Most Britons want no part in this culture war
Broadcasters are pushing a narrative of Britain that most ordinary people simply cannot recognise
In summary, a statue of the man who defeated fascism was defaced by anti-racism campaigners and then “defended” by fat drunken fascists. I can imagine most of us would prefer to sit this culture war out – but on Saturday night, surveying the mayhem in Parliament Square caused by the fight over Churchill’s monument, one ITV reporter saw an indictment of the entire country. He said, “the lines that divide us are more deeply drawn and dangerous than ever”.
Excuse me: no. It is highly impertinent to assume that what a mob of violent protesters thinks in any way reflects opinion in modern Britain, but this is the game our broadcast media plays. They take the most extreme views, amplify them and present them as if they were the only two choices available – as if the only options in life are madness or lunacy.
How about tolerance? Nuance? Or rational debate? What, for instance, does the public really think about the current controversy? One poll found that 59 per cent of Britons agree with the aims of Black Lives Matter, but 59 per cent also think they shouldn’t demonstrate in the middle of a pandemic; 41 per cent think statues of slave traders should come down, but only a tiny number want them destroyed and nearly half would put them in a museum. And a whopping two thirds said Churchill’s views can’t be judged by today’s standards and his statue should stay in the Square.
Put it another way: the public is basically sane. Unlike politicians and TV pundits, they seem capable of being opposed to racism and rioting at the same time, and their reading of history appears to be more subtle than intellectuals with several degrees in the subject. They understand that history is morally ambiguous – they’ve lived through it, you know – and that complicated people, even bad people, can still do great things.
They know that their country contains prejudice; they don’t think it’s right and they’d like to fix it. But they still love their country, and not for any cranky ideological reasons but for the simple fact that it is their home. Academics, journalists and politicians are obsessed with politics, so they see everything through that one prism – but most Britons do not want a culture war (obviously) or to build a socialist utopia (the last election settled that), but just to get along.
It’s the job of the broadcast media to report the facts, yet there’s been a definite turn in recent years towards comment, personality and hyperbole, which reached its zenith in the “Help, help, we’re going to die!” coverage of Covid-19. This not only means that the broadcast media is unrepresentative of the silent majority, but by sowing anxiety and distrust, TV journalism risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy: it is when we’re suspicious of each other, or terrified of speaking our minds, that extremism best flourishes. For a tolerant society to work, it requires confidence and trust.
It also needs good humour. This,
too, is a complicated issue and most people recognise that. I suspect the reason UKTV briefly pulled an episode of Fawlty Towers, for example, wasn’t because Basil mocks the Germans but because the Major uses a racist word – and although it was satirising the Major’s racism, this is impermissible in 2020. Could UKTV not have simply cut the scene? Both for the sake of decency and to preserve the integrity of a show that does a brilliant job of sending up the British.
Because a nation that laughs at itself is far less likely to tear itself apart. The ancient Greeks understood this. To them, theatre was a place of catharsis, which is one reason why Greek tragedy is so melodramatic and gory. The theory was that if people act out their worst feelings on stage, the audience could get the poison out of their system
– and this psychological wisdom applied to comedy, where prejudices were aired and taboos broken.
Modern British comedy is heavy on the “punching up” thesis that says good comedy always hits at the powerful, that it is intrinsically Leftwing. This might be why many TV comedies get such terrible ratings. In the pantheon of Greek writers, on the other hand, it was Aristophanes the comedian who was the most reactionary, a crowd-pleaser who wrote about ordinary people as well as gods, and knew how to flatter the audience’s crudest tastes.
Xenophobia, sexism, flatulent dung beetles – it’s all there, and I suspect the only reason Aristophanes hasn’t been banned is that the woke brigade doesn’t study Classics. That’s the beauty of elite culture. No one knows about it, so no one realises how base it really is.
We talk about “nervous laughter” and comics “dying on stage”, because comedy is not a safe art but full of risk, as the comedian tests the boundaries of what is acceptable. One way to read Greek comedy is as tragedy but with a happy ending, in which conflict and hate are resolved with laughter, and tension dissolves into joy.
We need this. We have to be able to air absurd opinions, prod, poke and satirise. I’d rather an ugly thought was expressed and punctured with laughter than suppressed as rage.