The Meaning of Britishness and the End of Empire

1. The Meaning of Britishnessand the End of Empire A non-deconstructivelook at therole of semantics in history

2. Overview • The project and the theoretical foundations • National identity: social role and conceptual anatomy • The cognitive and the social dimension of the family model • The panchronic trajectory of Britishness • Explaining the breakup of Britain? • Summing up

3. The project and the theoretical foundations • This paper reports on a history project with a linguistic dimension, Embers of Empire (led by Stuart Ward, Engerom) • The thesis is that ’Britishness’ as a social-cognitive formation has a key role in the history (including the future) of Great Britain • This contrasts with theories predicated solely on objective interests, or discursive power play • The specific focus is on factors that tend towards a ’break-up of Britain’, cf. the vote on Scottish independence

4. The project and the theoretical foundations • Language exists in a social universe, and depends on the uniquely human capacity for intersubjectivity (Tomasello 1999) • Conceptual models, like langage itself, are extended in social space as well as in cognitive space (cf. Meaning in Mind and Society, Harder 2010) • The law (for instance) embodies conceptualizations of certain acts as impermissible - but they also enter into social causality as grounds for enforcement • Mapping such composite entities is a new challenge for cognitive linguistics – in trans-disciplinary collaboration with other fields, including history

5. The project and the theoretical foundations • Concepts in social space have been intensively studied in critical theory and critical discourse analysis (on national identity, cf. Wodak et al. 2009) • Such studies are mostly value-oriented and predicated on a ’hermeneutics of suspicion’ • Their major aim is to deconstruct power-imbued models conveyed by discourses

6. The project and the theoretical foundations • Part of this ‘unmasking’ agenda is an orientation towards locating the target of analysis not in something perceived as overarching social reality, but rather in the mind, or in discourse, cf. Wodak et al. 2009: 3-4: • “Firstly, following Benedict Anderson (1983, pp. 15f), we assume that nations are mental constructs, ‘imagined communities’, which nationalised political subjects perceive as discrete political entities. Secondly, we assume that national identities, as special forms of social identities, are produced and reproduced, as well as transformed and dismantled, discursively.”

7. The project and the theoretical foundations • Understanding ‘context’ as purely cognitive or discursive is problematic (pace egHart2013, cf Maalej 2013:390) • Mental representations and their discursive manifestations interact with non-discursive events like climate change and war • Even if you are particularly interested in mind and discourse, no complete account is possible without inquiry into how they interact with other factors

8. The project and the theoretical foundations • Linguistic meanings arise as constituents of a shared world (neither objective nor subjective) • Human beings, unlike apes, are sensitive to joint understanding (otherwise word meanings could not exist as joint property) • Linguistic signifiers may ’float’ – but they remain anchored in an intersubjective universe of understanding • This is also a precondition for social construction (as opposed to purely subjective construction)

9. National identity: social role and conceptual anatomy • The first social construction is a ’we’ • At first, the construction of ’we’-s is based on direct interaction (=grounded in joint experience) • But imagination (=mental representation) is necessary to extend community size from face-to-face communities to geopolitical units • This mental-cum-discursive extension occurred as part of historical events in Europe around 1800, as analysed by Anderson (1983)

10. National identity: social role and conceptual anatomy • The role of concepts in enabling the transition from tribal and feudal states to nations can be illustrated by a quote from the film Lawrence of Arabia: • T.E. Lawrence: We do not work this thing for Feisal. • Auda abu Tayi: No? For the English, then? • T.E. Lawrence: For the Arabs. • Auda abu Tayi: The Arabs? The Howitat, Ajili, Rala, Beni Saha; these I know, I have even heard of the Harif, but the Arabs? What tribe is that? • Unless there is a concept of ‘being Arabs’, a real historical entity constituted by “the Arabs” is inconceivable. • But as modern Arab history shows, the concept in itself is not enough

11. National identity: social role and conceptual anatomy • Two conceptual components: • A ’classifying’ component (citizenship in a given nation) – a ’plus/minus’ property • A ’descriptive’ component (ethnocultural features of the community: a variational network of family resemblances, including ’family feeling’) • Two dimensions of grounding: • Intersubjective commitment (being eg Danish is part of who ’we’ are) • Emotional underpinning, cf. Damasio: it feels ’right’ to take on this commitment

12. National identity: social role and conceptual anatomy • The classifying dimension underlies the republican ideal (‘citoyen’) • Is it not dangerous to recognize a descriptive dimension of national identity, even if it is variable? • Cf. Terry Eagleton, from Across the Pond. An Englishman’s view of America: • Can one, however, speak of Americans in this grandly generalizing way? Is this not the sin of stereotyping, which all high-minded liberals have learnt to abhor? (p.3)… If people have shared roughly the same social and material conditions for long periods of time, it would be astonishing if they did not display certain cultural and psychological features in common. To deny this would be to suggest that their social conditions played no part in their formation, which is by and large a conservative rather than a progressive case. (p.8)

13. National identity: social role and conceptual anatomy • National identity is different from nationalism (‘collective selfishness’) • Historically, the collective commitment that underpins nations is also the underpinning of democracy • Among the alternatives is a tribalism of interest groups, as found in ’failed states’ • Identifying with the macro-level community may also sustain personal identity (cf. Durkheim 1897 on anomie and suicide)

14. The cognitive and the social dimension of the family model • Embodied experience of family life constitutes a source domain for conceptualizing national life, cf. Lakoff 1995, 2008) • Collective commitment and mutual obligations can be projected upwards from lived experience to social macro-structure • This reflects the metaphorical directionality from concrete to abstract entities

15. The cognitive and the social dimension of the family model • But the purely cognitive projection meets up with actual social structure • The ’family projection’ may be more or less plausible and more or less successful • It may also be used for strategic purposes by power holders

16. The cognitive and the social dimension of the family model • There are other family models than the nuclear ’parents-children’ family • Feudal and tribal universes conceive of family as lineage and kin • (Post)modern family relations include extensions beyond blood relations • The family projection itself is only part of the story

17. The cognitive and the social dimension of the family model • Since an imaginative leap is necessary for nations to be viable, having a conceptualization that defines the community is of vital interest for governments • This is a functional relation between conceptual models and social (historical) stability and change • The functional relation does not depend on specific conceptual content

18. The panchronic trajectory of Britishness • ’Being British’ is superimposed upon being English, Scottish, Welsh (and ’North Irish’), with England as the dominant component • Hegemony can be understood as a social ’prototype effect’: • Just as you understand marginal instances of ’red’ via focal red, social identity takes the most powerful instantiation as its point of departure • Being English was the prototypical/hegemonic way of being British

19. The panchronic trajectory of Britishness • In the heyday of empire, being British was pervasively understood in terms of ’family as lineage´(’blood’, ’race’, ’breed’, ’kith and kin’), with the breed/race understood as the conquerors (Rule, Britannia!) • Hitler made this conceptualization unacceptable • Instead the ’mutually nurturing’ family came into play (e.g. in George VI’s Christmas messages) – including the conquered as well as the conquerors • In 1948 all were recognized as British (with rights of abode in metropolitan Britain)

20. The panchronic trajectory of Britishness • This conceptualization did not take hold, partly because of immigration issues • In social-cognitive terms, no socially sustainable ’we’ (with appropriate family feelings etc) could be constructed before the attempt was abandoned • In 1962 Britishness was restricted to metropolitan Britain • This reclassification left ’descriptive’ Britishness hanging in the air

21. The panchronic trajectory of Britishness • In the settler colonies the issue took the form of the debate on ’new nationalism’: what is it to be Australian (or Canadian)? • This is illustrative of the functional relation between conceived national identity and nations • This was not really new nationalism (no intensified collective selfishness) • It was a drive to fill a conceptual void in a functionally crucial social slot (with sometimes slightly farcical elements)

22. The panchronic trajectory of Britishness • Loyalists like Diefenbaker (Canada) and Menzies (Australia) wanted to uphold Britishness as their national identity • But with no classifying relation to a political unit, such a national identity is unsustainable – because there is no longer an operational ’we’ in existence • In terms of evolutionary dynamics, selection pressures will drive an unanchored identity out of existence

23. The panchronic trajectory of Britishness • Because the erstwhile dominions as geopolitical units were well-functioning, the ’identity panic’ gradually abated • The ’classifying’ bedrock could go on as a focus of loyalty even while the ethnocultural ’descriptive’ side was undergoing reconstruction • The stability of the classifying dimension explains why ’multiculturalism’ is a possible constituent of a national identity • But this is only possible if citizens manage to create a real, well-functioning (postmodern) national ’family’ – an operational ’we’ - out of ethnically different elements • ’Hyphenated Americans’ illustrate the issue: the US explicitly understands itself as a social construction, not as a postulated eternal ’ethnos’

24. The panchronic trajectory of Britishness • The variability of the ‘descriptive’ conceptualizations of national identity illustrates why models of national identity presented in official or political discourse are legitimate objects of deconstruction • But a generic critique of ’us and them’ conceptualizations does not address the question of how to create an operational national ’we’ • If the real unit of identification is the ethnic sub-group (cf. Malaysia as described in Eriksen & Stjernfelt 2012), civil rights may erode • Unless the real social anchoring is part of the analysis, deconstruction is a purely intellectual exercise • The possible extinction of Britishness makes no sense unless it has at one point been a fact!

25. Explaining the breakup of Britain • If Scotland chooses independence, is that because Britain lost its Empire? • In the account proposed here, this question can only be answered by asking first: • What is the full story of ’Britishness’ as an intersubjectively real constituent in the social-cognitive universe? • Looking at the issue only as a question of mental representation and/or discourse fails to address this issue

26. Explaining the breakup of Britain • Other nations have also lost empires, with varying consequences • Scotland provides a competing target for national identity (which has always existed alongside the British identity, but may supersede it) • In theory, Europe might constitute another alternative attractor • The issue is: what are the factors that decide collective commitment to conceptual (’imagined’) models of national identity, and thereby shape history?

27. Summing up • Conceptual models exist in social as well as cognitive space • National identity is a salient example • It must be analysed not only through critical deconstruction, but also with a view to understanding its actual causal role(s) • The formation of an extended, intersubjectively real ’we’ is the essential element – the role of a malignant ’other’ is variable

28. Summing up • The causal roles of national identity include not just fostering aggressive nationalism but also underpinning social cohesion and good governance • This is reflected in the ’classifying’ dimension of national identity: membership of a geopolitical unit • Descriptive dimensions of national identity, including family models, have both a basic conceptual dimension (as described by Lakoff) and a social-historical dimension, with alternative anchorings in social conditions and discursive purposes – and both have a strong variational element

29. Summing up • The story of Britishness illustrates how historical processes involve complex combinations of cognitive and social (intersubjective) dimensions • These can be addressed through concepts from cognitive linguistics joining forces with analytic approaches from other disciplines

30. Selected references • Anderson, Benedict. [1983] 2006. Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Revised Edition. London: Verso. • Baudet, Thierry. 2012. The Significance of Borders. Boston and Leiden: Brill. • Champion, Christian P. 2010. The Strange Demise of British Canada. The Liberals and Canadian Nationalism, 1964-1968. Montreal etc: McGill-Queen’s University Press. • Curran, James and Stuart Ward. 2010. A Salutary Shock: Abandoned Britons. In Curran and Ward (eds.), The Unknown Nation: Remaking Australia in the Wake of Empire. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. • Eriksen, Jens-Martin and Frederik Stjernfelt. 2012. The Democratic Contradictions of Multiculturalism. New York: Telos • Hart, Christopher (ed.) 2011. Critical Discourse Studies in Context and Cognition. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins • House, Jim and Andrew Thompson. 2013. Decolonisation, Space and Power: Immigration, Welfare and Housing in Britain and France, 1945-1974. chapter 10 of Writing Imperial Histories, ed. by Andrew Thompson. Manchester University Press. 357-398. • Lakoff, George. 2008. The Political Mind. Why You Can’t Understand 21st-Century American Politics with an 18th-Century Brain. London: Viking. • Maalej, Zouheir A. 2013. Review of Christopher Hart (ed.) Critical Discourse Studies in Context and Cognition. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Cognitive Linguistics 24, 2. 385-392.