The British: A (Judgmental) Observation

An observation about the British has been percolating in my (Jason’s) mind for a while. I think it’s finally crystallized.

On the one hand, it’s well known that the British are very non-confrontational and that they’re very “polite.” On the other hand, they do not suffer fools. In fact, they’re quite critical and judgmental. They are *not* generally easygoing or laid back. As you can imagine, this makes for an interesting tension: they don’t suffer fools, yet they’re non-confrontational. So how does this tension express itself? Well, my suggestion is that it gets relieved in a vast repertoire of glares, sighs, and snide remarks uttered under the breath. These things—especially the glares and related judgmental looks—are pretty pervasive in human interaction here.

This isn’t revelatory; perhaps it’s just commonsense among those who know much of anything about the British. But I must say that I think this basic observation has A LOT of explanatory power: it accounts for a great deal of what any observant person would pick up on in stores, restaurants, tubes, busses, shops, etc.

“Geez Jason,” you may be thinking, “you must have offended a lot of people to have arrived at this observation.” There’s some truth to that. (Case in point: yesterday Brendan and I were in a ridiculously, maximally packed subway car and, as we were approaching our stop, were about as far away from any door as we could be. So, *as the train began slowing down,* we slowly began milling our way toward the door. This was our only hope of getting off in time, as there were also masses of people on the platform waiting to pack in. We managed to get off, but as we did so, I heard a man mutter under his breath “You wait until the train has stopped before you start trying to get off.”) You must also bear in mind that on many of my outings, I’ve been accompanied by one Miss Lily, who stands to the British mold of "proper and polite" like a square peg to a round hole. Finally, and more seriously and sadly, I must say that most of fiery darts I’ve witnessed have actually been shot across class or socioeconomic lines (a point for different post, I suppose).

Finally, some sincere qualifications and disclaimers: 1. Obviously, this observation doesn’t apply to all (quite possibly not even to most) British people; 2. Most of the British people we’ve had surfacy interactions with (e.g. restaurant servers, people we’ve asked for directions from, etc.) have in fact been very helpful and kind; 3. The quality I’m drawing attention to is partially an indication of intelligence (in general, fools are probably more likely to suffer fools); and 4. Yes, this may very well be a case of “it takes one to know one” (though I do at least *value* and make some *attempt* to be easygoing and laid back).

Can anyone confirm or deny this observation?