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davywavyI’ve been thinking about language, and gaps within it that define English. It was really after reading a piece about the countryside alliance and I was trying to work out why what is so fundamentally a good cause has such a poor message. The theory I came up with is that English actually lacks words for a countrymans relationship with livestock and wildlife; somewhere between a resource and member of the family. That’s why it’s so easy to mock people talking passionately about the country and animals – the close relationship that people have with the land and animals is so difficult to define in words, and so easy to for the ignorant to make witty asides about bestiality and the like which undermines people fighting for what they believe in.
When people talk about the town country divide, I think the people who don’t see it are people who grew up in town. I’ve met so many people (especially in the Cam), whose view of the countryside is made up of the more twee aspects of Bambi and Enid Blyton, and just can’t comprehend the astonishing love that most country people feel for the place.
Love and passion and the like are derided emotions these days, so I’ve seen people sniggering at television reports of farmers with tears in their eyes, struggling to comprehend/accept the destruction of healthy livestock in the wake of foot & mouth (for which those selfsame farmers get the blame, even though you’d never knowingly give a loved one a fatal disease). That’s why, I think, that farmers interviewed (during say, the countryside rally a few years ago) always seems so incoherent when asked to describe their relationship to the land. It’s something that there are no words for – until relatively recently, there was no need for any such words, as everyone lived it, and everyone understood. By divorcing ourselves from nature into urbanisation, a concept has been lost to generations of people who don’t even realise that they have lost something.
It’s symptomatic of a society that still seems to think that the New Labour plan is a good thing that people whose experience of the country is a couple of day trips at school and a drive out to some standing stones to understand the mythic ancient vibes of the place once a month feel they can manage nature netter than the people who grow up surrounded by it, and understand the subtle interplay of life and the seasons. That’s because urban life has become so managed, so regulated, that people who grow up surrounded by it believe that everything can be ‘managed’. It can’t; what is can be is shared, and understood, and loved But the true way of describing that isn’t contained within the English language and as a result, I think that the country in any form that we know it is doomed to external management by people who don’t understand it, but who do write really good copy that convinces the ‘Goddess’-worshipping drones & animal liberation types in terraces that they can understand something they have no personal experience of.
Sadly, the whole Gaia/goddess movement is the best of a bad lot – at least they care, albeit in a largely ignorant way, and think that they’re doing the right thing. But they still vote for Tony Blair.
When people talk about the town country divide, I think the people who don’t see it are people who grew up in town. I’ve met so many people (especially in the Cam), whose view of the countryside is made up of the more twee aspects of Bambi and Enid Blyton, and just can’t comprehend the astonishing love that most country people feel for the place.
Love and passion and the like are derided emotions these days, so I’ve seen people sniggering at television reports of farmers with tears in their eyes, struggling to comprehend/accept the destruction of healthy livestock in the wake of foot & mouth (for which those selfsame farmers get the blame, even though you’d never knowingly give a loved one a fatal disease). That’s why, I think, that farmers interviewed (during say, the countryside rally a few years ago) always seems so incoherent when asked to describe their relationship to the land. It’s something that there are no words for – until relatively recently, there was no need for any such words, as everyone lived it, and everyone understood. By divorcing ourselves from nature into urbanisation, a concept has been lost to generations of people who don’t even realise that they have lost something.
It’s symptomatic of a society that still seems to think that the New Labour plan is a good thing that people whose experience of the country is a couple of day trips at school and a drive out to some standing stones to understand the mythic ancient vibes of the place once a month feel they can manage nature netter than the people who grow up surrounded by it, and understand the subtle interplay of life and the seasons. That’s because urban life has become so managed, so regulated, that people who grow up surrounded by it believe that everything can be ‘managed’. It can’t; what is can be is shared, and understood, and loved But the true way of describing that isn’t contained within the English language and as a result, I think that the country in any form that we know it is doomed to external management by people who don’t understand it, but who do write really good copy that convinces the ‘Goddess’-worshipping drones & animal liberation types in terraces that they can understand something they have no personal experience of.
Sadly, the whole Gaia/goddess movement is the best of a bad lot – at least they care, albeit in a largely ignorant way, and think that they’re doing the right thing. But they still vote for Tony Blair.
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no subject
Date: 2002-07-15 08:00 am (UTC)It entirely fails to recognise that the country (and I mean the whole of the country, including the cities and towns) belongs to each and every one of the inhabitants. And that _as a society_ we make decisions about morality, and about our culture and what happens to our country.
Regardless of where people live...what lives they lead...it's wrong to claim that they can't have a say about what goes on in the countryside. In the same way as people in the country have a right to a say about what goes on in towns. To believe otherwise is to unnecessarily segregate our society.
And if "countrymen" wish to opt out of our society, then that's fine. You won't mind if we take our subsidies and support back, close down unprofitable bus routes etc etc etc.
Robert
City Boy
no subject
Date: 2002-07-15 08:07 am (UTC)Other things belong to everyone too, but they're run by people who understand those things...and the urge to interfere by others isn't there. But as soon as emotive issues on the countryside crop up, then all these great ideas flood from people who've never even lived there and don't understand how nature works.
What has this to do with morality? It's got more to do with understanding where other people who more of a clue than ourselves, and letting them get on with it - or trying to learn ourselves before judging...
no subject
Date: 2002-07-15 08:11 am (UTC)No....civilians aren't put in charge of the army...but the government (Civvies) controls where and what it does...sets the limits on what it can do...and is influenced by public pressure.
Name some more areas that have mutual ownership and aren't under the governments populist (by definition) control?
no subject
Date: 2002-07-15 08:25 am (UTC)I suppose theres a part of me that will always hope that people will try and understand the issues they ahve opinions about...but sadly, the majority are happy to recite what the Sun tells them to think that particular morning :(
no subject
Date: 2002-07-15 08:22 am (UTC)It's a very emotive, instinctive subject. Everybody thinks they know best about things on which they hold an opinion; unfortunately, those in power tend to be city folk (says the town girl :p). Yes, we have to act as a country to have any sort of international presence, but I can agree with the objections from farmers about London politicians interfering in *how* to run their businesses. Why should my vote affect farmers in Cornwall?
Re the tree-hugging "nature is cute" debate, partly it's the imposed necessity of being pro or anti, at least as far as pest control, fox hunting, etc goes, and partly it's the presentation. The argument that is missed out most frequently, in my opinion (which is obviously right, and if you disagree then you must be on smack & eat puppies for breakfast :p) is the one of entertainment. Sure, foxes are a pest. Vermin. Disease ridden scum. So are rats. But killing rats isn't turned into a party and fun day out for the whole family. If the city-bred "foxes are sweet and innocent" posse didn't only see a load of horse-owning (and therefore rich...), land-owning (ditto) people having a great day out, I'd put money on them being less vocal in their interference.
no subject
Date: 2002-07-15 08:31 am (UTC)I don't actually have much objection to fox-hunting in and of itself. But as a last symbol of the dying "landed class", I have a leaning to despise it and, largely, the people involved.
Right...I'm off to listen to Leon Rosselson.
Robert
no subject
Date: 2002-07-15 08:57 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2002-07-15 09:13 am (UTC)You can argue (rationally) about methods and numbers...but the damage foxes can do is indisputable.
Even in cities, foxes are vermin. Attractive vermin...but vermin.
tuppence
Date: 2002-07-15 09:44 am (UTC)Seems like a mad question, but it's actually very sensible. Pest species (almost by definition) have an exceptionally high potential population growth rate. The sort of kill rate that fox hunting achieves will have virtually no effect on overall numbers of foxes: remove one fox and another gets a chance to move in and have enough offspirng to more than replace it, because of the decreased competition.
There is a wider issue here: does the efficiency of the control method decrease with decreasing fox density (e.g. because they become harder to find), or does it remove a constant number every year? Only the latter method will ever be able to drive pests to extinction in an area, the former will just move the population density to a different, lower, equilibrium.
The problem is worse with queleas (african bird pest): there is no feasible cull rate that reduces their population size... the same probably applies to rats and mice.
Tim
Re: tuppence
Date: 2002-07-16 01:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-07-15 08:35 am (UTC)Much of the anti-countryside feeling (foxhunting and otherwise) does seem to be strongly motived by the politics of envy.
no subject
Date: 2002-07-15 08:51 am (UTC)But yes, as long as success is measured in terms of the size of your property (size matters, baby...) country people will be envied.
no subject
Date: 2002-07-15 08:40 am (UTC)"Get off moi laaand!"
no subject
Date: 2002-07-15 08:51 am (UTC)no subject
no subject
Date: 2002-07-15 01:18 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2002-07-16 01:14 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2002-07-16 10:41 am (UTC)