Ignoring those pompous titles is what I like about the British
Before you read on, I want you to know that yours truly holds a PHD in history. So I’ll thank you to remember that from here on out it’s Dr Strimpel – and should we ever exchange words, don’t even think about forgetting my title. It’s what makes me better and more important than you, after all.
Only joking, of course. But that’s just me. For some terribly important and elite people, such as Emmanuel Macron, titles are no laughing matter.
Macron may be a down-with-the-kids type of president, known for interspersing his rhetoric with cool slang, but, as we saw on Monday, Monsieur le President is still a stickler for proper address.
At a ceremony in northern France to celebrate De Gaulle, a teenage boy made the mistake of singing a socialist anthem before calling out, “Ca va, Manu?” to President Macron. Macron wasn’t having it.
“You can act like a clown,” he told the chastened boy. “But today it’s the Marseillaise and the Partisans’ Song we’re singing. You address me as Mr President of the Republic or plain mister.”
So much for man of the people. But at least Macron is the leader of one of the world’s great nations. What are we to make of title obsessives who – far from being world leaders – are just, well, plain old doctors like me?
This week Priyamvada Gopal, a don in English at Cambridge – known for her campaigns against what she sees as rife racism at the university – announced on Twitter her refusal to work for King’s College any more due to “racist profiling and aggression” by its porters.
One of the very many straws that broke the camel’s back for this committed identity-politics warmonger was the following exchange. “Please address me as Dr Gopal,” commanded the don, to which the porter responded: “I don’t care who you are.”
Apart from the obvious irony of the hugely elite Cambridge academic publicly punishing the working-class porters of her college for declining to address her with sufficient reverence (porters are famously brusque and irreverent), this incident was notable for the strangeness of Gopal’s demand.
It is perhaps normal in France, and certainly in America, but not in Britain, for academics to demand titular respect. American professors are fawned over and curtsied to in general. Fail to address one as professor so-and-so and you can count on being exiled immediately.
Likewise in America, those with doctorates aren’t going to sit by while you fail to address them properly. It’s all a bit pompous, uncool and … well, desperate.
By contrast, one of the things I have always valued about Blighty is that achievement and esteem are not seen to live in titles. We call professors by their first name. We don’t add “PHD” as Americans do – excruciatingly – after our names when we write books. And if we want to address our prime minister by his or her first name, I think we go ahead and do so. It’s hard to imagine Tony, Dave, or indeed Tezza telling off a teen as Macron did. That sort of thing doesn’t threaten us, by and large.
Most of us have always understood that it’s so much more impressive to wear one’s achievements lightly. Let’s hope spats like those caused by the Macrons and the Dr Gopals of the land remain the exception, not the rule.