Can U.K. be Described as a Homogeneous Society - Essay Example

?Can the UK be described as a homogeneous society? The issue of cultural identities, and its effect. The United Kingdom, as its very suggests, was initially conceived not as one homogeneous social group, but a strategic alliance of several such groups who perceived that they had more to gain by joining forces in union, than in remaining as separate. At a basic level this geographical distinction between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland still represents for some an indication of diversity in the culture of the whole. Distinctive educational systems, legal systems, music, costume, and in some cases language still contribute to a perception inside the UK and beyond, that this is not a homogeneous society because of these early national boundaries and self-images. The rise of industrialization, with its drawing of people into slums in large towns and cities contributed to a new set of cultural distinctions based on class, and in turn on politics, with the emergence of Labour and Tory ideologies with their focus on the interests of working and middle classes respectively. These distinctions have been eroded, somewhat, with the rise of New Labour, and the dilemmas that all advanced capitalists states face when expansion no longer seems achievable or even appropriate. Class distinctions have shifted from the defining domain of work, to that of popular culture. The media feed multiple new sub-cultures, based on tastes in clothes, music, lifestyle, entertainment etc. The influence on the media on culture is, however , not without its problems. One effect is to cater for a highly commercialised product which is targeted at maximum coverage. This is so much commercial output is commodified to the point where it appears unoriginal. Recent empirical investigations of the actual perceptions of people in all regions of the UK, as opposed to popular myths suggest, however, that ancient assumptions about such distinctions as race and class may no longer hold in quite the way that people imagine. The idea, much vaunted by some, that the political culture in Scotland is fundamentally different than in England, for example, has turned out not to be well founded in fact: “despite all the very plausible reasons why Scots should be different, our comprehensive comparisons suggested far more similarity than difference between those who live in Scotland and those who live in the rest of Britain.” (Miller et al., 1996, p. 369) The strands of culture that divide people are no longer based so much upon indigenous peoples, but along grounds of class, politics, gender, religion and any number of other features. In his interesting analysis of the way government and politics have developed in Britain, John Kingdom traces the country’s journey in the last hundred years or so from being a force of world capitalism, governing an empire consisting of many colonies in far corners of the world, to its present position as a former colonial master, still dealing with the aftermath of empire, and failing to find a comfortable position in relation to the emerging consellation of powers on the European mainland. Concepts such as the once splendid “sceptered isle” (Kingdom, 2004, p. 87) and the “Rule Britannia” complacency of previous ages no longer apply in a world which is increasingly inter-connected. The process of globalisation changes the way that people relate to both space and time, bringing distant matters close, and speeding up all the communication and trading processes that underpin the world economy. John Kingdom points out that the United Kingdom can no longer take for granted a privileged position as driver of these changes, and is now entering into a period of decline. The geographical island situation which was once interpreted as a distinctive and ennobling feature, becomes something much more akin to isolation or even exclusion, as the British Prime minister recently discovered during European finance negotiations. In an entirely different domain, the transition from a position of dealing with post-colonial integration of different immigrant groups, to a position of engaging with emerging political forces such as a well organised and third or fourth generation Muslim political culture has proved to be a challenge. New collective identities are being formed which have to do with some groups’ desire to participate as equal players within a heterogeneous British society There are some signs, for example, that this cultural boundaries are shifting from distinctions made on the basis of race, to one based on religion, especially in the case of Muslim citizens, who make up one fifth of all minority citizens in the UK (Statham, 2003, p. 136). This is an interesting development that mirrors also the sectarian divide of earlier generations in Ireland and Scotland between Roman Catholic and Protestant communities. Social exclusion in the United Kingdom still contributes to the existence of a sub-culture which cannot fully participate in the benefits which are available to society at large. Some of the protests that are emerging in the banking areas of large cities are an expression of liberal frustration at a lack of progress on this front. The culture of conspicuous consumption and huge bonuses is still a marker of class division, but fundamentally there is wide agreement in deprived and wealthy areas alike, that the United Kingdom needs to move away from such outdated and extreme injustice in the distribution of the country’s resources. Storry and Childs examine a range of contemporary culture identities and cite the ill-fated Millennium Dome as an attempt by government to “showcase aspects of Britain which it felt were important.” (Storry and Childs, p. 13) This makes the valid point that culture is not something that can be imposed upon the nation from the top down. It is rather something that emerges out of the complex interactions that go on in a widely dispersed network of regions, classes, political and ethnic groups, genders and ideologies. People outside London perceived this “official” celebration of culture as yet another example of the unwarranted expenditure on the capital at the expense of the regions. What looks good from the centre of power has very different connotations for those who perceive themselves as on the edge. Instead of bringing together marginalised cultures, then, the Dome simply emphasised a gaping chasm between the metropolitan view of culture and the views of others outside the city. Differences between urban and rural cultures were highlighted recently, for example, in a bitter debate about fox hunting which ran across traditional boundaries of class. Television, and especially the internet, has undermined older “high” and “low” culture distinctions by democratising access to the public. Nowadays most young people encounter film and dama through snippets of youtube, including many examples of parody and pastiche, than through attending theatres or cinemas. Live performances in the United Kingdom are polarised between high volume commercial productions (musicals and rock concerts or festivals) or and heavily subsidised offerings such as opera and classical concerts for an increasingly marginalised elite. The great diversity that used to exist in small, independent cinemas and theatres has all but disappeared, leaving yet again a media performance landscape that is reduced to its lowest common denominator: talent shows which are the epitome of homogenised artistic output. Clearly in modern Britain there are more opportunities than ever for people to select from a menu of cultural identities and choose the basis on which they would define their own cultural identity. There is more flexibility in cultural divisions, and people shift between cultural affiliations on an issue by issue basis. In this respect, the United Kingdom has resolved many of its previous difficulties in reconciling conflicting cultures. Paradoxically, then, the proliferation of heterogeneous cultures in the United Kingdom in the twentieth century may be the very feature which makes it more homogeneous. All of those superficially diverse cultural groupings share fundamental beliefs about democracy, representation, and the rights and responsibilities of everyone to pursue their own agendas in life, and express themselves and their culture, however that is defined, in whatever ways they choose. This liberal democracy is what constitutes the umbrella culture of the contemporary United Kingdom. It would be true to say, therefore, that the United Kingdom does have an increasingly homogeneous culture. Within the broad definition of liberal democracy, despite the practical limitations that it is subject to, there are flexible options of diversity which free people from the fixed identities of previous generations. The cultural landscape of the United Kingdom fits more easily into a post-modern relativism. Citizens of the United Kingdom are as likely to identify with global, or even virtual cultural identities, as to any one culture which is specifically located in the society where they live their daily lives. The effects of cultural homogenization are not to make everyone identical, but to give everyone the same right to experiment with their own choices of cultural identity, resulting in a rich picture of variation within a stable system of similarity. References Christopher, D. (1999) British Culture: An introduction. London: Routledge. Kingdom, J. (2004) Government and Politics in Britain: An Introduction. Second Edition. Cambridge: Polity Press. Miller, W.L., Timpson, A.M. and Lessnoff, M.H. (1996) Political culture in contemporary Britain: people and politicians, principles and practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Statham, P., 2003. New Conflicts about Integration and Cultural Diversity in Britain: The Muslim Challenge to Race Relations. In: R. Cuperus, K.A. Duffek and J. Kandel (Eds.) The Challenge of Diversity: European Social Democracy Facing Migration, Integration, and Multiculturalism. Innsbruck: Studienverlag, pp. 126-149. Storry, M. and Childs, P. ( 2002) British Cultural Identities. Second Edition. London: Routledge. Read More