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There are worse havens from historical past than the Pacific Palisades. We are supposed to be shocked, even tickled, that Thomas Mann, Bertolt Brecht and different Weimar stars made their lives among the many groomed pets and extortionate chocolatiers of West LA.
However see it from their angle. On one aspect: an invincible ocean. On the opposite: a display of mountains. To the north and south: a lot weaker nations. Europe’s claustrophobia, its overlapping nationalisms, have been a bodily impossibility right here. So was the attendant violence. Variations of the identical refuge could be present in Sydney or, with the protecting Channel, London.
Even after the naval pact between the US, Australia and Britain final month, the “Anglosphere” continues to be an concept in quest of stuffing. In its gun legal guidelines, paid depart, racial combine, religiosity, per capita earnings and favoured sport, Britain is much extra European than American. Neither nation has a lot intimacy with the distant Antipodes past some pooled espionage.
In truth, just one non-linguistic thread ties the primary English-speaking nations collectively. Name it geographic luck. I’ve come to sense that it shapes their outlook extra profoundly than language.
Of the “5 Eyes”, just one has a border with a bigger nation (and that’s Canada’s with a benign US). None is landlocked. None, except we rely Britain’s decolonisation, has a lot expertise of territorial loss or occupation. Rising up in these nations can blind one to the rareness of such geographic windfall. Our bodies of water and good neighbours spare us the anxieties that historical past has induced in France or Nigeria or Mexico.
Or, come to think about it, China or India or Russia. Navigation of this century goes to name on varied unexercised muscular tissues within the Anglosphere. One is information of civilisations that predate the west. One other is the vim to compete with economies that have been poor sufficient not too long ago sufficient to haven’t any irony or ennui about commerce.
Of all of the changes forward, although, the least mentioned is the most vital. We have now to fathom the psychological lives of nations that weren’t so spoilt by geography. It’s not simply in concept that the expertise of exterior predation has moulded them. It’s there in what residents do — whom residents elect or observe — to make sure there isn’t a repeat.
The Anglosphere conceit is that one thing deep in its tradition explains why it by no means fell to tyranny. Leaving apart the selective recall right here (what did the Confederacy converse? Tamil?), there isn’t a allowance for geographic accident. Does the Netherlands, dwelling of Spinoza, and service provider capitalism, and non-ecclesiastical portray, lack a freedom intuition? If it capitulated to the Nazis, isn’t tons of of miles of German border the likelier perpetrator? Jokes about French give up — that unerring mark of buffoonery — are simply pretty much as good at lacking the apparent. And if we are able to’t see the drive of geography in such acquainted nations, what likelihood a really feel for Asian sensitivities?
Three years in Washington acquainted me with a political class that’s, like London’s, hardworking, civic-minded and, if not blazingly authentic, sensible sufficient. If there was a blind spot, it was for the ingrained insecurity of a lot of the world: for the position of humiliation in so many nationwide histories. Chinese language conduct, as an example, absorbed everybody. What George Kennan would have referred to as the “sources” of it, didn’t.
The issue is as a lot training as all that shining sea. The forex of the humanities is summary concepts: Enlightenment versus Romance, the Protestant ethic versus Catholicism. That one thing as corporeal as atmosphere may form nations too feels nearly philistine to recommend. Jared Diamond’s Weapons Germs and Metal has made it solely faintly extra respectable.
The Anglosphere-ists, who’re proper for the fallacious causes, are merchandise of that concepts tradition. Sure, there may be an uncanny sample among the many 5 nations. Sure, it should inflect their view of the world. However language isn’t it (is Singapore, now extra populous than New Zealand, within the Anglosphere?). Neither is it the mental inheritance of John Locke.
No, what marks them out from a lot of the world is the coincidence of their geographic detachment. Brentwood’s personal Theodor Adorno discovered LA unhealthy for the thoughts even because it saved him secure. Anglosphere nations face the identical quandary: that what protects them leaves them uncomprehending.
E-mail Janan at janan.ganesh@ft.com
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