England is Dead

Here's some more John Derbyshire, as quoted approvingly by Andrew Sullivan ("I've developed a soft spot for John Derbyshire"). And yes, his dear old Mum features again:

I am at the point with this business about the British hostages where I really can't trust myself to post any more, I'm so mad... They are saps and worms, insults to the Queen's uniform. I'd better change track right here—see what I mean?.

One thing the whole business has revealed to me is how it is possible to hate your own country, a thing I never understood before. Not that I hate my country—which is, as of five years this coming April 19th, the blessed U.S. of A. I maintain strong sentimental ties to England, though, and I've been burning with anger and shame at the dishonor these giggling buffoons have brought to their country, the country of my ancestors (all English, for as far back as I know), the country I was raised in. Yes, there have been moments when I've hated England.

My Mum, Esther Alice Knowles (1912-98), eleventh child of a pick'n'shovel coal miner, in one of the last conversations I had with her, said: "I know I'm dying, but I don't mind. At least I knew England when she was England."

I discounted that at the time. Old people always grumble about the state of the world. Now I understand it, though. I even feel a bit the same way myself. I caught the tail-end of that old England—that bumptious, arrogant, self-confident old England, the England of complicated games, snobbery, irony, repression, and stoicism, the England of suet puddings, drafty houses, coal smoke and bad teeth, the England of throat-catching poetry and gardens and tweeds, the England that civilized the whole world and gave an example of adult behavior—the English Gentleman—that was admired from Peking (I can testify) to Peru.

It's all gone now, "dead as mutton," as English people used to say. Now there is nothing there but a flock of whimpering Eloi, giggling over their gadgets, whining for their handouts, crying for their Mummies, playing at soldiering for reasons they can no longer understand, from lingering habit. Lower the corpse down slowly, shovel in the earth. England is dead.

If he wrote that here in England, he'd be "laughed out of court", as English people used to say. Maybe that's why he doesn't live here anymore. Well, that and the death of his Mum, obviously.

We all have our idea of how to behave, of course, and what constitutes that notable "example of adult behavior—the English Gentleman". I'm not sure, but does it, I wonder, cover that type of Englishman who emigrates to America and then spends his time loudly and pompously announcing how much he hates England but loves the "blessed U.S. of A."? I mean, that takes the kind of courage those "saps and worms" captured and interrogated by the Iranians can only dream about.

Comments

[dom]

Sullivan is a very poor writer, usually keeeping things vague so he can wiggle out of anything. But you should re-read his post. He doesn't "approve" of this. He calls JD "excitable", and uses the text that you quoted to show he is a "reactionary". The "soft-spot" remark just lets him play both sides of the fence. If he picks up on your post he will have to say, and he does almost everyday on his blog, that he has been misquoted.

[Mick H]

Yes I suppose you're right. I got the impression that he's getting this soft spot for Derbyshire because of his reactionary views, even if they are a bit over-the-top, but, yes, he does leave room for ambiguity.