Question

British identity create a challenge for Scotland's culture

Answer 1

Identity: What is it?

In order to fully contextualize my final thoughts, I need to explain identities, and the history of the British - and English and Scottish identities - and then move on.

My first main feeling about identity is that it is, always, fundamentally, necessarily exclusive. If you were to have an identity that was open to everyone, it wouldn’t really be an identity.

Even something as generic as “we’re all human!” - which seems to include everyone - instantly excludes all animals and all aliens. “We’re all living beings!” defines us in opposition to inanimate objects and the dead.

     My second feeling is that because identity is exclusive, it’s usually built to oppose to someone else.

The easiest and fastest way to get people to work together is to choose a scapegoat. Sadly, we see this often in history. Hitler chose the Jews; Stalin chose the counter-revolutionaries; Pol Pot chose all intellectuals; Napoleon chose the British.

Even today, we see it. Trump’s Presidential campaign began by attacking Mexicans, and moved on to attack Liberals, Washington insiders, and various other groups. He was able to build a following of very, very loyal people by providing a strong sense of “who we are”, built up by defining who they were not.

     Finally, I believe that identity is fluid. Our sense of who we are changes from moment to moment. In a sense, we are a mass of ‘identity elements’ - perhaps character traits is a better term - and we can pull particular elements out to suit a situation.

You could have two Americans, white and black, arguing about some issue. Then, in walks another American, and we have a white and a black Democrat who put aside their own differences because the Republican who just came in is ‘more different’.

That Britain was a Protestant country;

That Britain was an island country

The first thing that I think is worth mentioning is that the British identity began as an English identity. Let’s consider each point in turn:

Protestantism. As far as I know, England was the first of the two countries to begin moving towards Protestantism, and it was through English influence - handing out Bibles during the invasions known as the Rough Wooing, and such - that pushed Scotland into its own Reformation.

An island country, with a strong navy. England (and Wales) and Scotland are both part of the same Army. Both nations were strong naval powers in their time - the Scottish once had the largest military ship in Europe for a time. As far as I know, however, the Scottish navy declined through the 1500s, while the English navy under Elizabeth grew to be one of the largest, and most powerful, in Europe. By 1652, England had 300 ships, and was able to defeat Holland in the Anglo-Dutch War. Given the power of the Dutch fleet at the time, that’s no small thing.

Britain was a metropole. This was true, but the early days of the Empire were very English. In fact, Scotland’s sole foray into solo-empire -building was the Darien Scheme. This was an attempt to set up a new colony in the Gulf of Darien (modern-day Panama). The attempt failed so spectactulary that it essentially bankrupted the Lowlands - and prompted Scotland to enter into the Act of Union so that England could help pay the debts. I’ve even heard some claim that England worked to force the Darien colony into failure precisely for that reason. Whether this is true or not, the fact is that the early pieces of the British Empire were English, not Scottish.

Britain and France were main rivals. As I previously mentioned, Scotland had a long-term alliance with France against England. This element of Britishness is very much more English than Scottish.

Why is this important?

Well, because I believe that the British identity was built primarily from a simpler, older, English identity.

I would say that the central part of this early-modern English identity was the rivalry with France. Anglo-French rivalry has been ongoing for a millenium, and was distinctly an English thing.

Then, in 1707, Scotland joined. It was easy enough to expand ‘Englishness’ to incorporate Scotland. Scotland was Protestant, it was on the island, it had a naval tradition, and it was also not France. The administration of the country - and thus the Empire - was shared, so that wasn’t a sticking point.

Britishness evolves, and then dies

What really changed is who was used as the primary other of Britishness. Previously, it had been France. Everything about being British was about making the point that “we’re not French”. They’re Catholic, we’re not; they have grande armees, we don’t; and so on.

Eventually, though, that changed. After the conquest of India, the Empire became the primary ‘others’ for the British. India was the Jewel of the Empire, and were arguably emblematic of the ‘others’, but the central points work for most of the Empire.

             Ho-hum.