Scotland the Brave?

Having just seen in the TV schedules that we are to get an airing of a new programme on the Achievements of Scotland, presented by Neil Oliver, I have to take up the pen,(?) to have my say on a subject that has been driving me increasingly mad (ah, so this is the real root of my schizophrenia, then!)for a good many years now: the Scots competing with the English, and losing their own identity, and with it, any cause for self-respect and pride .... and they do have cause for these, just not the same cause, or even TYPE of cause, as the English. The Scottish intellectuals were worried,and agonised over the possibility that Scotland would lose it's identity as a result of the Union of 1707, and it seems to me their worries have been proved more than well-founded.


The root cause is competitiveness. The English are fundamentally competitive, and competitiveness is provocative --- it's like one stag bellowing and shaking its horns at another; the other has to respond, either by running away or by squaring up --- well, the Scots have been squaring up to the English for the last few centuries, and the result? Well, again, consider nature ... when stag squares up to stag, or lion to lion, they are competing to see which is the most stag-like, or lion-like. That is to say, it makes them more LIKE one another; it breeds similarity, not difference. So, by competing with the English, we become more like the English, at the COST OF OUR OWN SCOTTISH IDENTITY.


I will deal with the Scottish Identity, what it is and what makes it worth preserving, later; first I want to deal with the competition, where it is to be seen, and how it is working.


My best approach here is probably to chronicle my own eye-opening episodes.


The first happened when I was a student in Edinburgh. One night I was reading a history book, a history of Britain, (for pleasure, my subject was physics). I took a notion to switch on the radio, and low and behold, it was someone talking about the very book I was reading. I was taken totally by surprise by what the man was saying: he claimed the book was written with an English bias, and pointed out as evidence the fact that the writer always reported achievements of the British Empire as 'English', and failures of the British Empire as 'British', or in some cases 'Scottish'! So, everything good was English, and everything bad was British, or Scottish! I really did not believe it --- until I took the trouble to actually check for myself, and, do you know, THE MAN WAS RIGHT!


I have since realised that this sort of thing is endemic. I do not suppose the writers etc realise they are doing it, but it is just so deep in the English psyche that they do it unawares ---they are just naturally competitive. It is SO Orwellian!


That is THE major, because eye-opening, incident, but, having been made aware, I have gone on to become aware of just how pervasive it is. And being so subtle, it gets into the psyche, of the Scots as well as the English, and influences the way we think of ourselves... did I hear someone say that the Scots lack self-confidence!?!


Another major technique is the BALD STATEMENT. 'Bald statements' ARE CHALLENGING. People who make bald statements are competitive. Statements such as: Shakespeare is the greatest writer the world has ever seen. The English are prone to such statements. But, I have talked to a few Germans in my time, and they have a great love of Goethe! Now, how many of the English who baldly claim Shakespeare as the best have actually read Goethe? Needless to say, precious few. And there are quite a few, I dare say, who have never even heard of Goethe! You see, if you are in the business of BEING THE BEST, you don't want to know what other people have done, you just want to tell everyone what YOU have done. And so you can become sublimely unaware that there are other people in the world who have also done wonderful things.


Being in my fifties, I am old enough to have seen a very interesting phenomenon: the re-writing of history --- shades of Orwell here again. (I have to ask, is it an accident that an Englishman wrote NINETEEN EIGHT FOUR?)


In the English pantheon, if Shakespeare is 'God the Father', then Newton is 'God the Son', and Darwin 'God the Holy Ghost'!


So: Darwin. EVOLUTION BY NATURAL SELECTION OF SPECIES. Evolution? That was an idea put forward by a Scottish Geologist, and which Darwin took with him on his travels in the form of a Geology text by Lyle. Selection of species? Have a word with the pigeon fanciers and dog breeders of Darwin's aquaintance --- they knew all about selective breeding! Even the idea of man as being descended from the apes, I believe pre-dates Darwin. And, of course, even the complete all-in-one theory was not unique to Darwin --- there was a gentleman by the name of Alfred Russel Wallace!


Well, the deification of Darwin, and the loss to history of how those ideas really developed, was somewhat before my time, though, of course, it continues. But, another of the same I have been watching happening 'live' over the past few years.


This is the case of the deification of Michael Farady. Farady was a physicist, who, when I was a student, warranted a passing mention in books devoted to MAXWELL'S EQUATIONS. Now, the world that physics deals with can be broadly split in two: matter, and energy. The world of matter was happily taken care of by (ahem, we won't mention Kepler or ..), Newton. Later, the world of energy was neatly encapsulated in four equations by James Clerk Maxwell ... a SCOT. Now, as I indicated, Farady worked in the same field, but as an experimentalist, and, until quite recently, was viewed as having done some very interesting work, full stop. However, in the last TV programme I saw on the subject, Maxwell had been reduced to someone who hung onto Farady's coat tails! As I said, the process has been happening gradually for years, as, I suppose is the subtle way of these things: no-one just just suddenly turns things upside down ... and, again, I doubt the writers are aware of what is going on. Every English writer is just interested in showing Farady in a better light than Maxwell, and, over the years, one writer building on the work of the last, slowly Farady overtakes Maxwell in the greatness stakes.


This is not a trivial matter: it distorts how the mind works, how ideas are discovered or invented, and, in general, is very misleading.


However, the English can play whatever games the English like. That is their prerogative, their responsibility, and they carry the consequences for the way they like to do things. My concern is with the Scots, and how the Scots react to all this. And I think the Scots have REACTED VERY BADLY!


I mean, we have done exactly what the English want us to do: we have squared up and PLAYED THEM AT THEIR OWN GAME. So that brings my back to my other point: the true identity of the Scots.

Now then, a short history lesson: in the Middle Ages the Scots (then as now) were prone to go off on the wander, mostly around the rest of Europe, visiting all the universities and monasteries and the like .... they became known at the time as 'the Wandering Scots'. The legacy of that love of learning is in the Scottish Education System. The four ancient universities of Scotland were set up FOR THE PEOPLE. it was never a matter of buying a place at university, but always a matter of having the aptitude and being given a place.

Then, where were the Scots in the days of Empire? They were the doctors and engineers and builders who were living incognito among the natives ... and it is important to understand WHY they were doing this, and how it ties in with what I talked of about a love of learning in the last paragraph.

You see, if you want to learn about other cultures, you don't go to another country and proceed to tell the natives all about your own and its achievements. You 'live like a native'; you EXPERIENCE that culture first hand; you ask questions. That is, you find things out and learn by being SMALL AND INVISIBLE.

So this is what it is to be a Scot: it is to love learning, and if that means going incognito, then one goes incognito. In this regard, I had an interesting experience in China: My sister and I were staying at a mountain 'resort' in the far West of China. The place had dormitory accomodation for around a couple of dozen tourists, backpackers. One of the others, an American, if I remember correctly, expressed surprise at meeting a Scot. She had travelled extensively for a number of years, and we were, she claimed, the first Scots she had met ... and, she had drawn the condlusion that Scots were stay-at-homes! ... I forebore to point out that besides my sister and myself, there were, in fact, three or four other Scots right there in that resort!!! But, as I said, the Scots travel incognito, learning, not proclaiming! (and I will just add one other thing, again from personal experience --- you have no idea how SAFE it makes travel, if you go incognito!)

--- and another significance of that last parenthetical remark has just struck me: it relates to the Scots genuine love of FREEDOM. As I have indicated, if you put freedom above other considerations, then you will be prepared to present yourself as a small and insignificant person for the sake of the freedom it gives you to travel --- you can reach the places other travellers cannot reach!

It is not that as a Scot I do not have pride; it is just that I chose when and where to exhibit it: and I choose to do so HERE!!! And one thing I pride myself and Scotland for is THE DECLARATION OF ARBROATH. That last paragraph, the one about the only thing that is worth fighting and dying for is FREEDOM, (and quite specifically, that money and power are not worth fighting and dying for); and that was the first time EVER in the history of the world, that anyone had fought for FREEDOM; and where, I ask, did the French take their slogan, LIBERTY, EQUALITY, BROTHERHOOD from? And remind me again of the opening lines of the AMERICAN DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE!

There is one other trait of the Scottish character that I would like to talk about, one that relates to, and ties in with (they are all interdependent) the ones I have already talked about. It was given it's most famous expression by Robert Burns, but better known to me, is the expression my father gave: one of his favourite sayings was, 'we're all Jock Tamson's bairns'. Burns put it this way: 'a man's a man for a' that, and man to man the world o'er shall brother be, for a' that'. This is important --- it says 'I am your friend', not 'I am in competition with you'. From all I have said above, you will be able to recognise the significance of that --- and it brings me neatly back to where I came in ---

--- actually, I could add quite a lot here, since if you follow this thread you get to the reasons why the Scots have not created galleries full of GREAT ART, and the like --- but 'ART FOR THE PEOPLE, NOT THE ARTIST',is perhaps, worth another blog ---

Anyway, as I was saying, the Scots do themselves a GRAVE DISSERVICE when they allow themselves to get caught up in the kind of competitiveness that is meat and drink to other cultures .... and I mean 'grave', because it KILLS in us what is essentially the very thing that makes us Scots.