In his case for a "progressive nationalism," David Goodhart argues that it may be "the last resting place for the communal commitments that the left holds dear." He states, as if it were a truth universally acknowledged, that old sources of loyalty are in retreat and that the shared experience that "creates real communities" is being undermined by affluence, mobility and individualism.
It is a platitude among social anthropologists that "anthropologically speaking there is no 'representative Britain.' Likewise there is no necessary 'whole' to British life," as Nigel Rapport remarked in his introduction to British Subjects (2002). Few would deny that the British nation state is a very odd kind of beast compared with other large European countries. Our "United" Kingdom produces four separate rugby union teams to engage in the same tournament. The defeat of England's football team by Portugal in the World Cup gave much pleasure to many in Scotland. Until recently, part of Britain was riven by a civil war which at its height produced a ferocious attempt to blow up the British government. After the riots in a number of northern English towns in 2001, a government-commissioned inquiry concluded that Britain was a "deeply divided country." Do we truly imagine that such divisions have now disappeared?
As GK Chesterton remarked, "For anything to be real, it must be local." Evidently, a Lithuanian migrant working in Aberdeen will have a very different experience of the host society from a newly arrived Bangladeshi in Tower Hamlets, a Pakistani in Bradford or a Turk in Stoke Newington. The immigrant taxi driver in Newport who much prefers the "atmosphere" there to working in Cardiff is recognising the practical significance of local variations. Britain is a community of communities. Indeed, it might be claimed, following the classic work of anthropologists such as EE Evans-Pritchard or Max Gluckman, that our social cohesion comes from "the peace in the feud." It is the differences—or perhaps even the conflicts—that paradoxically produce solidarities and social glue. And people seem to enjoy perpetuating these differences. Years ago, taking an adult education class in the Fens, I was surprised to be told that the community was held together by its bitter opposition to another place a few miles away that had "fought on the other side during the war." This, it emerged, was a reference to the English civil war.
The conventional wisdom is that urbanisation, globalisation, individualisation and the internet society have destroyed local solidarities. I am not so sure. London has often been described as a conglomeration of urban villages. People obviously have multiple identities, but we often forget that among these are local identities, which some sociologists such as Martin Albrow claim have increased with globalisation. While MPs may feel that they have to take notice of the prejudices of the Murdoch press, they also have to pay considerable attention to the concerns of the local newspapers in their constituencies. In many areas local newspapers sell more than national papers, and they are primarily concerned with the minutiae of local events and people.
Immigrants from different backgrounds and cultures enter a myriad of micro-social worlds, each with their own histories, values and priorities. Politicians and bureaucrats sometimes find the variety of such micro-social worlds difficult to accommodate. They like to see citizens being trained for work, paying their taxes, behaving respectfully, appreciating the NHS and so on. They would like immigrants to fit in with this general picture, wherever they are. It suits such a perspective to argue that other older divisions, such as class, are disappearing. Andrew Marr, in The Day Britain Died (Profile Books, 2000), has argued that the privatising, demolishing and deregulating of much of the state apparatus by Thatcher and Major effectively undermined key aspects of British identity. This, of course, is part of Goodhart's point about how affluence and individualism weakens the collective "we," but he too readily turns to "progressive nationalism" as the means to renew wider commitments.
I suggest that those searching for the will-o-the-wisp British identity are misapplying their energies. I also think that Goodhart's search for a grand narrative based on British history from the stone age to the swinging sixties, which would be taught in schools to encourage a common sense of being British, is unlikely to have the effects he hopes for. Considering England separately, themes of diversity, hybridity and conflict might be more appropriate than some Churchillian notion of an emergent nation implacably pursuing its destined path. At least as compelling would be an account of the emergence of a powerful struggle between capital and labour associated with urbanisation and industrialistion.
The idea that there are distinctive English values, such as moderation and fair play, is a further minefield into which Goodhart wisely does not venture. However, it was only a few years ago that Jack Straw admitted that the English are particularly prone to aggressive behaviour. As he put it, "You have within the UK three small nations… under the cosh of the English." I think that recognising English thuggery would be all to the good. If we all understood how much violence we have done to each other in the past, we might appreciate, in Laurence Stone's inimitable phrase, that "the family that slayed together stayed together."
It is strange that the nation that gave the world a distinctive and innovative social anthropology, which developed partly from a need to understand its colonial empire, does not apply that same social anthropology to its own current dilemmas. We in Britain seem to have difficulty in grasping Max Gluckman's dictum that "Conflicts are part of social life and custom appears to exacerbate these conflicts; but in doing so custom also restrains the conflicts from destroying the wider social order."
I believe we are sufficiently mature as a society to accept the peace in the feud. Many Scots will continue to rejoice at the discomfitures of the English and many proud northern cities will continue to resent the unwelcome intrusions of Whitehall. The suspicions in Northern Ireland will rumble on and radical Welshmen will refuse to toe the New Labour line. Many new Britons will continue to resent aspects of the foreign policy of their new homeland. These conflicts are real but they help to bind us together.
Recognising the need for more British empirical research on these issues, Liz Spencer and I set out seven years ago on a programme of research funded by the ESRC on hidden solidarities. Our new book, Rethinking Friendship: Hidden Solidarities Today (Princeton), makes a sustained critique of those sociologists such as Ulrich Beck or Zygmunt Bauman who adopt a pessimistic approach towards contemporary society. They emphasise the transient and individualised nature of social relationships. Clearly it would be difficult for immigrants to integrate into fluid bundles of selfish social atoms. But our research suggests that society is not like that. People live in enduring personal communities, of various types, of those friends and members of their family who are especially important to them. The adage that friends can be distinguished from family because you can't choose your family seems to be becoming less significant, as people choose those members of their families with whom they want to be closer. The forms of friendship we analyse come together in what have hitherto appeared to be hidden solidarities. What we do for others to demonstrate our friendship, and what we expect others to do for us, makes us what we are. Altruism and reciprocity are at the heart of our micro-social worlds.
So whether we are talking about Cardiff, Aberdeen, Luton or Bromley, a common element is that most people will be living in well-established micro-social worlds, often substantially locally based but also, perhaps as importantly, stretching throughout Britain and extending from Barbados to Bratislava or Brisbane. It is often forgotten that people choose their friends in specific contexts. Our respondents met some of their closest friends at church, in sports clubs, at college or at their place or work and so on. Micro-social worlds are inextricably linked with macro-social worlds. There is no reason why someone with deep and enduring friendships should cease to be an active member of a trade union, political party or pressure group. We strongly reject the notion that the trust and supportiveness found in personal communities militates against the social cohesion of a good society.
The notion of personal communities provides a new way of looking at social forms. Such solidarities tend to slip through the net of conventional social surveys and the surveillance apparatus of MI5. But our study presents much solid evidence on how people recognise and construct their personal communities in Britain today. As for immigration, it is clear that the larger and quicker its scale, the less easily new individuals will become accepted in indigenous personal communities. Bridging ties to personal communities take time to build.
David Blunkett has long championed a bottom-up approach to community, focusing on real rather than imagined local social relationships. Our concept of personal community extends that notion throughout the wider society. British society looked at from the bottom is a complex web of personal communities based on friends and family. British society seen from above is a cluster of long-established and conflicting loyalties, customs and institutions. When President Bush smirks before saying "God bless America," we squirm. That's what makes us British.
