American Presidents and British Monarchs
Longtime readers might recognize these paragraphs, but they seem appropriate and particularly topical right now. This is one of those rare times when something that’s intended to not have a date—to be read in any decade, without contemporary references—looks like it was intended for this news cycle.
One consequence of the cultural divide between Britain and America is that Americans pretend that they don’t think about class and the British pretend that they don’t think about money. There seems to be, as always, a pressure to live up to the oldest national stereotypes. And that means that many Americans find it difficult to say the word class even when they have a nuanced understanding of how education and accent and geography determine so much of the atmosphere, while, never to be outdone when it comes to social repression, many Britons turn into an awkward, sputtering mess at the mere mention of personal finances even when discussions of the property market or local economy have become national pastimes.
Of course both cultures have worked hard to find decent coping mechanism—the reasonable excuses that permit you to discuss what you’re not supposed to discuss. The desire to complain—a desire deep in the reptilian part of our brain—always finds an outlet. So plenty of Americans have learned to enjoy bickering away about the hierarchies in education, media, and business, which lets them complain about class while sidestepping the word, just as plenty of Britons deem a discussion of markets and housing and globalization a good substitute when they want to vent about salaries. And nothing seems to beat the most salubrious way both Americans and Britons deal with taboos: through comparison and by focusing on the flaws of the other.
For two nations divided by a common language—as said by countless people over the years—the contrasts and cultural gaps reach their peak during travel. Any reasonably self-aware American will notice that they feel the most American in Britain, just as most Britons will never exceed the feeling of Britishness that comes, for them, with taking a stroll through an American city. In some ways, this is the classic narcissism of minor differences, the exaggeration of gross national stereotypes, but that doesn’t make the sensations any less real, the slight dreamscape of how such subtle distinctions begin to feel grand, or of how cultural misunderstandings are perfectly acceptable and brushed aside when they occur in more distant cultures—a trip to Japan, in the Middle East—but feel somehow maddening when they’re familial.
One intriguing linguistic difference is that a typical Briton understands American slang with ease. There’s no problem in catching the nuances of informal American vernacular, and we can assume that nearly a century of Hollywood productions, in particular, made that linguistic dexterity possible. Yet this isn’t true in reverse. There are countless British sayings and idioms and even accents that the typical American just doesn’t comprehend, and they don’t, in general, pick them up, so the comprehension only flows one way—with most Britons possessing a bilingual dexterity that Americans don’t attempt. You might say that most Americans, in this case, act like a colonial power by expecting Britons to learn their words and language without ever bothering to learn the local British dialect, which is at least an amusing historical twist.
The phrase table that is perhaps my favorite linguistic chasm between these cultures. If you’re around a stately conference table, with the discussion a little heated, and someone says let’s table that, what should happen next? Take a moment to decide—your answer probably depends on what passport you use, as I learned when that very situation happened in a group comprised of both Americans and Britons a few years ago, to the confusion of nearly everyone. I remember that I was the only person more fascinated with how this phrase took different meanings—as in, the opposite meaning—than the actual discussion. Most Americans hear let’s table that as a request to put the topic aside, to come back another day after we play baseball and eat apple pie; while most Britons hear let’s table that as the announcement of an imminent decision, with the cricket pitch and pub needing to wait. And to use this cliché in an international crowd is to confuse your audience—which, I guess, has its appeal. Obviously there is a better choice within this chasm, and only one meaning that’s superior, as I’m sure you’ll agree.
In double-checking a British English Dictionary to write the previous paragraph, I’m amused to learn that my experience in that stuffy meeting room was exactly the same experience—and this certainly isn’t a sentence that I ever expected to write—that Winston Churchill details in Volume III of his book about the Second World War.
The British Staff prepared a paper which they wished to raise as a matter of urgency, and informed their American colleagues that they wished to "table it." To the American Staff "tabling" a paper meant putting it away in a drawer and forgetting it. A long and even acrimonious argument ensued before both parties realized that they were agreed on the merits and wanted the same thing.
Of course these linguistic fumbles are not truly substantial, and there isn’t really a clean rupture in language between the countries—someone from New York can seamlessly move to London, but not necessarily to a rural area in Louisiana, and someone from London can seamlessly move to New York, but not necessarily to a rural area in Wales.
Where there’s a splendid, cousin-like agreement, however, is on government: whether you're talking to a Briton or an American, they probably believe that their government is, at all times, absolutely ridiculous. Westminster and Washington, two stately names, two seats of power, yet it is impossible to speak of either without a sneer. Britain happens to split the head of state and head of government into two people, while America happens to fuse those positions into one person. But neither country really takes its system seriously. Even a British monarchist, if the conversation is at a whisper, will admit that, yes, it is utterly preposterous to playact with kings and crowns and castles in this century. You can like the monarchy yet still state that it is anachronistic. And you can also know that nobody truly takes the American system seriously because in America grown adults are given stickers after they vote like they’re children visiting a dentist—although, in some ways, that isn’t the worst metaphor for election day.
Now this doesn’t mean that there are better alternatives than these systems to organize a population of primates, but perhaps our descent from trees sixty-five million years ago is closer than we normally believe. Back when the air was thick with a humid mist, we found ourselves with conveniently dexterous hands and feet, reasonably sound forward-facing eyes, and a brain that’s large for our size—but that latter point shouldn’t make us too cocky. What we craved, what we yearned for, what permitted us to climb down from the trees and slowly conquer the entire planet was, in the end, our hunger to form groups—with our nervous system and its ability to calibrate the nuances of the ever-changing social hierarchy leading the way. Our real ingenuity is the discernment perfected by Britons and Americans: of class, wealth, status. And our attention has always tilted toward whomever is on top.
Some Americans even have the peculiar tick of referring to different presidents to chart time when they tell stories, almost labeling administrations as seasons—that was during the Carter years; Nixon was in office when I moved to Cleveland; I remember that I took that job just after Reagan was elected. In most countries, using a president to mark the calendar is just plain strange, especially when the president is unrelated to the story, yet this reference seems perfectly fine in American speech, though you’ll only hear it in the stories of Americans who have lived four or five decades. You need to have suffered through enough four-year intervals that you start, alas, to tally chunks of your time on the planet by election cycles.
But these aren’t political references. They are linchpins, landmarks, guideposts. More accurately seen as a way to measure the tick of time than to measure political affiliation. They really only occur—if you listen closely—to suggest the atmosphere of a period. To say during the Reagan years is the modern equivalent of how centuries ago people might say during the flood or during the plague—perhaps in more ways than one. Down from the trees for so long, but we’re still looking upward, studying the hierarchy, striving to keep track of our surroundings.
Regardless of whether you follow the push and pull of politics, there’s always a metronome for the social atmosphere. So, in Britain, Prime Ministers can also mark the years—or, more recently, the change in days—and the monarchy offers a secondary calendar, such as references to the Tudor or Stuart or Victorian periods even when the subject isn’t monarchy. There’s no shock at associating the Tudors with a type of furniture because it fits the time, or that we label a certain type of decorum Victorian because it fits that time, although, thankfully, we don’t have the equivalent with something like Eisenhower chairs or Nixonian manners.
It certainly helps that one of the most tribal instincts is to believe that those at the top hold almost mystical powers—the roots of conspiracy, frustration, and reverence come from this instinct, which sees leaders as omniscient, whether they happen to be a monarch or a president. Our still too youthful brains need to believe that there’s a leader in control, that there’s someone competent and running the show while we sleep. Especially because most people seem to believe that the leader has access to a few dials in a control room that nobody else gets to see: so the president fiddles with the economic dials and the social dials, shifting society with this magical power, while the monarch sets the tone for culture, bringing either good or bad fortune to every subject. Yet it is always the case that both the supporters and opponents of whomever is in charge vastly overstate the actual power of the highest chair.
It is a tricky argument to put forward, one that’s intrinsically hostile to what people typically desire, one that no news organization has any interest in broadcasting, but there’s a lot more randomness and a lot more confusion and competing structures of power and utter foolishness than anybody really wants to admit. How much better it would be—some people do believe—if the crown directly affected politics. And how much better it would be—plenty of people manage to say aloud—if the president just had more authority. The truth of a captainless ship is very unsatisfying for a primate species that’s still dealing with the growing pains of bad knees and sore hips from the relatively recent decision to walk upright.
Isn’t someone in charge? As goes the yell from the cold and panicky and trembling ape who looks into the distance at the endless vista of unknowns with all its mystery and dread and unexplainable sights and where every event is unforeseen and where what happens next can’t ever be predicted. The frightening but true alternative for both Britons and Americans and just about everybody else is that nobody is really in charge. Behind the endless arguments of class and wealth, which is another way of saying blame, there’s the awkwardness of learning that there’s more disarray than design. Despite all the military salutes and golden thrones, despite the manner in which we toss our troubles upward, there’s neither any office nor any crown that truly knows the way forward. Perhaps that’s frightening for some, but the alternative—that the leader is in control—seems far worse.
It is indeed one of the more terrifying discoveries as we grow older that no one, including those in charge, knows very much about anything.