Introduction to the Culture of the

English-Speaking World

University of Saint-Louis, 2022-2023

Professor F. van der Mensbrugghe
francois.vandermensbrugghe@usaintlouis.be
Office 4013
Office hours: Friday afternoon
1
 Back to Work …

Or, to quote
Shakespeare, …

“Summer’s lease hath

all too short a date”
(Sonnet N°18)

2
 Obstacles

• Culture: madly un-definable and everywhere

• Ever-changing and impossible to apprehend
(today, pressure of ICTs)
• Flakey reputation
• Heterogeneous audience

3
 A Daunting Task…
Two Available Solutions

• Piecemeal approach (itself, a defining feature

of the culture of the English-speaking world)

• Structured approach (more in line with the

French approach - Descartes)

4
 Course Outline
1. Culture
2. This Sceptered Isle: British History and Politics
3. The Bard: Who Else than Shakespeare ?
4. The Special Relationship: Love and Loathing
5. Exceptionalism: American History and Politics
6. The American Nightmare: Race Relations
7. The American Dream: Economics and Bigness
8. The Rise and Fall of Empire
9. Conclusions

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Before Starting…

6
 a). In-Person Instruction: 2 Golden Rules

We’re not entirely out of the

woods yet, so

1.respect social distancing as

much as possible;

2.pay special attention to

vulnerable people

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b).“Netiquette”…
• A Luddite, … ? (reference to
Nottinghamshire weavers in
the 19th century but generally
to opponents of new
technology: ID cards, goal-line
tech….)
• No excoriation of technology,
but…multitasking + constant
exposure to multiple and faster
data streams distracts and
changes the manner our brains
are wired
• Smartphones are stealing your
time. Claim it back !

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A Word of Advice...
• In your own interest, learn how
to take notes and stay focused!
• Weekly revision (written
summaries)
• Avoid loose threads

• Exams start in … 14 weeks

• Avoid last-minute cramming

and all-nighters

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 1st Topic : “Culture”

Many of our cultural references are permeated by the ESW, from the
“ordinary” (Abercrombie…) to the “fundamental” (marketing
techniques, plea-bargaining…)

According to Alan Bloom (p. 4),

“First, culture is almost identical to people or nation, as in French culture,

German culture, Iranian culture, etc. Second, culture refers to art, music,
literature, educational television, certain kinds of movies - in short,
everything that is uplifting and edifying, as opposed to commerce…”

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 Brief Outline

§1. Apprehension

§2. Strength

§3. Weaknesses

§4. Significance

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§1. Apprehension
Certain words are clearly defined: e.g.
“’Consumer’ means an individual who
enters into a transaction primarily for
personal, family, or household
purposes” (UCC, §1-201)

Certain subjects can be clearly

circumscribed: Roman law

Four reasons make it difficult, if not

impossible, to fully apprehend the
culture of the English-speaking world

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A. Culture Change
Culture changes in time and
space, by reason of bottom-up
considerations (new behavior
and subculture alignment) and
top-down considerations
(leadership alignment)

One example…

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 USA : Arms (Gun) Culture
• In the USA, a civilian gunstock
exceeding 393 million (120
firearms per 100 people)  fifteen
children and young people are
killed by guns each day, most of
them in or around their own
homes (Columbine 1999, Sandy
Hook 2012, Parkland in 2018,
Uvalde in May 2022)
• The issue is of course related to
“gun control” (background
checks for firearms purchases…)

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By Way of Comparison

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 Reasons…?
• The UK and the USA tend to
approach firearms differently
• In the USA, remnant of the
Revolutionary Era and the “frontie
r” spirit of the 19th century…
• Symbol of power and masculinity…
• Belief in the “notion that the
people’s right to bear arms is the
greatest protection of their
individual rights and a firm
safeguard of democracy”
• Loophole that lets anyone buy guns
• Influence of lobbies (in particular of
the National Rifle Association –
NRA – Wayne LaPierre) and gun
manufacturers…

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 Topical Issue
In addition to those reasons just mentioned, the
problem is to know whether the U.S. Constitution
bestows upon citizens an individual right to own
firearms for lawful purposes
Skewed reading of the Second Amendment:
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the
security of a free State,
the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not
be infringed”

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 Back in 1787
No indication that the
Framers intended to enshrine
an “individual” right of self-
defense in the Constitution
Concerns raised during the
ratification of the US
Constitution (1787) that the
power of the US Congress to
disarm the state militias and
create a national standing
army posed an intolerable
threat to the sovereignty of
the states

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SCOTUS in 2008-2010
1). SCOTUS, District of
Columbia v. Heller (June 26,
2008)

Four (of the nine) Justices

disagreed (“dissenting

opinions”)

2). SCOTUS, McDonald v.

Chicago (June 28, 2010)

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 Dialectical Relationship
The gun problem and
American culture go hand-in-
hand

E.g. Adam Lanza and the

Sandy Hook elementary
school shooting of December
14, 2012 – 27 killed (Newton,
Connecticut)
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 In Addition…
Attempts (in New Orleans, Chicago…) to make gun-makers “liable”
for shootings, either because guns are a public nuisance or
because guns are not equipped with adequate safety devices.
Gun-related violence  2 consequences

1. Gun-related medical care: costs

2. Increased police protection: costs

At the end of the day, somebody has to foot the bill…

Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA): signed into

law on October 26, 2005 (15 USC §7901)

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Case of 2022

New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v.

Bruen: SCOTUS judgment of June 23, 2022
(6/3). Issue: does the 2nd Amendment apply
outside the home?)…Holding: for SCOTUS,
yes, it does.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21p
df/20-843_7j80.pdf

Online purchase of a Bushmaster…?

https://bushmasterguns.com

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 By-Product

• This leads us to developments on another problem: the “culture of

complaint” or “claims culture” in the United States, i.e. a
litigatory process gone rampant
• See also tobacco makers who have conspired to defraud US
consumers (since the 1950s) by hiding the health risks of smoking
• Fast-food chains: relationship between “junk food” and obesity
(Supersize me !)
• Today’s opioid crisis: states are struggling to cope with the costs
of dealing with the epidemic by suing pharmaceutical groups

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 Consequence
American culture in these developments…?

1) What can be made of cultural change?

2) How can one explain the degree of violence in the USA…?
3) What degree of polarization of society (two sides to the debate)…? Part of
today’s “culture wars”?
4) What role given to courts in general and the SCOTUS in particular?
5) What role given to the US Constitution (a “living” Constitution)…?
6) What of the reality of the “claims culture”

In many areas, the democratic process is taken over by the legal process, i.e.
lawsuits make policy… Nearly impossible to enact stricter gun-control laws.
Etc.
But let’s come back to “culture” from a general perspective…

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B. Culture and the Viewer

• From the viewer’s perspective,

culture depends on upbringing
and subjective interests
• William Hogarth (1697-1764)
and Thomas Gainsborough
(1727-1788) give two
complementary visions of 18th
century English culture

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 Hogarth, Scene from the Rake’s Progress
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6EVj6Ls_K0)

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Gainsborough: “Mr and Mrs Robert
Andrews”

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 C. Ubiquity
Culture is … ubiquitous

[In English, the word “ubiquity” = presence everywhere

or in many places, especially simultaneously]

It concerns the entire ambit of a society’s activities –

increasingly associated with mass phenomena (a)

It further has an anthropological deepness (b)

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 a). Mass Culture
The popular dimension of
culture may be viewed
on various levels
1). Either a simple picking
of everyday objects:
trash, toys, lunch bills,
postcards…
Most notably, Walter
Benjamin (1892-1940)
read the modern era
from these objects

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Popular Dimension (Cont’d.)
2). Or a way of blurring the lines
between art and life, between
“popular culture” and “high-brow
culture”
See Robert Rauschenberg
(1925-2008) and his “combine
paintings” where areas of color
are combined with collage and
found objects attached to the
canvas: much like Marcel
Duchamp (1887-1968), he
wanted to work “in the gap
between art and life”
In this picture, we have
“Monogram” (1959)

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 Popular Culture
In any event, we can make two further remarks at this
stage…
1. In the first place, “high-brow” culture is undeniably
nourished at one stage or another by popular culture.
There is no clear demarcation line: see the British
composer Edward Elgar (1857-1931) and his
Pomp and Circumstance March N°1 (with the
popular tune “Land of Hope and Glory” that
developed into a jingoistic song that Elgar himself
grew to hate…)
2. Furthermore, so called “bad” culture is perhaps
good for us all: see pages 13. To point…
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The D’Oh! of Homer…
• Unarguably, a cultural
artefact of our age that
reflects and plays with
philosophical ideas
• The Simpsons, like Monty
Python, is an Anglo-
American take on
existentialism
• In France, this often bears a
tragic dimension. Here, the
absurd of Albert Camus is
defied not by will, but
mocking laughter…

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 Just One Example…
In the episode, “Homer the Heretic” (4th season, episode 3), Homer
gives up church and decides to follow God in his own way… :
 different quotes:

1. “What’s the big deal about going to some building every

Sunday, I mean, isn’t God everywhere?”
2. “Don’t you think the Almighty has better things to worry about
than where one little guy spends one measly hour of his week?”
3. “And what if we’ve picked the wrong religion? Every week
we’re just making God madder and madder.”

Homer’s main target is not belief in God or the supernatural, but

organized religions who allege they know the will of the
creator

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 Incidentally…
• At the end of the episode, Homer’s house
catches fire…
• God’s wrath ? Divine retribution for
Homer’s apostasy ?
• No, the oaf merely fell asleep on his sofa
and dropped his cigar
• Is there a “lesson” to be drawn from all of
this?
• Perhaps…

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 Satire

It can provide an uplifting message on the

absurdity of life, as well as an amusing,
irreverent comment on modern American
culture: here religion

Elsewhere, Lisa’s experience exemplifies

contemporary America’s ambivalent attitudes
towards intellectuals

Chief Wiggum on the police: “Yeah, right, pops.

No jury in the world is going to convict a baby.
Well, maybe Texas” (in Who Shot Mr. Burns?)

Lionel Hutz on lawyers, …

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b). Anthropological Deepness
Values and norms that a people share: (1) our most
mundane pleasures, and (2) our innermost feelings
(love + suffering)
[Caveat ! In English, the word “mundane”  of this world,
worldly, concerned with the ordinary. In French, the
word “mondain” has a derogatory flavor : “relatif à la
société des gens en vue, aux réunions de la haute sociét
é”]

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 1). Mundane Pleasures

– the weather (English fiction, English painting…),

– dining and drinking
– folk songs,
– dress codes,
– religious festivals, …

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Weather

English fiction is
drenched in rain, from
Bede’s Historia
Ecclesiastica Gentis
Anglorum, to…
the opening sentence of
Charlotte Brontë’s Jane
Eyre : “There was no
possibility of taking a
walk that day” (p. 17) 
The book opens in
cheerless November
outdoors.

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 Jane Eyre (1847)

This striking opening of the novel develops a number of

contrasts with symbolic meanings
The weather corresponds to a wretched emotional climate
for the unloved orphan within, taking refuge from a
hostile world behind curtains (Jane was left in the care of
her aunt, Mrs Reed: she suffers in isolation from a
passionate sense of injustice)
Jane consoles herself in books where she finds images which
seem to express her own bewildered state of what life is
like: images of storm, shipwreck, and disaster, death and
mysterious evil…

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Thornfield Hall, the Moors…

• Jane thinks, “With Bewick [the book she was reading] on my

knee, I was then happy: happy at least in my way. I feared
nothing but interruption, and that came too soon. The breakfast
door room was opened.”
• Sense of foreboding: the unseen presence of someone at
Thornfield Hall, Jane’s marriage ceremony with Rochester, her
near-death on the moors, and her journey back to Thornfield
Hall (“a blackened ruin”) at the end of the novel on an overcast
and chilly June morning
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 Other Literary Illustrations

• Charles Dickens’ Bleak House

(1852-3): a satire on the old court of
Chancery where London fog hangs
over the city like a primitive force
taking human imagination back to
the earliest stages of existence
• Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness
(1902), on African colonialism and
the alienation of modern man

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 J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851)

Rain, mists, or fog provide a

formidable climatic backdrop to
British imagination - a sense of
longing , a poetic veil, a mysterious
cloak… According to Kenneth
Clark, Turner was entranced by the
“opalescent mists and lights which
are found in this country alone and
which have coloured so effectively
the English vision”
For Turner’s work, see
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks?
tab=works&aid=558&ws=date
(visited September 22, 2022)

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Closer to us…
• The opening ceremony of the London
Olympic Games in August 2012 show-
cased British culture with London cabs,
bouts of British humor, and wet
commuters
• Perhaps this “dampened” projection of
British cultural forms was meant as a
metaphor of English “self-deprecation”
See the irony of the Queen jumping
from a helicopter…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=1AS-dCdYZbo
Or having afternoon tea with
Paddington Bear, at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=7UfiCa244XE both visited
September 22, 2022

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 Food and Drink

Food and drink are

unarguably products
and reflections of our
culture from
Shakespeare’s
character of Falstaff
to an abundance of
food in the novels of
Charles Dickens: see
pages 18-19

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And Tea (of course…)
• “Under certain
circumstances there are
few hours in life more
agreeable than the hour
dedicated to the
ceremony known as
afternoon tea”: opening
sentence to The
Portrait of a Lady by
Henry James (1843-
1916)
• Suspiciously English
start…
45
 2). Innermost Feelings

Whether it be love or death, each culture has

its own experiences and beliefs that are deeply
rooted in the collective psyche and which may
baffle the foreign onlooker

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i). Love (and the Wedding
Industry… “Bridezillas”)

We have Anglo-American
illustrations of love that
speak volumes on Anglo-
American culture, with the
best in Jane Austen’s
portrayal of “cool love”
(Pride and Prejudice) … to
the worst with“Bridezillas”:
see pages 20-22

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 ii). Death (and the Funeral
• With regard to death, we
Industry)
have an example of
cross-cultural Anglo-
American
misunderstanding in
Evelyn Waugh’s, The
Loved One
• In any event, a true
industry, described with
horror by Jessica
Mitford in her classic
work, The American Way
of Death (1963)… : see
pages 22-23

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D. Culture of the ESW…?

49
§2. Strength

• What makes culture

important?
• Different levels of
understanding

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 A. Personal Level
a). Struggling with etiquette rules: for Natalie
Portman on living in France, “I feel there's a lot of
rules of politeness and codes of behavior there
you have to follow. It's a lot looser here (in the
United States). […]

A friend of mine taught me that when you go in

some place you have to say ‘bonjour’ before you
say anything else, then you have to wait two
seconds before you say something else. So if you
go into a store you can't be like, ‘Do you have this
in another size?’ or they'll think you're super rude
and then they'll be rude to you” (on Jimmy
Kimmel Live! on Thursday night, August 25, 2016)

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Cont’d.
b). Struggling with home sickness (or
culture shock): anxiety, sadness,
nervousness

Mentioned in the Bible’s Old Testament

book of Exodus and Homer’s "Odyssey”

It happens to just about anyone away

from home , students, athletes and
actors alike ("Twilight" star Robert
Pattinson reportedly told a U.K.
magazine he misses home badly)

52
 Cont’d.

c). What about a “legal person” [a non-

human entity that is treated as a
person for limited legal purposes: e.g.
corporations; legal persons can sue
and be sued, own property, and enter
into contracts ]…?

1.Cultural difficulties likely to be

encountered by a global company

2.Differences of perception of risk and

uncertainty
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B. National Level
1. Citizenship considerations

2. Funding and the

development of culture
(e.g. television networks)

3. Culture wars: guns,

creationism, the right to
abortion, death penalty,
same-sex marriage…

54
 C. International Level

a). A matter of “soft power”, i.e. the

ability of a country to showcase its
strength and persuade others to do
what it wants without force or
coercion

Scores of examples… from the

Great Exhibition of 1851 to the
platinum jubilee of 2022, and
passing through the opening of
Disneyland Shanghai of June 2016

55
Cont’d.

b). A matter of sustainable

development: see the “Convention
on the Protection and Promotion of
the Diversity of Cultural Expression
s” (approved by the UNESCO on 20
October 2005, entered into force on
18 March 2008)
http://en.unesco.org/creativity/
convention (consulted September
22, 2022)

56
 Cont’d.
c). A matter of safeguarding world
heritage: Al Mahdi case (ICC judgment
delivered on September 27, 2016)
Desecration of Timbuktu (Mali) within a
period of 10 days between June and July
2012
According to the Prosecutor of the ICC:
“to intentionally direct an attack against
historic monuments and buildings
dedicated to religion constitutes a war
crime, duly punishable under the Rome
Statute. These are serious crimes which
must be dealt with at the hands of
justice”
https://www.icc-cpi.int/mali/al-
mahdi#icc-timeline (visited September
22, 2022)

57
 Return of Heritage
• The obvious example of the Parthenon frieze
(Elgin marbles), the return of which was
ruled out by Boris Johnson in March 2021
• More recently, the US. returned an ancient
cuneiform tablet inscribed with part of the
Epic of Gilgamesh (the so-called “Gilgamesh
Dream Tablet”) - one of the world’s oldest
known literary works - to the Iraqi
government (September 23, 2021), after the
rare artifact was seized from craft store
Hobby Lobby, which had purchased it seven
years earlier

58
UNESCO’s Definition of Culture
• UNESCO has defined culture as the "set
of distinctive spiritual, material,
intellectual, and emotional features of
society or a social group, and that it
encompasses, in addition to art and
literature, lifestyles, ways of living
together, value systems, traditions and
beliefs”
• Taken from the UNESCO Universal
Convention on Cultural Diversity:
http://en.unesco.org/creativity/conventio
n (consulted September 22, 2022)

59
 §3. Weaknesses
• Culture’s very strength – the
preservation of a nation’s
most important ideas and
values – constitutes a source
of vulnerability (hence a
backhand compliment to
culture)

• Three examples

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A. Protestant Reformation
• 16th century England and Thomas
Cromwell
• Sledgehammer gangs and the
“Dissolution of the Monasteries” (1536-
1540)
• Similar demolition (State-sponsored
iconoclasm) in the turmoil of the 17th
century
• On Martin Luther, see
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=JqdCw27T3-k (check it out!)
61
 B. Hays Code (1930)
• A form of Hollywood censorship
that began in the 19th century: e.g.
The May Irwin kiss
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=Q690-IexNB4
• Two ideas motivated the censors
• The theory of “imitative behavior”
• The theory of “moral
compensation”

62
C. McCarthyism (1950s)
The term is a reference to a
smear campaign initiated by
Senator Joseph R. McCarthy
of Wisconsin (1909-1957)
“McCarthyism” began in Feb.
1950 with the Senator
announcing that he had in
his hand a list of numerous
communists “known to the
Secretary of State” who
were working and making
policy in the State
Department

63
 Witch-Hunt
Smear campaign aimed at high
government officials (civil servants,
diplomats), intellectual circles
(scholars, scientists), trade unionists,
and the entertainment industry
• Actors : Larry Parks (who starred in
“The Al Jolson Story”); Zero Mostel
• Directors : Charlie Chaplin, Orson
Welles, Jules Dassin…
• Screenwriters : Dalton Trumbo
(screenwriter of “Spartacus” or
“Exodus”)
• Musicians : Leonard Bernstein, Paul
Robeson…
• Journalists: Ed Murrow…

64
HUAC
• People summoned before a special
committee of the U.S. Congress :
“House Un-American Activities
Committee” (HUAC)
• People who refused to come  held
“in contempt” of Congress
• People willing to talk about their own
past, but not about that of other
people  also held “in contempt” of
Congress
• People who refused to answer
questions, invoking their right under
the 5th Amendment of the U.S.
Constitution not to bear witness
against themselves  “taking” the
Fifth was interpreted as an admission
of guilt

65
 §4. Significance

• Culture reflects past and current ideas

• The fact of the matter is that culture is organic.
It constitutes a living - or “ organic” - part of a
whole environment. Indeed, the word culture
comes from the Latin term cultura, meaning to
grow or cultivate
• The organic dimension of culture may be
analyzed with respect to an individual work
(A), a collective phenomenon (B), or geo-
strategic considerations (C)
66
 A. Individual Work
One must avoid national stereotypes when defining
cultural production
Individual works (a painting, a novel, a play…)
nevertheless demonstrate certain “organic” features
An individual work of art, a novel or a poem reflects a
civilization, and for the present purposes, the culture
of English speaking world…, depicting either :
– a). Humor: pp. 41-44
– b). Tragedy (futility of life): pp. 45-49
– c). Ideology: pp. 49-51

67
a). Humor
• Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400): poet
and great traveler who studied the
sciences, the arts, and the literatures
of France and Italy
• Author of The Canterbury Tales: an
unfinished collection of short stories
that mingles human beings of all
temperaments and social conditions
• Harry Bailey, the landlord of the
Tabard, offers a free supper to
whichever of the pilgrims shall tell
the best story on the long road to
and from Canterbury

68
 “ Teller in the Tale”
Chaucer himself is a (shy) pilgrim in The Canterbury Tales 
Bailey invites him to tell a “tale of mirth” (gladness), adding “it
should be dainty, judging by your face” (“dainty” = beautiful)

Chaucer begins The Tale of Sir Topaz :

“Listen, lords, with all your might

And I will tell you, honour bright,
A tale of mirth and game,
About a fair and gentle knight
In battle, tournament and fight
Sir Topaz was his name”… (six pages follow…) 69
The Host stops Chaucer’s Tale of Sir Topaz

“No more of this, for God’s dignity”,

Said our Host, “for thou makest me

So weary of thy rue ignorance

That, as surely as God may bless my soul,

My ears ache from thy crappy speech.”

[…]

“By God,” said he, “for plainly, at one word,

Thy crappy riming is not worth a turd!

Thou dost nothing else but waste time.

Sir, at one word, thou shalt no longer rime”

70
 Cont’d.
• Chaucer continues with another story: The Tale
of Melibee (that is hardly less dull…)
• One may spot here “the first example in
literature of that particular English humor which
takes a keen delight in self-derision” (≠ French
culture…)
• Recent illustration: White House
Correspondents’ Dinner 2016:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=St9AoQZr3-
k
71
Additional Reading

Check out the Geoffrey

Chaucer website at Harvard
University:
https://chaucer.fas.harvard.
edu (consulted September
22, 2022)

72
 Satire

• In addition to being a “teller in

the tale”, William Makepiece
Thackeray (1811-63), shows a
particular brand of “satire”
• Vanity Fair tells the lives of two
young women with sharply
contrasted characters : Becky
Sharp (unscrupulous) and Amelia
Sedley (moral but unintelligent)

73
 b). Tragedy

• An individual work of
art - a poem - can also
depict a culture’s sense
of tragedy
• Thus with Wilfred
Owen (1893-1918) and
his war poem Strange
Meeting 

74
Cont’d.

• A sense of hopelessness
and futility of life also
pervades the poetry of T.S.
Eliot (1888-1965 : Nobel
Prize for Literature 1948)
• See most notably his poem
The Waste Land (1922),
epitomizing “modernism”

75
 c). Ideology
• The “Beat Generation” in
general express hostility
toward 1950s American
middle-class values,
commercialism and
conformism
Opposite, Jack Kerouac (1922-
1969)

76
Harry Potter

The wizard himself is

perhaps not entirely
devoid of thoughts on
today’s culture

77
 B. Collective Dimension
• E.g. racism, defined by Martin Luther King as
a “ doctrine of the congenital inferiority and
worthlessness of a people” …
• Innate or culturally acquired ?
• Culturally acquired - through beliefs,
language, history (and law)
78
 Caveat !

• If culture is the product of

external conditions, it is
also the product of internal
choices for adapting to
those conditions, i.e. we
can fix the problem…
• Quoting Samuel Beckett
(Fin de partie / Endgame), “I
can’t go on. But I must. So I
will”

79
C. Geo-Strategic Dimension
• Opposite, Edward Saïd
• The drive to domination of
the “ascending” culture :
e.g. Conrad ’s Nostromo
(1904)
• Ensuing, and
unprecedented, growth in
the apparatus for the
diffusion and control of
information: a quantum
leap
• Sense of inevitability, yet
resistance possible

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 Possible Resistance
• Internal resistance : e.g.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) :
anti-imperialist writings (on
China, South Africa, the
Philippines, ... Belgium)
• External resistance : e.g.
Rabindranath Tagore
(1861-1941) - tireless
encouragement of Bengali
language and writers of
Indian vernaculars

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