Everyone hates getting up on Mondays, that's an irrefutable fact, it would seem. I, however, being a do nothing layabout, have no such intense hatred towards this dullest of days. It rains, and it's the second day of the week. That is all the mileage that can be dragged out of talking about Mondays.
On to the essence -the marrow of today's entry.
It is beyond me, how we [the British], as a nation, can be so fantastically petrified of globalisation. There are people, alive in this country who are convinced that as as nation, or as a people - we are inherently superior to every other nation or people on the planet simply by virtue of being born on this rot of an island.
The idea of globalisation has obsoleted - or indeed made impossible - the political isolationism that defined US foreign policy in the early twentieth century. That level of autonomy and national introversion is now completely irrelevant, and so it should be. Whether or not the birthplace of globalisation lies in the UN, Kissinger, or the Internet, is really quite irrelevant - what matters is that today - in this world where the general elections of a foreign country are followed more eagerly than that of our own - there are still people out there who cling to an ineffable idea of 'Britishness', an idea so monstrous that those who support it should be spanked quite violently.
'Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel' - Samuel Johnston is reputed to have said, and although this is reported and the context is lost to us, I am going to use the words superficially to clarify my point. Patriotism cannot be the way of the future, only the way of history - patriotism is a perfectly acceptable box in which to place national heroes, whatever one of those is; but as an ideal, as a way to deliver ones opinions, it is most revolting.
My primary disagreement with the issue lies in its prevalence, and its over saturation. It's transplant into the world of the wannabe-artistic-elite is something I find ghastly on all levels. So many conversations end with something along the lines of 'but of course, it's British, so it has to be better' or 'of course Americans never have the same heart as British films' - it's utter nonsense, and rubbish of the highest order - especially when you are comparing British and American art which, at least in dramatic terms, are nearly identical.
There is nothing charming or endearing about our national inferiority complex. Grey skies and rusty skylines do not make great art, no matter how much fans of L.S. Lowry would have you believe. There is something about a great majority of British art which seems down on itself, because it feels it has to be. But this is depressing. Not in a thought provoking, intelligent way, such as Krzysztof Kieślowski's Three Colours trilogy, or Sam Mendes' American Beauty - both elegantly and intelligently peel away the veneer of contemporary life in a very natural and beautiful manner - but instead in a blunt, brutal, and unsatisfying 'vision' of modern Britain. The worst perpetrator of these crimes is celebrated filmmaker Shane Meadows, whose revolting idea of Britishness has led to some of the most dirty, violent, and ugly portrayals of Britain that I have had the misfortune to view. This is not clever film making. It is clearly some vile and ultimately unnecessary revolt against the staid Britishness of Brief Encounter or The Great Escape.
We are not in the gutter, but people like Shane Meadows seem to think that not only are we in the gutter, but that we should revel in this. That we are a nation of 'hard' bald men in stone wash denim jackets speaking a language that is only barely recognisable as English. Are we proud of this? Is this a view of Britain we feel pleased to throw to the world, to digest and interpret. I think not.
More tomorrow.
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