British Culture

An Introduction

David P. Christopher

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317569473
• Edition: 3
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

This third edition of British Culture is the complete introduction to culture and the arts in Britain today. Extensively illustrated and offering a wider range of topics than ever before, David P. Christopher identifies and analyses key areas in language, literature, film, TV, social media, popular music, sport and other fields, setting each one in a clear, historical context.

British Culture enables students of British society to understand and enjoy a fascinating range of contemporary arts through an examination of current trends, such as the influence of business and commerce, the effects of globalization and the spread of digital communications. This new edition features:

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• fully revised and updated chapters analyzing a range of key areas within British culture

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• new chapters on cyberculture, heritage and festivals

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• extracts from novels and plays.

This student-friendly edition also strengthens reading and study skills through follow-up activities, weblinks and suggestions for further research.

David P. Christopher's book is an engaging analysis of contemporary life and arts and, together with its companion website (www.routledge.com/cw/christopher), is essential reading for every student of modern Britain.

1 The social and cultural context

DOI: 10.4324/9781315737249-1

Introduction

Since the 1950s, Britain has experienced a period of accelerated social and cultural change. This has coincided with the disintegration of the British Empire, the expansion of the Commonwealth, and the immigration of people of numerous nationalities, languages and cultures, producing an ethnically diverse country with a plurality of identities and heritages. It has also been transformed by the women’s movement. The entry of women into the labour market and their increasing independence has brought about fundamental changes to their position in society, and their relations with men. Similarly, the emergence of youth as an identifiable group with attitudes, values and beliefs different to those of the previous generation has helped shape the characteristics of the country since the mid-twentieth century.

The impact of ethnicity, feminism and youth in Britain has been felt across the arts. From 1948 and the founding of the Arts Council, their expression was actively encouraged with funds for experimental and even counter-cultural styles, as artists, writers and others sought inspiration from these transformational social movements. The sense of progress, change and renewal continued until the mid-1970s when, economically and socially, the country began to stagnate amid high inflation, strikes and rising unemployment, and there was enthusiasm for change.

The Conservative Party led by Margaret Thatcher was elected in 1979. This marked a key turning point. For the next 18 years, Thatcherism brought about the greatest political, economic and cultural shift in Britain of the twentieth century, as free-market economics, a ‘culture’ of individualism, private enterprise and the values of the market place came to replace the socialist ideals of nation-alisation and attempts to redistribute wealth through high rates of taxation. In the arts, as in almost every area of society, state subsidies and benefits were reduced or disappeared. Plays, films and exhibitions were seen as products for consumption by consumers in a competitive market place, while it was left to a culture of improvisation and home-brew to create challenging new works outside the mainstream.

The consensus politics of the post-war era disappeared under Thatcherism, and for 18 years the country became politically polarised between the Tory Party and its laissez-faire philosophy of free markets, and the socialist ideals of the political left. Paradoxically, this resulted in some key works and movements in literature, art and music, film and other fields, as the inequalities, violence and greed of the Thatcher years served as potent sources of inspiration.

But, by the mid-1990s the Conservative government was suffering from weak leadership, corruption and profound internal divisions among its leading members, particularly over Britain’s relationship with Europe. There was enthusiasm for change, and the victory of the Labour Party in 1997 provided the country and its cultural life with a sense of renewal and self-confidence, and in the years that followed there was a period of relative prosperity and stability, characterised by record levels of low unemployment, low inflation, rising living standards and investment in public services.

The Labour Party had changed, and redefined itself for modern times. Under its new leader Tony Blair, it was no longer the party of nationalisation or high taxation, and its agenda was supportive of businesses large and small. But unlike the previous Conservative administration, it sought to work with all sections of society, seeking mutual agreement for public benefit. However, in the arts, there was no return to the levels of patronage, investment and encouragement of previous Labour administrations, and the spread of business values in their production and management became the norm, as practices once found only in the private sector continued to be expressed in most areas of the economy.

There were many turbulent episodes during Labour’s time in office, for example the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But throughout, the economy remained stable with low unemployment and low inflation. The cultural field was reinvigorated with a series of measures to support equal opportunities for minorities of all kinds, and official support for the British arts, which enjoyed their highest profile since the 1960s.

In 2007 Tony Blair resigned and his Chancellor Gordon Brown became Prime Minister. But, despite the promise of renewal, an international economic crisis began to take hold. In 2010 an election was held, but no party emerged with an overall majority and a coalition government between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats was formed, with Tory leader David Cameron as Prime Minister. Faced with the greatest and longest economic crisis for many decades, a crisis of public trust in major institutions and widespread uncertainty about the future, a programme of cuts in public spending was announced, with the cultural industries among those worst affected.

New Jerusalem

Economy, politics and society

During the first half of the 20th century, for the majority of people most of the time in Britain, there was poverty and profound social inequality. Food was scarce, unemployment was common, most houses had no bathroom or indoor toilet, and children left school in their early teens. Most areas of the economy were left to private enterprise, and there were no pensions, health service or social insurance. It was not until the late 1940s that conditions began to substantially improve for the majority, following a programme of social and economic reconstruction which would redefine the country until the 1980s.

Planning for the new society began during World War II, when the coalition government aimed to introduce more equality and progress in key areas such as health, education, transport and housing. Significantly, it was widely believed on both the political left and right, that the way to achieve this was not with private enterprise, but with centralised planning by experts, along rational, scientific lines.

In 1942 a manifesto for social change arrived with the Beveridge Report. A former director of the London School of Economics, William Beveridge identified several areas for reform. In a key passage, he wrote: ‘Want is one of only five giants on the road to reconstruction, and in some ways it is the easiest to attack. The others are Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness.’ A sixth giant – ‘the poverty of aspiration’ – was identified by economist John Maynard Keynes. As president of the Council for the Encouragement of Music and Arts (CEMA), Keynes advocated their funding on the same level as health and education, as it was felt that the arts offered an important means of social improvement.

In education, reform quickly began with the 1944 Butler Education Act, which made education free of charge in state grammar schools for children aged 11–18, as long as they passed the ‘11-plus’ examination at age 11. This was an important measure, as it was widely believed that education was key to promoting social mobility, and the new exam offered all children the same opportunities to reach university, regardless of their parent’s financial circumstances.

After the end of the Second World War, industry was in ruins, homes were destroyed and many people struggled to survive. In 1945 the coalition government was disbanded and a general election was held. Despite his success as a wartime prime minister, Churchill and his Conservative Party were firmly rejected in favour of a Labour Party led by Clement Attlee, who introduced further plans for a more equal and open society.

There was consensus among the main parties that the state had to provide jobs, homes and decent living standards in a way that it had never done before, and after the reform of education came the nationalisation of all key industries, such as coal, transport, iron and steel, to secure efficiency and mass employment. This was followed in 1948 by the setting up of the ‘welfare state’ and the National Health Service (NHS), which provided social security and health care free of charge to all citizens. It was a brave attempt to build what the Labour government called the ‘new Jerusalem’, in which the poverty of generations would be abolished, and people of all classes, incomes and races would be cared for by the state from the cradle to the grave.

Abroad, reform continued with the gradual dissolution of the British Empire, which had begun with the granting of independence to India in 1947. But, despite the progress made on many fronts, it was still a time of austerity, with queuing, shortages and inconveniences in most areas of the economy. The generation that had won the war also wanted fun and consumerism, which the government had conspicuously failed to deliver. Consequently, despite some of the most progressive social measures ever introduced in Britain, the Labour government was rejected in the election of 1951. But, instead of reverting to a free-market economy, the incoming Tory Party continued the style of patrician government set by the outgoing Labour Party; it governed not only in the interests of landowners, factory owners and other business people, but in the interests of society as a whole. This way of managing society became known as the ‘post-war consensus’, and characterised the way in which the country was governed by both main parties until the late 1970s.

In 1951 the Festival of Britain was organised to improve the country’s morale. It marked the centenary of the Great Exhibition of 1851, which had been held in London’s Hyde Park to celebrate imperial achievements. Amid the post-war gloom, it was a rare moment of national self-expression, with parties, parades, speeches and optimism. It was a modest beginning to a decade in which production rose, consumerism increased and crime rates fell. The rationing of foodstuffs and other goods, which had been introduced at the beginning of the war in 1939, was finally removed in 1954. The economy was booming, and between 1955 and 1960 average industrial earnings rose by 34 per cent. With their new prosperity many ordinary people were able to discover cars, fashions and foreign holidays.

Greeting this new wave of prosperity, Tory Prime Minister Harold Macmillan famously announced in 1957 that ‘[British] people have never had it so good’, which was particularly true of the young, white working class, who were becoming the first generation of consumers, and who had the choices, finance and free time to be able to create a culture of their own.

Social change and public anxiety

Economic affluence and the socialist policies of the post-war Labour government led to rapid social change. Britain’s economic growth created high levels of demand for manual labour, particularly in low-paid areas of work such as transport, health and catering. But there was a shortage, so the British municipal authorities began to offer jobs to Commonwealth citizens in the West Indies, India, Pakistan, Africa and Hong Kong. Members of Parliament from the two main parties went to the Caribbean territories on a recruitment exercise, and on 21 June 1948 the ship Empire Windrush docked at Tilbury, to the east of London, bringing 492 Commonwealth citizens from the West Indies to Britain. As the country attempted to rebuild its shattered economy, many found work in the newly nationalised essential industries, for example the health service, the railways, and in important manufacturing sectors such as textiles and automobiles.

The initial motive for migration was usually to work and save money before returning to the country of origin. But economic realities meant that, within a few years, the family and relatives also migrated to join their menfolk in cities around the UK. However, the process of immigration did not go smoothly. Britain was a strange, cold, alien country compared with the ones they had left behind, and large immigrant communities grew in poor, inner-city areas where housing was cheap and menial jobs plentiful. The latter was particularly important, as many immigrants had to accept jobs for which they were overqualified; medical staff were cleaning hospitals, bus drivers were cleaning the streets. But the presence of large immigrant communities disturbed the local population. Daily lives began to change, and as immigration increased, race became a source of social conflict. Prejudice and discrimination from employers, workmates and landlords became a regular feature of the immigrant experience, and several areas became the focal point for racial tensions, most infamously the Notting Hill area of London, where rioting broke out in 1958.

While immigration was mostly a working-class concern, middle-class worries centred on the increasing danger of nuclear war. Britain had successfully tested a nuclear bomb in Australia in 1953, but there was a strong feeling among the political left that the country would be safer without such weapons. A group of leading writers, musicians, artists and others formed the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), some of the founder members including the philosopher Bertrand Russell, the composer Benjamin Britten, the sculptor Henry Moore, the historian A.J.P. Taylor, and the novelists E.M. Forster and Doris Lessing. At Easter in 1958 some 5,000 protesters marched from London to Aldermaston, the site of a nuclear research establishment. Bands and folk singers accompanied a mixture of pacifists, Christians, trade unionists, young parents and children. The movement captured the public imagination and became increasingly influential. The following year some 50,000 took part, and the march became not just an annual event, but marked the beginning of a trend towards popular, organised protest that has since become a common feature of the British political landscape.

The idea of communism was still attractive to many middle-class intellectuals, and the decade witnessed the exposure of a notorious spy ring, involving Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess and Anthony Blunt, who had met at Cambridge University and subsequently passed Western secrets to the Soviet Union. Maclean, Burgess and Blunt were also gay, but at that time homosexuality was illegal and still seen as deeply subversive and taboo. Politically and socially, homosexual men had to be deferential, conformist and skilled at leading a ‘double life’ of sexual and political ambiguity. Between 1950 and 1954 the annual prosecution rate of gay men rose by 50 per cent, amid a belief that homosexuals could well be spies, and therefore a security risk for the government and country.

The debate about popular culture

In a decade that witnessed the decline of deference to authority and an apparent increase in lawlessness among young people, the marches at Aldermaston were symptomatic of much larger social changes to come. Due to the post-war ‘baby boom’, by 1959 there were over four million single people aged between 13 and 25. Society was younger. It was also richer and more image-conscious. Moreover, with full employment, it was easy to achieve financial independence at an early age, and businesses began to market their products to teenagers who now had enough money to create a new world of their own. During the 1950s electronic goods such as televisions, small radios and record players had become cheap and widely available, and by 1960 most homes contained at least one. Cultural material was increasingly created for mass audiences in the form of television programmes, popular music and films. The sale of popular novels, women’s magazines, sensational newspapers and comics also increased to meet demand for light entertainment. Coffee bars and ‘melody’ (music) bars opened, providing meeting places for a generation with money to spend on leisure and pleasure. Record players, radios and clothes were essential equipment in this increasingly classless, hedonistic demographic. A ‘youth’ culture was emerging.

Around 1953 one of the most visible signs of change could be seen on the streets with the appearance of ‘Teddy Boys’ or ‘Teds’, urban working-class gangs dressed in colourful suits which recalled the Edwardian era of the early twentieth century, mixed with elements of the American rock ’n’ roll culture. More seriously, their behaviour was said to be threatening and brutal, and there were frequent newspaper reports of violent confrontations. The mass media, especially the tabloid press, began to report incidents involving the ‘Teds’, and presented a scary, shocking image that succeeded in its aim of frightening people and selling many newspapers.

Youth crime became a major cause of public concern. Even though unemployment was low, crimes by offenders under 21 rose from around 24,000 in 1955 to over 45,000 in 1959, prompting frequent debates about the relationship between affluence and crime. While politicians generally ignored the new commercial culture, social commentators and academics were concerned about the mass consumption by newly affluent youth of music, films, comics and other forms of entertainment that had been created simply to make profits. They believed that if standards and quality in the arts fell, so would standards of education and behaviour in society.

The influence of television was often blamed, especially the content of the newly created commercial television channel (ITV), with its adverts, game shows and other cheap, populist programmes. It was believed that the displays of affluence and conspicuous consumption of goods in advertisements and game shows were likely to excite feelings of envy, and make impressionable young men more likely to become violent and steal goods that they could not afford. There was also widespread public anxiety over the negative influence of rock ’n’ roll music whose suggestive rhythms and lyrics were thought to encourage teenage promiscuity.

Like many earlier critics such as Matthew Arnold and T.S. Eliot, F.R. Leavis argued that great works of art carried a moral, civilising message, which was educational and served to improve the individual and society. But mass-produced forms of music, art and popular entertainment did not and could not do this. Instead, they only encouraged individualism, hedonism, laziness and decadence. For those holding such beliefs, the connection between mass, popular culture and rising crime was clear. Moreover, while the study of crime had previously been concerned with individual pathology, levels of intelligence and the role of poverty, the idea that affluence could be responsible was difficult to understand or appreciate.

Other commentators blamed rising rates of divorce and abortion on increasing equality for women, while rises in juvenile crime, violence and sexual promiscuity were said to be the result of a lack of discipline in schools and in society. However, studies showed that the sexual behaviour of young people in fact changed very little, and that it was stories circulating in increasingly competitive and sensationalist newspapers that tried to frighten people and increase their sales by suggesting otherwise.

Public anxiety over the spread of popular culture produced several influential books which pontificated over the probable consequences. In The Uses of Literacy (1957), Richard Hoggart argued that the absence of moral content in popular literature and the arts made it more difficult for the ordinary person to become educated, wise and cultured. In The Long Revolution (1961) Raymond Williams considered the collective, social consequences, believing it would lead to an increase in materialism and self-interest, a reduction in the importance of the social services such as education and health, and a less radical, more individualist Labour Party. But he also believed that the negative effects c...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Timeline
• 1 The social and cultural context
• 2 Language in culture
• 3 Cyberculture
• 4 Newspapers, magazines and journalism
• 5 Literature
• 6 Theatre
• 7 Cinema
• 8 Television and radio
• 9 Art, architecture and design
• 10 Popular music and fashion
• 11 Sport
• 12 Cultural heritage
• Glossary
• Index