J. K. Rowling’s work, I confess, leaves me somewhat cold. Harry Potter is just an Enid Blyton boarding school story with sprinklings of magic, cod Latin and dubious politics (the Ministry of Magic imprisons and tortures its political opponents and they’re the good guys. Really?).
One thing she got brilliantly right, I think though, was her portrayal of Dolores Umbridge, the saccharine teacher whose overt sweetness is quickly revealed to cloak her manifest psychopathy. She starts with pink twin-sets and bone china but within a few pages is physically torturing the bespectacled boy-wonder of the wizarding world.
“Unity”, I think, plays a similar trick. On the surface it is all cosy and nicey-nicey, the lexical equivalent of a Scandinavian blonde in a heavy jumper holding a cup of tea on the sofa as she soulfully gazes at a sunlit beach. Who wouldn’t want us all to come together in harmony? We might even teach the birds to sing.
But unity is not a concept on its own, pristine through space and time. We have to unite around something. And here is where it becomes difficult. We could after all, as societies have in the past, unite around the wrong thing – for several years in the 1860’s, for example, the Southern States of America were as one in their desire to retain slavery.
People don’t generally see it that way, of course, despite the well-known statistical likelihood that we are wrong, we always assume that at this particular point in time, we are right. And because we think we are right, we think people should unite around our ideas. Keir Starmer regularly wants to bring the country together, but not around the manifesto of Reform.
And here lies the rub with calls for unity. For all they appear touchy-feely, they are at heart calls for people to do what we want. And to like it too.
There is a word for that. Authoritarianism. Our Scandinavian blonde hides a hatchet-faced Soviet apparatchik. Sweden, for example, uses its renowned social solidarity to portray itself as a “moral superpower”, but it found it strangely easy forcibly to sterilise those deemed “unfit”. And to trade with Nazi Germany…
There was, as you may have seen, a “Unite the Kingdom” march in London at the weekend. You may even have participated. Around what exactly the country was supposed to unite wasn’t immediately clear, but it almost certainly wasn’t the ideas of the Muslim Brotherhood. No matter how many attended (numbers varied widely according to different sources, as they always do with these things), it was a pleasing/terrifying show of strength by the forgotten majority/hard right extremists (delete according to taste).
But of course, it wasn’t.
Secure, confident people don’t spend much time worrying about what other people think or do, still less trying to force them to agree with them. They get on and do their own thing. There is abundant literature showing that support for authoritarian politics rises with fear. Those who feel themselves under threat respond by supporting calls for conformity and threats against those whom they perceive as undermining the established order. They seek the imposition of order on a situation they feel they cannot control but need to. They latch on to those who promise just please to make it stop.
Diversity may not be our strength in that dread phrase of the metropolitan left, fresh from sampling the latest Inuit-Somali fusion restaurant, but the toleration of diversity is a sign of strength. It is a sign of confidence. A sign that we believe our ideas will win out, that their results will be sufficiently good that others will adopt them by choice. We do not need to impose them on others because they will come to adopt them on their own. We hold these things self-evident as a famous group of renegade Englishmen once put it… Demanding that others agree with us, do what we want and believe what we want suggests a fear that, left to their own devices, they might not. That our ideas are not actually as self-evidently correct as we might like to believe.
It was not always thus, of course. England specifically was hymned by figures such as Voltaire as the land of liberty and toleration. Because it was great, it was tolerant and its tolerance made it greater still. For these thinkers, the English miracle lay in its refusal to enforce an ideology, allowing everyone to contribute to the best of their abilities and according to their own lights. Demanding unity was the sort of thing the French did.
Let’s assume, however, that we do, somehow, magically reunite the kingdom. What happens then? Will crime stop overnight? Will the potholes fill themselves? Will your doctor start phoning you at 8am to ask if you’d like to see him? Will your wages suddenly go up? Of course not. Britain’s problems, the problems which make people want to wrap themselves in the blanket of unity are nothing to do with unity, they’re to do with money. More precisely, the lack of money to pay for all the things we want. Solidarity doesn’t make you richer, it just makes you temporarily happier about being poor. It may be a natural response, but it is not an answer.
If you want Britain to be the sort of place people will take pride in voluntarily, not at the point of a St George’s cross, you have to want it to change because there are precious few reasons to do so today, no matter how many flags you wave or how loudly you celebrate your unity. Even the French are holding us up as a cautionary tale. If you seek our shame, just look around you. Look at the broken streets, the boarded-up shops, the graffiti and petty criminality. Do you really want to take pride in that? Can you take pride in that? The way to get Britain to improve is to get Britain to grow. And the best way to do that is not to enforce conformity, but to encourage diversity. Diversity of approaches, diversity of thinking. Allow people and ideas to compete. To seek difference, not similarity. But that would involve admitting that maybe you’re doing it wrong, that you could do better, that others perhaps are doing it better. And we don’t generally want to do that.
I am by nurture certainly, and by nature probably, a rank individualist. Lone wolves find me standoffish. The notion of membership in a collective is something from which I instinctively recoil. This is, according to all the sociological evidence, a particularly “Anglo” personality type. You may be different. But if you are attracted to the siren voices leading you on to the rocks of unity, remember the wise words of General Patton. “If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody’s not thinking.”
Stewart Slater works in Finance. He invites you to join him at his website.
If you enjoy The New Conservative and would like to support our work, please consider buying us a coffee or sharing this piece with your friends – it would really help to keep us going. Thank you!
Couldn’t have put it better myself. I applaud your insights and look forward to reading other comments – no doubt some condemnatory from those who believe wrapping themselves in a flag will both make the baddies disappear and transport the UK back to a golden heyday (that never existed for most ordinary people).
I totally agree about Harry Potter – never been remotely tempted to read any of the books or watch any of the films. Not my scene. However, I disagree with General Patton – big time. To say that “If everybody is thinking alike, then somebody’s not thinking” might sound good, seem to make sense but it doesn’t. I’m no genius, of course, in case anybody’s not noticed already (!) but it seems to me that if Christ were the head of every nation under heaven – a goal at the heart of Catholic Social Teaching – then there wouldn’t be much about which to disagree.
Reading the above article, and (with respect) questioning just about every sentence, I was reminded of the very first encyclical letter penned by Pope (Saint) Pius X, early-twentieth century. He had not wanted the papal office (as he reveals at the very beginning of his first encyclical, ‘E Supremi – On the Restoration of All Things in Christ’) but having embraced it, he immediately turned to the dire state of society at that time – imagine what he’d be thinking now!
I do agree that waving flags or wrapping ourselves in flags is not the answer. Here is the answer: straight from the pen of a very holy and insightful early-twentieth century pope:
“For who can fail to see that society is at the present time, more than in any past age, suffering from a terrible and deep-rooted malady which, developing every day and eating into its inmost being, is dragging it to destruction? You understand, Venerable Brethren, what this disease is — apostasy from God, than which in truth nothing is more allied with ruin, according to the word of the Prophet: ‘For behold they that go far from Thee shall perish’ (Ps. 1xxii., 17)… [ ] no one of sound mind can doubt the issue of this contest between man and the Most High. Man, abusing his liberty, can violate the right and the majesty of the Creator of the Universe; but the victory will ever be with God… But this does not prevent us also, according to the measure given to each, from exerting ourselves to hasten the work of God — and not merely by praying assiduously: “Arise, O Lord, let not man be strengthened” (Ib. ix., 19), but, more important still, by affirming both by word and deed and in the light of day, God’s supreme dominion over man and all things, so that His right to command and His authority may be fully realized and respected. This is imposed upon us not only as a natural duty, but by our common interest.” (‘E Supremi – Encyclical of Pope Pius X, On the Restoration of All Things in Christ’, 4/10/1903).
Bracing myself!
I am staggered by the sheer negativity of this article, utterly devoid of insight. “Encourage diversity?” I don’t know where you live Mr Slater but it is precisely “diversity” which has broken this country. British people don’t want it. We want to live in Our country with Our people and live as Britons , it’s that simple. I could go on but commenting seems rather pointless because we are at two ends of a political spectrum and so nowhere to find a common ground starting point.
Here here enjoy your halal meat Mr Slater and your shariah law. Me? I think I’ll keep with 1,000 + years of English law and free speech which we don’t get with diversity and which has been and will continue to be a complete utter and total failure at the expense of the English. Thought this was meant to be the new CONSERVATIVE, seems to me like leftist twaddle.
I agree with you, Mr Stevenson, but wondered if I was somehow misreading or misunderstanding what the author was trying to say. He seems to be saying that (apparently) wanting to show your sadness/concern/fear at the way in which your country is being ruined, and showing solidarity with the universal symbol of the UK – the flag – is looked down on, because it won’t make you rich. (We know this, but never mind, we need to be told). Or it’s just looked down on because it might give people a feeling or illusion of ‘unity’, after being browbeaten for years into accepting that the UK and it’s people are racist, transphobic, Islamaphobic, every other kind of phobic, should be ashamed of their history, should pay billions in ‘reparation’ to countries who hate us, in fact they are useless in every way, and worth less than even an illegal immigrant. The march on Saturday is just saying we are fed up with it, we don’t accept it, and the flag is the only symbol we have to show this. Nobody could be ‘proud’ to see boarded up shops, derelict town centres, poverty and misery. That’s not it. We want to feel that somebody cares, that we are not alone in our fear and impotence. If the government doesn’t care, which couldn’t be plainer, we turn to others who do.
And sorry Patricia, I’m not going to have a go at you, but I honestly don’t think that God has anything to do with it. No doubt it helps some people to have a higher being to turn to in extremis – it can be a comfort to think whatever happens is ‘God’s will’, and you must trust in Him, otherwise everything will go wrong (As it is now). I always thought that the best you could hope for is the strength to cope with whatever is sent your way, good or bad. I have no wish to get into a theological discussion – you are obviously much more educated on that issue than I am, and of course are entitled to your opinion, as is the author of the article.
Kangarabbit,
Thank you for not having a go a me! I appreciate that, truly…
I am surprised, though, that you would argue that “God [doesn’t] have anything to do with” the dire state of life in the UK and other western countries. When Christianity was at the centre of life across Europe, marriage and family life was strong and there was a clearly ordered way of life; thus, people, broadly speaking, were happier and life was better in many ways, to what we are experiencing today. I’m avoiding piling on examples as it’s late and I accept your preference not to enter into a theology debate, so I’m making broad points with which I think/hope you will agree. Put simply, before the Ten Commandments came to be regarded as the Ten Suggestions, life was better!
I hasten to add that I don’t mean to suggest that everyone was perfect, that there were no problems or crimes in western societies in more Christ-centred cultures – of course not; human nature is present in all cultures, including those which were/are deeply Christian. However, with the secularisation of western society, with the widespread rejection of God and His Laws (essentially, the Ten Commandments) surely it is true to say that life is, today, more unstable, more dangerous in many ways. With the introduction of divorce, for example, and the widespread contraceptive mentality now embedded in our society, we are seeing all sorts of serious, if unintended, consequences for the overall health, physical, psychological and spiritual, of us all. So many “firsts” are happening in our times – the whole gender ID business, the idea that men can become women and vice versa would have been unthinkable in previous, more God-fearing times.
Indeed, the gender ID debate, more than any other issue in modern times, reminds me of the quip attributed to GK Chesterton: “When people stop believing in God, it’s not that they believe in nothing – they’ll believe anything!”
Patricia – there is so much I want to say, but am not sure I am articulate enough. I certainly agree with you about the gender ID issue, but this is more to do with biological fact/chromosomes, not fear of God’s will. For me personally, it’s not even a debate, it’s a fact. I certainly don’t agree that two people who once presumably loved each other, should not divorce, (devastating as that can be), but be forced to live in misery for the rest of their lives, especially when there is domestic violence, both physical and mental involved, or persistent infidelity. Nor do I believe that women should be forced to go through pregnancy after pregnancy, bearing and giving birth to children they don’t want, can’t afford and can’t look after, because they fear the wrath of God. I don’t believe they were happier, they just had no choice. Life might have been simpler, but happier? Yes, times have changed, the world has got smaller, so we know a lot more about what is going on in other parts of the world. And when we see the war and destruction and misery- just think of Ukraine – we don’t necessarily ‘reject God and his laws’, we question ‘Why?’ How can God in his wisdom let this happen? We even wonder if the death and destruction is a punishment – what did we/they do wrong to upset God? I think those in that country were pretty God-fearing anyway. Surely those little sick or injured children, those bereaved Ukrainian mothers, can’t be subject to the wrath of God? So why? The answer is usually ‘it’s because man has free will’, but sorry, this sounds like a cop out. When we see wicked people happy and prospering, and often the average law abiding person living in misery, poverty or illness, to me it’s not surprising when people say that God is not listening, He doesn’t care. They don’t fear Him any more, because how can life get any worse, how can He punish them any further?
No doubt this sounds like blasphemy, and it’s plain that our views are completely polar opposites, which is fine. Each to their own. Many people are not exactly ‘non-believers’ in a Higher Power, they just don’t think He’s interested, so why should they live their lives according to His laws? I don’t mean to say that people should just be allowed to do as they like, of course not – I’m just glad I don’t have to live in a God-fearing society.
Pingback: From the Man Cave XIV - The New Conservative
This article is in places facetious, semi-literate (what does the first sentence in the penultimate paragraph mean?), and in its conclusion, wrong. Without a common culture – a Great British culture as it once was – we have, as a people, nothing. We have no common sense..
It was inevitable that some readers would fail to grasp the Libertarian message.
Pingback: What Does it Mean to be British? - The New Conservative