Keep calm and carry on british3/15/2024 While many in Britain admired the virtues of liberty and human rights that emerged from the uprising, there was a sense that the French had lost control – they had let their emotions get the better of them. The French Revolution of 1789 was one of the early catalysts for change in British emotional self-control. In his book, Weeping Britannia: Portrait of a Nation in Tears, Thomas Dixon described the British around the time of Shakespeare as being known for “sweatiness, drunkenness, meat-eating, anger, violence, simple-mindedness and melancholia”. But to better understand who we are now, we need to begin much further back.įour hundred years ago, the British persona was very different from the generally accepted stereotype we see today. On a statistical basis, at least, it would appear that we are far more emotional than many assume. Ninety-three of the 151 countries polled reported showing fewer emotions daily than the British. We gravitate towards this kind of stoicism, but are we really a bastion of emotional self-control as many believe?Ī Gallup survey from 2012, which ranked the daily emotional response of any kind, showed Britain, the reputed bastion of emotional control, in the top half of emotional response – placed directly between Sweden and Greece. Facing adversity with one’s head held high is an intoxicating image for British people. “Muddle through”, “plug away”, “chin up”, “soldier on”, to name just a few. Visitors to the UK will notice that our lexicon comes with a wonderfully wide variety of phrases that encourage or urge on in the face of adversity. And it’s certainly true that there is a charming stoicism about the British, from the well-worn British mantra “ keep calm and carry on” to the vehement belief that a cup of tea is the only appropriate response to a crisis. Stoicism, which has its roots in Ancient Greece, originated as a philosophy of understanding pain and hardship and being able to deal with them without complaint. E M Forster famously bemoaned his fellow countrymen as having “well-developed bodies, fairly developed minds and undeveloped hearts”. Categorised by our “stiff upper lip” – the famous but now out-of-fashion form of extreme British stoicism – we are often pigeonholed as stunted stoics. We British, according to many outsiders, are reserved, repressed, resilient, unemotional and self-controlled. We all lug stereotypes around, our perennial ball and chain. Understated, good humoured, light on the emotions this was British stoicism at its best. “Oh well, better crack on.” With a brief nod in my direction, he disappeared through the grand archway and into the covered Victorian-era market. He gave a slight shake of the head – more in mild irritation that anything else – before draining his tea and standing up. “Bloody Covid,” he said, in a way one might complain about noisy children. “Did you see Boris’ speech last night?” he eventually murmured.
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