Interesting (if perhaps not objective) essay about
the
English national character and its decline. (via A&L)
And I myself have had the sad privilege of witnessing the impressive stoicism
of more than one English friend facing death. My fellow students, I noticed,
were less frightened before exams than in Belgrade, and not so inclined to
believe tales about incredibly difficult questions. And I soon realised that
the sexual revolution in Britain was not only hedonistic but also heroic--it
took place in cold bedrooms.
The main source of England's greatness was that it was an island, both
geographically and in time. Its ideas, institutions
and way of life were either more traditional or more advanced than in Europe or
the US. Sometimes, most admirably, they
were both. Now the English internal clock has become synchronised with the rest
of the world--or at least the rest of the
west. The millennium dome may become a symbol of a defeat worse than the one at
Hastings.