you just said is.
I don’t object when people question, as the BBC does from time to time, whether we (I say “we” meaning Americans though I am a Brit too and have lived more than half my life here) are a force for good in the world or not. But I think the BBC’s own title, “Empire of Liberty” answers that question, at least for the next six weeks.
Americans would do well to remember that we really are as a city on a hill, and the world watches. I was surprised that Sarah Palin thought she was quoting Ronald Reagan when she threw out that line (about being a city on a hill) in the recent debates.
In fact, those words have a much older source. I studied American history in New England, where we learned a lot about how a group of people passionately dedicated to the idea that church be separated from government nevertheless had scripture at the heart of their very notion of state. The Puritan Fathers took the injunctions from Matthew, chapter V, particularly seriously. The scripture that resonated for them is still in America’s guts two hundred and more years later, even if some people think one of our recent, genial Presidents thought it up all by himself:
A city that is set upon a hill cannot be hid.
Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candle stick; and it giveth light to all that are in the house.
Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works..
The USA was founded on unique principles of liberty and tolerance. We have always been a city on a hill, and the whole world has watched from the beginning. It broke my heart to see the pictures that came out of Iraq showing Americans, not as liberators, but as abusers, torturers and oppressors.
There will always be individuals, even in good societies, who do bad things, but we cannot tolerate long a government that can step an inch over the line that says torture is as wrong as chains or slavery. You cannot find liberty along that dark path. America is a city on a hill. I learned it in grade school and I believe it now.
I’m not a praying person, but if I were, my prayer would echo those of our founders: Let our light so shine before men, that they may see our good works…
Thank you for posting this. I’m a bit of an Anglophile and have been in love with Great Britain since my teens.
I understand that, by and large, the British view “Yanks” as rude, crude and socially unacceptable, without understanding why we are the way we are (which is far more tolerant than a great many Europeans, quite frankly). I’ve reconciled the fact that the people I admire so fiercely would dislike me so intensely with a nice bit of rationalization – being from the South, and damn proud of it, I am most definitely NOT a Yankee.
I’ve spent many an idle minute wondering if the Brits, who pride themselves on their manners and politeness, would be appalled at how insulting it is for a Southerner to be considered a “Yank.”
Comment by Jan — October 7, 2008 @ 3:11 pm
Hallelujah! Somebody FINALLY made what I think is a central point that Americans are being deliberately obtuse about (for reasons you well delineate): how can we POSSIBLY not be UTTERLY ashamed of the torture being inflicted by our government? How can this not be a primary issue in this election?
But I understand your point and have a great story to tell. I was on a business trip to Amsterdam. The owners of the business I visited were more than hospitable, and went out of their way to make me feel at home. At a beautiful dinner where we became quite chummy, one owner told me (and if he told me once he mentioned it 12 times) that he liked Americans…except Texans. Finally, he asked me where I lived and as I puffed up my chest I replied in my best Southern drawl, “Texas”! The poor man just slid under his chair…of course he deserved it!
Of course, I can understand his point as well as the “world view” of Americans. More Americans should travel the world and be humbled by it!
Comment by BE — October 7, 2008 @ 3:12 pm
Well, this beautiful little essay shows us the best of both worlds. Funny thing is, I always thought they liked me.
Comment by survivor — October 7, 2008 @ 3:30 pm
As the granddaughter of Irish immigrants, on both sides, I grew up with a watered-down prejudice against the English (“the sun never sets on the British empire…God doesn’t trust them in the dark”), and never imagined that they had any love for me either! But it is interesting to hear how they perceive us, and to be reminded that the whole world is watching us now more than ever. My prayer is that we have gone through the worst of the dark times and are on the brink of re-emerging into the light.
Comment by Liz@Inventing My Life — October 7, 2008 @ 3:47 pm
This was a very interesting and thought provoking post. I echo Jan as I’m a Southerner to the bone and I’m quick to correct if anyone were to call me a “Yank”, although my accent would do the talking for me. My sister-in-law, the high priestess of everything and everybody (or so she believes), lives on Nantucket and they travel to London quite often because they truly believe that’s the “city on a hill” and where all the beautiful people live. It’s also why they live in the North because in her words “it’s the closest we can find in America to being in London.” I personally wish they’d move over there for good. What I love about this post is the knowledge that she (and her family) think that’s where they belong when in fact if what you say is true, they are loathed because they are true Yanks. Thanks for making me think as well as giving me something to secretly smile about when I have to be in the presence of the high priestess of everything and everyone. 🙂
Comment by Midlife Slices™ — October 8, 2008 @ 5:44 am
Well, I have to say that everyone I met in England could not have been warmer. However, most of them were friends of friends so maybe that made a difference. My daughter had a great 9 weeks at Cambridge and some of the Brit friends she made there are coming to visit. I do believe, however, that as a whole Americans are looked at with disdain by much of the rest of the world.
Comment by Twenty Four At Heart — October 8, 2008 @ 8:11 pm
In saying that the Brits hate the Yanks I was being provocative. Of course, if Americans come here they will, on the whole, be welcomed and well treated. Britain is a hospitable nation and lord knows we (Brits) need those dollars.
But there is a a lot of simple, stupid anti Americanism. I put up with it in off the cuff remarks, but I hate to hear it on the BBC, as in that mindless essayist. It gets my back up (as will be evident!).
On the other hand I hate it much more when we (Yanks) feed it by not behaving like the great country that we are.
I apologise to you Texans, and other southerners, but the collective word for Americans is Yanks. They don’t mean anything northern by it. It may have been a habit they got into back in 1776 and just never got over… You know how traditional they can be.
Meanwhile I’d like to ask again why so many bloggers are Texan. I know it is a BIG state (I know it because I have driven across it twice) but relative to size its population is small. So why are you guys all hanging out in the ethernet?
Or is that just another prejudice?
Comment by Duchess — October 10, 2008 @ 12:45 pm
actually i know a lot of brits … which means scots … irish… and welsh peeps… we do like u.. we watch your back dont we 🙂
Comment by rog — October 25, 2008 @ 2:37 pm
btw… read it somewhere else… limeys cause they needed to hinder scurvy…. yanks.. native american for ‘stranger’ pretty much…. pls discuss 🙂
Comment by rog — October 25, 2008 @ 2:41 pm
oh… on a darker note … it was only 3 years ago that we paid off our ‘war dept’ to america… military intelligence is an oxymoron… spare me pls
Comment by rog — October 25, 2008 @ 2:53 pm
Hey!
I apologise now if my comment is unwelcome but….
I’m a brit, and I certainly don’t hate America, Although sometimes I find the odd tourist [and my American friend ] rather irksome. It’s hate, I think its just that Americans as a people are incredibly patriotic, a lot more so than other nations. Now, sometimes that can come across as arrogant, especially when they sit their making jokes about saving us in the great war, a topic which still sits ill with many in the UK.
Personally, when this [and a million other rants jibes just like it] starts I do switch off and ignore the speaker. Not because I hate America, but because my country’s good too and I do ever so slightly [I mean that, there’s no harm in being vocally patriotic even if the execution of such vocals is directed rather naively at the wrong audience.] feel offended and more than a little patronising.
It often feels that Americans only come to the UK to tell us how much better they are than us [though I do realise this is a misunderstanding by and large] now no one can doubt the might of America, it -is- a great nation and without a doubt it is the forerunner to the worlds first global nation. However other countries, while less powerful, should not be considered lesser for it. There is a wealth of culture and history in the world, that many non-Americans feel america ignores, purely because they are so openly patriotic.
its not necessarily a bad thing.
Just a little OTT for European [especially british] sensibilities.
my two cents. I hope I didnt cause any offense.
Kind Regards
Suibne Geilt
Comment by Suibne Geilt — November 24, 2008 @ 9:07 am
Comments always welcome, and no offence to me, at least.
My post was, of course, provocative and stated probably more strongly than is strictly fair. Though I still think it is mostly true that Americans love Brits and most of the scorn is on the other side.
Comment by Duchess — November 26, 2008 @ 8:42 pm
The word Yank comes from Yankees, which is ‘John Cheese’ in a heavy New Amsterdam Dutch accent.
English immigrants brought to New York by the Duke of York were fed cheese and water on the ships and could barely walk if they made it. They were largely unwanted.
‘Yank’ then, actually means English, and it was the worst insult imaginable to the southrons that applied it to the north. Americans did not always love the English.
Nathanial Hawthorn wrote the definitive opinion on the English and the cause of their anti-American ways in his ‘Sketchbooks’ when serving as US Consul in Liverpool in 1852. As far as I can tell it has not changed at all.
Comment by Jim — January 21, 2010 @ 1:58 am
Amricans in ggeneral are not to the best of my experience universaly “hated”. It appears to me, more likely that a combination of foriegn policy and hollywood “gung ho” potrail of american achievments in conflict and scientific progress, have created a negative opinion in the international comunity as a whole.
Look to yourselves for your answers.
Comment by Steve Foy Lancashire England — June 23, 2010 @ 8:39 am
As an American of German and English ancestry, I must admit, I’ve never had any particular love for the English (though, I do enjoy listening to the Beatles and Rolling Stones). Other than Shakespeare, England is a rather backwards land, culturally speaking, no matter how arrogant they are about their own history. English philosophers are rather scant, English composers are practically non-existent, and when it comes to English art, not many names come to mind. Sure, they’ve got Isaac Newton, but not much else in regards to science, and as far as English cuisine is concerned, it is universally reviled throughout the world. Their claim to fame is the Industrial Revolution, which has done nothing but pillage and pollute the earth, and global imperialism, which did nothing other than plunder and rape the world’s people. Really, other than the Beatles and Rolling Stones, I can’t think of much good the English have brought to the world. One could claim that they stopped Hitler during WWII, but America and Russia technically did that, and England participated in her own brand of genocide for centuries, against the Irish, Scottish, Indians, Africans, etc.., not to mention the Opium Wars, the War of 1812, the repeated invasions of Spanish colonies in South America, and so on.
We can talk of the world’s resentment of America, but when it comes down to it, it is the English who are nothing more than a degenerate island people, whom nearly the entire world loathes, because there is hardly a nation in the whole of the world that hasn’t faced English aggression/oppression at one point or another. We can talk of Abu Gharib, and American torture until we’re blue in the face, but it was the English who made a cottage industry out of torture and practiced it for centuries, passing us down such lovely imagery as the “Iron Maiden”, and “Quartering”. Nope, can’t say you’ll find much of a “special relationship” between this American and the English, and it appears as if our president, Barack Obama, of Kenyan ancestry, doesn’t hold much love for them either, given the savagery they inflicted on the African continent for generations. But if you ask an Englishman, these are the words of a stupid, hypocritical, uncultured Yank, so pay no attention to what I have to say, lest your haughty English ego take a hit (i.e. not you personally, the author of this blog, as it appears you’re an American by birth. I’m referring to the English in general).
Comment by Walter — July 1, 2010 @ 10:21 pm