The other night I enjoyed a pleasant meal with a business contact, who works in the property industry and for a large U.S. company. He was talking to a group of people and struck me as a thoroughly charming fellow: articulate, funny, interested in other people, highly intelligent. And then he said something that slightly vexed me in that he started to go on and on about how we must be so appalled by this nutcase rightwinger in the White House, how most Americans were insular and dumb, yadda-yadda. It was so obviously an attempt to deflect what anti-American prejudices potentially might have existed by getting in the blow first. He was, then, slightly surprised me when I said over a drink later that I did not like the way that Americans felt the need to abase themselves this way, or denigrate their home country, or its people. In fact, I told him that, much that I disagreed with many of Bush's policies, such as his fiscal profiligacy and Big Government leanings, I liked the United States a great deal, not least much of its culture, its vitality and the niceness of most Americans.

So a gentle tip for American travellers from this Brit: don't slag off your own country when abroad. The locals will see through it and despise you for it. Be proud of what you are as an individual living in Jefferson's Republic, which for all its faults is the greatest free nation on the planet, and likely to be so for a while to come.

On Friday the 13th of January I listened to BBC Radio 4's Any Questions, The first question was "Can we trust President Bush over Iran...?"

Now I am no fan of President George Walker Bush (on his watch there has been the biggest increase of government spending since President Johnson and the biggest increase in domestic government spending since President Nixon), but it was an odd to hear someone clearly regard President Bush as worse than the President of Iran (a man who has denied the Holocaust, pledged to wipe Israel off the map, and has supported suicide bombers, in various parts of the Middle East, for many years).

The audience cheered and clapped the various anti Bush comments of Clare Short M.P., and the (rather milder) anti-Bush and pro-UN comments of the Liberal Democrat MP Simon Hughes present.

The Conservative party person on the panel (Mr Ian Duncan-Smith) did not really try to defend President Bush (although he did say we should not exclude the United States from world affairs). So that left the last member of the panel.

This man (whose name I can not remember) is the new editor of the 'Financial Times'. Now this newspaper has (perhaps surprisingly, given its name and target readership) normally been on the left of British politics (it tends to favour government spending and regulations, and it favours the statist European Union) so I did not hold out much hope for balance.

And indeed, later on, the editor turned out to have some very standard statist opinions - for example he supported a total ban on smoking in bars and restaurants (almost needless to say, the audience was wildly in favour of a ban "by 98%" - most likely they would have supported any bit of statism that was put in front of them). However, I was surprised as the editor started a pro Bush story of how he had met the President some time ago and...

Then the BBC suddenly went off the air. The broadcast of the show started again when the story was over. At the end of the programme the BBC blamed "technical difficulties" for the break in transmission.

So I listened to the repeat of the show (today Saturday the 14th of January) in order to hear the editor's story of his meeting with President Bush. It was cut out of the programme - even the start of the story that had been broadcast on Friday night. It seems that the BBC will not tolerate any pro-Bush comment.

Of course it is not a simple of hatred of President Bush as a man (indeed if the B.B.C. people bothered to find out about his policies they would be surprised to find that they support some of them - the bad ones, "No Child Left Behind", the medicare extension, and so on). They hate President Bush as a symbol of certain American characteristics that they, as members of the 'liberal' (i.e. illiberal) left hate - opposition to higher taxes, opposition to 'gun control', a belief that crime is caused by evil human choices (not poverty), belief in the family, and in tradition (including traditional religion), national pride and resistance to would-be world government institutions (such as the U.N., the various international 'rights' treaties, and the 'World Court').

President Bush may not be up to much, but as long as he serves as a symbol of all the BBC hates about the United States (i.e. all the good things in the United States) I find it hard to totally dislike him.

As I have mentioned before, I am weary of the endless programmes going out seeking to show that Islam in Britain is peachy and they are 'just like us'. I do not want to see communal tensions raised either but enough with the damn propaganda.

But what really annoys the hell out of me is when I read yesterday that Prince Charles intends to lecture President Bush and other Americans on how they need to take Islam more seriously and be less 'confrontational'. Oh that is going to down just splendidly. We have heard this before from Charles closer to home and my view has always been that as Britain is an overwhelmingly secular country and most tend not to take Christianity all that seriously, he has got to be joking if he thinks all too many people give a rats arse about what Islam has to offer global civilisation.

The Prince, who leaves on Tuesday for an eight-day tour of the US, has voiced private concerns over America's "confrontational" approach to Muslim countries and its failure to appreciate Islam's strengths. The Prince raised his concerns when he met senior Muslims in London in November 2001. The gathering took place just two months after the attacks on New York and Washington. "I find the language and rhetoric coming from America too confrontational," the Prince said, according to one leader at the meeting.

And when I regularly read Muslims standing up and openly repudiating putting apostates and homosexuals to death, perhaps I will conclude Islam might be anything other than a blight on any tolerant culture. Oh and please, spare me the tales of how historically 'tolerant' Islam can be because it is only tolerant on its own very narrow terms.

It used to be that many Christians would burn or hang 'witches', slaughter those who did not share their denomination and kill scientific free thinkers. All of those things were done based on biblical justifications, some convoluted and other much less so.

Yet you would be hard pressed to find a Christian who would regard going back to that as desirable and I doubt many would have a problem if someone stood up and said "Yes, I know it says in the Bible that we should kill witches or people who use 'evil magic', but that's barbaric nonsense and we just do not tolerate that sort of stuff any more". Of course no one needs to stand up and say that because it goes without saying.

And when I hear lots of Muslims say "yes I know it says in the Koran that the penalty for turning your back on Islam is death, but that is barbaric nonsense and we just will not tolerate that sort of stuff any more", then, and only then, will I think that Prince Charles is anything other than a fool for suggesting modern Islam could possibly be an overall force for good. I am not a Christian any more but I do not keep looking over my shoulder for a Jesuit with a garrotte sneaking up behind me because I dared to publicly state that fact. Ex-Muslims should feel just as free as I do to publicly repudiate their religion if that is their wish, even if there are social consequences for them in their narrower community.

Khalid Mahmood, the Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Bar, was also at the meeting at St James's Palace. "His criticism of America was a general one of the Americans not having the appreciation we have for Islam and its culture," he said.

I have news for Khalid, it is not just Americans who do not have much 'appreciation' for Islamic culture. Many aspects of Islamic culture are not something with which people who value tolerance and pluralism should be trying to reach an accommodation. You cannot compromise with something that is inimical and there is nothing illogical about refusing to tolerate the practice of a creed in a way that requires intolerance.

Well, one hopes this means George Galloway will never sully our shores again.

Although, really, how low does a man have to sink to be contemptible, to a US Senator?

Mihir Bose has a very interesting and though provoking article in the Telegraph about why many of the lessons of the American 'melting pot' have little resonance or even relevance to Britain.

The difference is simple but profound: America can impose a coherent historical narrative on immigrants because the countries they come from had no previous involvement with America. Settlers are able and encouraged to discard their native histories and accept the American version.

But the vast majority of non-white immigrants to Britain have come from our former colonies, and bring not only their own cultures but also their own versions of our shared history. So, in trying to construct a single coherent narrative for this island, we are faced with trying to marry two historical streams: the "home" version and the "export" version.

I am not sure I agree with the entire thrust of the article but it certainly provides considerable food for thought. Certainly I have always found it curious how, at least in my experience, race relations in Britain have been (generally) far better compared to the USA (and I only speak from my personal observations) and with far less government intervention forcing that state of affairs to be the norm, at least until quite recently. Perhaps Mihir Bose's article contains some of the reasons underpinning that. That could be worth pondering.

I am watching that supreme embodiment of the Anglosphere culture at the moment - cricket, surely the finest game invented by Man. England are building on their first-innings batting performance against a rather shaky-looking Australia, although the Aussies have a chance to draw the match I think thanks to a superb batting effort by Shane Warne. Warne is normally and rightly famed for his leg spin, able to make the ball move in a bewitching fashion.

The Ashes series, as the England vs Australia Test matches are known, are currently shown on the Channel 4 terrestrial tv channel. The channel has made a huge success of its cricket coverage, I think. Its commenators are excellent, intelligent and don't interrupt the flow of play. Even the adverts shown during a brief pause in play don't irritate me like I thought they would. Simon Hughes, a true cricket geek, does a fine job of explaining key terms and tactics to novices. Cricket is a complex game and yet the presenters seem to make it accessible without dumbing it down.

Four of us Samizdata scribblers are split down the middle on this Ashes series, I guess. Two Aussies - Scott Wickstein and Michael Jennings - pitted against Brian Micklethwait and yours truly.

Update, despite the so-far snarky remarks in the comments sections, my joy continues to rise thanks to today's batting performance. Summary of the game here.

Occasionally, life throws up little synergistic surprises. Last Sunday, I was reading a rather interesting opinon piece in the Daily Telegraph in the morning and then (quite unexpectedly) found myself breaking bread with the author of that article in the evening.

In common with a great many pundits (both amateur and professional) John O'Sullivan casts his eye over the persistantly and curiously comatose Conservative Party and, in doing so, makes a rather astute observation:

Throughout the West, but especially in the English-speaking world, parties are changing their class composition. Working and lower-middle-class voters are moving Rightwards, middle and upper-class voters, Leftwards. George W Bush won the votes of West Virginia miners in the last two elections; in Australia, John Howard was cheered by loggers: both lost votes among their own progressive middle class. Most "missing" votes in Britain belong to the working and lower-middles who have left Labour and are repelled by the Lib Dems but have not been given good reasons to vote Tory.

That may seem like a strange and rather radical suggestion to some but, actually, it does make quite a lot of sense. A great swathe of what we now call the 'middle-class' are not really bourgeois in the true sense of that word. Rather they are public sector professionals or elsewise beneficiaries of the client-state whose wealth and status is entirely dependent on a bloated and active government. Lower tax and less regulation is simply not in their interests.

On the other hand, members of the lower-middle and working class are having to hand over ever more of their hard-earned (either directly or by stealth) for ever less in return. It is their elderly parents who are expiring, neglected, in the corridors of state hospitals; it is their children who are being turned out from state schools without being able to read, write or articulate themselves.

This changing dynamic is just begging to be seized by anyone with the political savvy to spot the opportunity. Mind you, that probably rules out the Tories.

A review written by Keith Windschuttle has appeared in National Review. The book reviewed is The Anglosphere Challenge by James C. Bennett. (N.B. updated link allows access to US, British or Canadian Amazon and lets you read some of the book content.) I liked the book and liked the review and want to talk about them.

Let me start with a disclosure: I have biffed many an email to and fro with Jim Bennett, and have had the pleasure of meeting him once at one of Perry's blogger parties. The ease with which that came to pass is of interest in itself. I cannot exactly remember how I went from hearing my husband say, 'some bloke on the radio was talking about something called the "Anglosphere"', to talking to said bloke at a party. But it was not difficult and the internet was involved at all stages. There is nothing new about an interlocking network of informal communities (sustained by the exchange of letters) that include authors and people interested in their ideas, and whose existence is enlivened by the odd party. However what is new is that the ease of formation of such micro-communities has vastly increased. Their transaction costs have decreased.

People exchanging their writings (including but not limited to blogging) and ending up at the same parties are found at one end of an axis against which are plotted possible meanings of the word "community." The quantity changing as one moves along the axis could be informality, size, fluidity, non-exclusiveness (in the sense that you can belong to many of them) or voluntariness: for any of these variables the resulting spectrum would still show the same types of community appearing in the same order. Libertarians by definition like the fact that email-swapping, partygoing micro-communities are voluntary, and they also tend to have a preference of taste for the fact that they are small, fluid, and non-exclusive.

Libertarians generally have a good deal less affection for the thing we come to as we move to the other end of the spectrum: the liberal democratic nation-state. But in general we acknowledge that there is a great distinction between a civic state built up from individuals and maintained, in daily practice if not in theory, by consent and non-civic states that, in Bennett's words, "place individuals under the permanent discipline of inherited or assigned collectivities." Libertarians of a more conservative bent also tend to feel that there is merit and safety in seeking to evolve the institutions we have rather than to build whole new ones.

Which brings me to the idea of the Anglosphere. In Keith Windschuttle's review he says:

The Anglosphere he [Bennett] envisages would be a “network commonwealth” of English-speaking nations based on the existing shared values of Anglo-American cultural and political traditions. His concept offers the prospect not of radical change but of a reaffirmation of deep cultural roots. Politically, it is diametrically opposed to the two major movements that, since the demise of socialism, have absorbed the Western intellectual Left: radical multiculturalism at home and bureaucratic internationalism abroad.

Bennett urges various non-utopian changes (for example the introduction of a "sojourner" status making it easy for people to live and work in another Anglosphere country for a number of years) to bring about a societal unit containing more people than a nation-state but less demanding in nature. In Windschuttle's paraphrase:

"...a long-term civilizational relationship, more between the citizens of its various nations than between their governments. "

Bennett is suggesting a move off my axis where communities become ever more inflexible, exclusive and involuntary as they get bigger. The Anglosphere network commonwealth could exist alongside states and corporations, "cultural nations" and religions, tribes and hobby-groups. And, of course, alongside other network commonwealths, such as the Hispanosphere or the Sinosphere. I could have done with more in the book about the possible ways in which relations between network commonwealths could be more fruitful and less tense than relations between nation-states or trading blocs.

There is a lot of history in this book, explaining the author's belief that the English speaking world is well placed - though certainly not destined - to exploit the information revolution. Windschuttle chose a good quote:

It is our core values and characteristics that have made us dynamic,” he writes, “and it is to those values that we must return”: individualism, rule of law, the honoring of covenants, and an emphasis on freedom.

Elsewhere Bennett adds another value not mentioned by Windschuttle. It is not one that is particularly inspiring but it is useful: ease of dissociation. Ease of dissociation makes it less risky to start cooperative relationships.

I have not talked in this post about one huge aspect of the book, namely Bennett's discussion of why political units coalesce around a common language. That, too, comes down to trust and transaction costs. As distance becomes no obstacle to communication, and disapproval of interaction with people of different race or religion dwindles, language is all that remains.

It occurs to me that a really good system of computer translation might change things - although, then again, the mental concepts of the tongue in which one first learnt to speak surely have a major effect on what one finds worth speaking about. Even if some super version of AltaVista Babelfish translation were providing a real time fully grammatical translation of everything we said, I still think people at parties would tend to clump together in same-language groups for more comfortable conversation and cross-language groups for the pleasure and stimulus of hearing alien ideas.

Windschuttle remains sceptical of Bennett's ideas in some areas:

One further problem with Bennett’s thesis is his rather excessive faith in technological change. Bennett’s day job involves him in futuristic high-tech industries. He knows a great deal about their potential and is bound to generate enthusiasm among people of a like mind; the rest of us, however, are likely to remain cool until we see the results in practice. In the last ten years we have all gone through the Internet revolution, which has radically affected almost every industry and profession. Yet at the same time, we have been subject to so much speculation that has turned out to be empty or mistaken — the paperless office, self-replicating robots, all the overblown claims made during the dot-com boom — that most of us will believe it only when we see it. A network commonwealth with the kind of political impact Bennett envisages may well be a viable proposition, but it has yet to prove itself so.

It is true that some of the predictions of radical change in the way most of us do our daily work have failed to come to pass. (Though some have.) But if you reading this spent more than two hours today blogging or blog-reading and have twenty or thirty English-speaking conversational partners scattered across the globe who you may never meet but whose input provides a considerable part of your perceptions about the state of the world, then you can testify that there is potential for major change in the way we associate.

Although I knew this day was coming, it is profoundly depressing nevertheless. It is now the law that ID cards will be imposed by force in Britain, with the support of the Leaders of the Conservative Party and the Labour Party. They have won and as far as I am concerned, the guttering flame of the culture of liberty in Britain just blew out.

I do not expect a truly repressive state to be implemented for many years yet (hopefully), but the infrastructure of tyranny is now well and truly in place, all of which came to pass with a soundtrack of a faint bleating sound of an indifferent public in the background. You might as well flip a coin to figure out which party will usher it in but a authoritarian panoptic state is coming. If this is what the majority of British people want, then may they get exactly what they deserve, but I am out of here. For those of you who will be happy to see me go, trust me, the feeling is mutual.

I realise most people will just shrug their ovine shoulders and find my worries inexplicable, crazy even, as it is not like Blair and Howard are setting up Gulags, right? No, of course not. Who needs those when there is a camera on every corner and your every purchase and phone call will eventually be logged on a central government database? As far as I concerned, the war is over and my side lost.

I have to try and speed up my business ventures and get out as soon as I can afford to do so. I shall try to be out of Britain and have my primary residence in the USA by 2007 at the latest to avoid being forced to submit to this intolerable imposition... and I shall be taking my wealth generating assets with me. I cannot say I am looking forward to winters in New Hampshire but I do not really see that I have much choice anymore. I do not see the United States as a paragon of civil liberties (to put it mildly), but at least it is a place in which the battle can be fought within the last bastion of the Anglosphere's culture of liberty.

Damn it.

I hear the term "Anglosphere" as meaning that there is some community of the English-speaking nations on either side of the Atlantic Ocean. But when I come across this site, I feel like I am living in a foreign country to Americans.

Trying to list all the reasons why Adopt a Sniper is definitely not an English website would take hours. And that is a shame.

[via Instapundit]

The liberal-leaning USA Today describes The Guardian today as a "left-leaning British newspaper", showing a rather more sophisticated understanding of British political culture than the self-styled most intelligent newspaper in the UK can demonstrate of the world.

We now know that Clark County, the target for a Guardian operation to get out the vote for the Democrats, was the only county in Ohio to switch from a Democrat majority to a Republican one. The idea that Holland Park socialists living in £5 million homes could communicate with the concerns of a district of Ohio where $100,000 is considered a lot of money to spend on housing is bizarre.

In fact it is the exact reverse of the old Tory caricature: grandees looking down their noses at the 'Great Unwashed' and telling them what to do, for their own good of course. The true sign of just how ridiculous the Guardianistas are, they have no idea how arrogant and stupid they sound in the real world.

Every conservative and libertarian criticism of President Bush is at least partly justified. He has not vetoed any spending proposal from Congress. He has presided over a terrible budgetary situation (to the point where I almost oppose the tax cuts on the grounds that the budget deficit has to be contained first). He did introduce steel tariffs (which did not win him Pennsylvania or Michigan). The policy in Iraq worries me (since the spectacular successes of liberating Bagdad and later capturing Saddam Hussein) by looking all too similar to the political fudges of Vietnam in the late 1960s. I like the idea of the US spending money on Iraqi state education and a national health service no more than I would like it in Camden. I still think North Korea was and remains a bigger threat to the West than Iraq. The Patriot Act is at the very best a temporary necessary evil. And I am not so sure about "at the very best" or it being "temporary" and "necessary".

But the tribal test of elections is simple. All the bad guys, the Guardian readers, the little-Hitler bureaucrats, anti-smokers, the Socialists, idiot British Conservatives like Alan Duncan, the Palestinian 9/11 cheerleaders, the terrorists, the UN crooks, virtually the entire Left worldwide. They are the ones reaching for Kleenex, anti-depressant pills and shaking their fists at God.

All the people I know that are cheering are the good guys. I have even made this Guardian article my home page on IE, so that every morning for the next few weeks, I am reminded that We win and They lose sometimes.

My annual reminder that less government equals more wealth, or why I am English and poor, has come round again, with another vacation in the United States of America. This year, to combat the ennui and Autumn chills, Florida and the Keys beckons.

One of the most enjoyable aspects of a trip out West is finding some facet of American life that affirms the surprising echoes and extraordinary mixtures of the British Isles and other cultures. Such experiences confirm that the Anglosphere is certainly a cultural, if not a political project, although this is heresy in some quarters.

This year, my sojourn in the Keys coincides with the "Meeting of the Minds", an annual shindig for the Parrot Head Clubs, an organisation that I had never heard of. Since their gathering cramped my search for accommodation, this piqued my curiosity. The Parrotheads are fans of Jimmy Buffett, a country rock singer and aficianado of the island lifestyle, who I had also never heard of. He became a far more likeable figure as soon as a website on music banned by the BBC revealed that he was censored:

Jimmy Buffett's single, "come Monday" contained the line, "I've got my Hush Puppies on." Since the BBC considered this to be advertising he re-recorded that line so it said, "I've got my hiking shoes on."

The Parrotheads are a reminder of the strong links between civil society, charitable activities and other interests which bind individuals together. Such associations are now rare in Europe. The knowing classes would no doubt laugh at the voluntary activities of such simpletons and point out that their activities are wonderful examples of 'false consciousness'.

It is therefore no surprise that, in the most modern of societies, the prevailing moralism is a hard nut to crack for radical critics. This moralism is not only a theoretical matter, a form of false consciousness. From the seamstress to the First Lady, people have an urge to practice the ideals of altruism, modesty, honesty, compassion, charity, etc. Everyone donates to the Cancer Fund, UNICEF and so on. People join associations which promote stupidity in young people, firmly believing that this is an opportunity to experience something workaday life denies them: community of purpose, solidarity, friendship. They compensate for the necessity to compete against each other by forming disgusting groups on the basis of their ideals, even if their idealism demands further sacrifices.

However, groups still crop up amongst the British and their expatriate communities, proving our traditional bent for voluntarist activities. A recent phenomenon is the Hash House Harriers: running clubs that replicate the joy of hare and hounds:

The Hash House Harriers is a more social version of Hare and Hounds, where you join the pack of hounds (runners) to chase down the trail set by the hare or hares (other runners), then gather together for a little social activity known as the On In or Down Down. In most groups, all are welcome, young and old, fast or slow. The only prerequisite to hashing is a sense of humor, so check out a hash near you.

To split the cultural difference, the emphasis is on humour rather than charity Still, if they ban hunting, this will provide suitable enjoyment for the interregnum, until liberty returns.

I read a very odd story a few days ago on Front Page Magazine called An American in London, in which Carol Gould recounts how she and other Americans have been repeatedly subjected to anti-American abuse in London.

What I find so frightening is that I cannot conduct business or even take a taxi ride in London, Bournemouth or Edinburgh without a scathing tirade about the scurrilous Yanks. The day after 9/11 I was obliged to keep a consultant’s appointment and the minicab driver informed me that the 'yellow Americans' on the four hijacked planes were typical of the way 'the Yanks do battle' -- they chicken out and let the Brits do the dirty work.

Now the title of my article might suggest that I do not believe what she wrote to be true, but that is not what I am saying. If she says that is what people have said to her, then I will take her at her word. However I also know a significant number of Americans here in the UK and I am puzzled that they do not tell me that they have shared Carol Gould's experiences. In fact a fellow Samizdatista who is an American, is living in my house most of the time and we often go out places in London both casually and for business and although we talk together (and thereby announce to all nearby that she is an American), I have yet to see her nationality pique the slightest bit of interest from anyone at all. Here in London Americans are like taxicabs... they are just normal part of the fabric of this enormous and most cosmopolitan of cities.

Now I realise that Anti-Americanism exists in Britain... hell, it exists in America (and amongst the same ilk of people generally), but I must say that Ms. Gould describes a Britain that bears very little relation to the one I see every day. No doubt if I actively sought out the people who despise all things American I could find them in so diverse a metropolis, but then I could say the same about almost any set of views. However I suspect I would say the same if I still lived in Manhattan (which I did... and moreover worked in the World Trade Center at the time).

Ms. Gould says she knows many other expat Americans with similar experiences to hers. Well all I can say is we clearly know a very different set of expat Americans then. In fact, we clearly encounter a very different set of British people as well. I do not know what circles Carol Gould moves in but I do not think she has heard the real England speak.

And that is why it seems to me that if we are both in London, then the two of us must be existing in alternate realities.

Alert readers will have noted that I often write here about education. What happens is that I dash off a piece for my Education Blog, and then say to myself: this will just about do for Samizdata. And since I now find writing adequately for Samizdata harder than for my private blogs, and since Samizdata has many more readers, here is another such piece which I hope will suffice for here, provoked by an essay I am in the middle of reading, by Paul Graham. (Thank you Arts & Letters Daily, a daily resource without which I could not now do.) The first few paragraphs of this esssay grabbed my attention, and I am now about half way through it.

In that previous reaction to Graham's essay, I made much of the idea of an essay being "persuasive".

I am right, and wrong, says Paul Graham. Yes, a lot of education is rooted in legal education, but, he says, too much. An essay, he says, is not – or should not be – lawyering:

Defending a position may be a necessary evil in a legal dispute, but it's not the best way to get at the truth, as I think lawyers would be the first to admit. It's not just that you miss subtleties this way. The real problem is that you can't change the question.

And yet this principle is built into the very structure of the things they teach you to write in high school. The topic sentence is your thesis, chosen in advance, the supporting paragraphs the blows you strike in the conflict, and the conclusion – uh, what is the conclusion? I was never sure about that in high school. It seemed as if we were just supposed to restate what we said in the first paragraph, but in different enough words that no one could tell. Why bother? But when you understand the origins of this sort of "essay", you can see where the conclusion comes from. It's the concluding remarks to the jury.

As I often find myself saying, to justify my enthusiasm for argument: my dad was a trial lawyer, and so were both my grandfathers. My family's basic activity when dining, when we weren't eating or listening to classical music on the Third Programme or Family Fun Chat on the Home Service, was arguing. And if no one was disagreeing with a dominant consensus, someone would, just for the fun of it. "Defending a position" is, I think, a pretty good way to get at the truth, provided more than one position is being defended, which is exactly what is happening when a jury is involved. The adversarial principle is, I would say, a whole hell of a lot better than a "necessary evil".

Think only of the clash of conclusions – of, in Dan Rather's words, "political agendas" – that recently got the truth of the Rather documents fracas out into the light of day in the space of a few hours.

In our legal world, the advocates start with their rival conclusions and defend them, and attack them, while the judge listens, occasionally asking a question, or insisting that a question already asked be answered. ("The witness will answer the question.") Also, the judge occasionally, sports umpire style, restrains the advocates if they get too rude, or if they use arguments that are too sneaky. ("I object your honour!" – "Objection sustained.") In the blogosphere, the 'judge' is other bloggers and other journalists, and the 'jury' is the people reading it all and buying things and voting for things on the strength of all that arguing and counter-arguing.

On the Continent of Europe their legal tradition is very different from the one shared by Paul Graham and me, and by most of you reading this. There, the judge takes the initiative. He does not merely endure the clash of the advocates and help the jury to decide. He decides, by doing just what Graham says an essayist should do. He searches disinterestedly for the truth. He walks, to use Graham's excellent metaphor, through the open door into the room where the truth of the matter is to be found, and he finds whatever he finds. Then he announces it, and that is what is true and what is to be done.

These contrasting traditions have a profound effect on the different ways in which education is done in the Anglo-Saxon world and in Continental Europe, or so I am persuasively informed by my continental friends). (By the way, in Scotland, they also have a 'Continental' legal system. They do not have judges. They have 'intendants' in Scottish courts. I think that is what they are called. That is, active investigators, as in 'super-intendant'.)

Anglo-Saxon schools are often experienced by their congregations as boring churches in which the God Almighty Preacher says what is what and they, the congregation, just have to suck it up. But it is the very things that these Preachers often say in these churches, to say nothing of all the things said outside of them, that do much to make the congregation so restive. On the Continent, the Teacher/Professeur (the Judge substitute) finds The Truth, and then announces it. Your job as a mere pupil is to learn it, not to argue about it. Anglo-Saxon schools are anarchic dog-fights compared to the average secondary school on the Continent of Europe.

The weakness of the Anglo-Saxon system is that the truth gets lost in the mayhem and din of battle. Juries emerge from trials wondering what the f*** that was all about and having chosen their verdict with a coin toss or because the prosecuting lawyer had a cute smile. We tune into the Internet, and retreat in confusion from the hubbub. School pupils just become confused and give up, steamrollered by their more confident and louder rivals. Or they do not know which is the right answer and hate having to decide it for themselves.

But the weakness of the Continental system is that the actual truth of this or that particular matter may be forbidden or ignored, with only lies or obsolete platitudes about it being taught by the Man At The Front, and these lies and platitudes may not be contested by the peasantry.

It is in the nature of educated people brought up in either tradition, but aware of the existence of the other tradition, that they often perceive only the vices of their own system and cast envious eyes over the fence, or in this case over the English Channel (known over there as 'La Manche').

No accident, then, that 'essay' is a French word.

So. On with Paul Graham's essay...

As government gets ever bigger in various parts of the world, one sign of this is how many signs there are. In the USA, as I discovered over the past two weeks, it is now increasingly common to see signs telling you all about how to prevent death by choking.

That's right. Apparently, I understand that it is now a bylaw in many states to require owners of restaurants and bars to put up signs showing folk how to avoid death by choking on food, and how to assist someone who may be in trouble. The notices seem to be very detailed. What on earth is going on? Have there been a large number of folk keeling over after choking on a pretzel, as nearly happened to President Bush about a year ago?

That our political and health-conscious masters want to help us to avoid death - so they say - is hardly new. It is also pretty difficult to get indignant about putting up a poster giving handy hints on how to avoid death. It caused me a certain amount of wry amusement, although other state infractions of property rights, such as bans on smoking in privately owned bars, are far less amusing.
(Bars in New York are not quite the smelly places of old, but seemed to be less full than the last time I was in town).

Back here in Britain, though, it seems the country has a bad case of "sign overload", as Rod Liddle describes here in the Spectator. He argues, rightly, that any place which carries lots of signs telling us not to hit the staff or behave like a thug is precisely the sort of place to avoid. It is now routine for London Underground stations, railway stations and hospital waiting rooms to have signs warning us not to be rude to staff and to refrain from beating them up.

In a healthy civil society where moral standards are 'internalised' and tacitly accepted, it is not necessary to state what ought to be blindingly obvious to the average man or woman. Telling folk with signs to behave decently is a reflection of how infantilised our society has become, and tells us everything about the mindset of those who run what are laughably called our "public services". It is a lame admission that once-widely accepted standards of conduct are no longer part of the common stock of human knowledge, but have to be spelled out as if explaining maths to a five-year-old for the first time.

Of course there are many factors to explain this tendency. That great vehicle of moral hazard, known as the Welfare State, has a lot to do with erosion of behaviours, but it is by no means the only reason. Some may cite the decline in religious belief, although it is by no means clear to this atheist that belief in a Supreme Being is necessary to avoid society collapsing into some sort of Hobbesian chaos.

Is it too much to hope that if we treat our fellows like adults, that they will behave accordingly? Perhaps I am an incurable optimist.

(As a side-observation, I have noted that whenever the announcer on the London Underground tells us to "mind the gap" between the train and the platform, it produces howls of mirth from foreigners. I think they imagine it is some sort of strange national ritual, like tea, Wimbledon fortnight or the Proms).

Yesterday I finally got around to renting the DVD of the documentary ("D – O – C – U – M – E – N – T" um er "A – R – Y") movie Spellbound, which is about a bunch of American kids selected for their variety of ethnic backgound – as well as unity of linguistic ("L – I – N – G" er "U – I – S – TIC") foreground or course – who took part in the 1999 National Spelling Bee Championships in Washington DC. Until now I had not really appreciated what an important piece of Americana the institution of the Spelling Bee is. (And by the way, what does the "Bee" bit mean? Is that bee as in the insect, and if so, how did that come about?)

The spelling of English is notoriously perverse and difficult. Spelling Bees turn what might have been a horrible barrier to becoming an American into a patriotically shared ordeal, and this movie shows this process still to be in rude health. Spelling Bees for other languages would not make nearly so much sense, because other languages are so much easier to spell. Spanish spelling, for instance, is a doddle (doddle? – could you give me the language of origin please? – language unknown) compared to English spelling.

My favourite bit of Spellbound was watching an Indian-American boy who had sailed through hundreds of other words being struck dumb by "Darjeeling" ("DAR" – "D – A – R" pause, etc.). You could really see the American Dream and the American Melting Pot working at full power, melting the various ethnically diverse peoples who still now flood into America into Americans, in the heat of competition, gripped by a shared desire to Get Educated and to Get Ahead, and join in being Americans by competing with other Americans for the Good Life and the Glory of winning the National Spelling Bee Championship. Since competition is such a huge part of American culture, the psychological art of handling it is also central to being a successful American, and you could see them all learning about that also. ("Our daughter was a winner just by getting this far", etc.)

The key quote probably came from the mother of the Indian-American girl who actually won it, in the form of the claim that she now felt that she "belonged". Quite so. Americans, bound together by their shared struggle to spell the American language. Bound by spelling, that being the point of this movie's title.

I know, I know, champion spellers are only a geeky freaky minority. But think how much trouble such intellectuals can make when they have some ethnic differences and resentments to work with. Getting the clever ones stirred really thoroughly into the Melting Pot counts for a lot more than their mere numbers would suggest.

All this was further brought home by my coincidental reading today of an article by Samuel P. Huntington about the retreat of English in the American South West in the face of the advancing Spanish. Huntington's point is that the linguistic unity of the USA is now in the process of being destroyed. The USA is being turned into a bilingual nation. Whatever that "U" in USA used to mean, it is no longer, in the future, going to mean linguistically united. Third and fourth generation immigrants from Mexico and from other parts of Latin America are growing up with no more knowledge of English than their grandparents or great grandparents had when they first arrived in America.

Huntington even alludes to the spelling bee tradition in this article, quoting the late California Republican Senator S. I. Hayakawa:

"Why is it that no Filipinos, no Koreans object to making English the official language? No Japanese have done so. And certainly not the Vietnamese, who are so damn happy to be here. They're learning English as fast as they can and winning spelling bees all across the country. But the Hispanics alone have maintained there is a problem. There [has been] considerable movement to make Spanish the second official language."

One of the kids in Spellboungwas a Mexican American, whose dad came into America as an illegal immigrant. The dad's elderly employers, a couple far too old and grizzled to be bothering with political correctness, were shown opining that this Mexican dad illustrated that not all Mexicans were layabout good-for-nothings, or words to that tactless effect. And you couldn't help wondering if this opinion was all mixed up with the fact that this particular Mexican family was learning English, so much so that one of their sons was proud to be a champion English speller. For they are exceptions, according to Huntington. Most incoming Mexicans are now quite consciously resisting being swept up in American values of competitiveness and educational advancement, and speaking English.

Author Robert Kaplan quotes Alex Villa, a third-generation Mexican American in Tucson, Arizona, as saying that he knows almost no one in the Mexican community of South Tucson who believes in "education and hard work" as the way to material prosperity and is thus willing to "buy into America." Profound cultural differences clearly separate Mexicans and Americans, and the high level of immigration from Mexico sustains and reinforces the prevalence of Mexican values among Mexican Americans.

To put it unkindly: we are layabouts and we are proud of it.

Here in Britain, we have many problems associated with mass immigration, but a contiguous border with a Third World country, speaking one of the great non-English World Languages is not one of them. Our Muslim immigrants are a potential problem because we fear that they will not ever become culturally assimilated. But the biggest linguistic minority in Britain looks, for the foreseeable future, like being, and remaining … the Welsh! But imagine if the Welsh speakers of Britain were only the advance guard of another thirty million Welsh speakers in a separate and much poorer state right next to us, where Ireland actually is for instance, and of another two hundred million Welsh speakers elsewhere in the world. That would certainly change how we Anglos would feel about our Welsh minority, and how they would feel about themselves. It would also make the prospect of serious Anglo-Welsh conflict far more likely.

As it is, Britain looks, and no thanks to all the multi-culturalist in our midst, likely to continue with its ongoing project of linguistic assimilation. There are just no incoming linguistic groups big enough, relative to the rest of the population, to make not learning English a rational educational or economic choice. And indeed, there is something very turn of the century New York about London just now – which is all part of why I am so optimistic and excited about the immediate future of London.

Maybe language will prove more unifying in Britain than Muslim culture threatens to be divisive. And maybe the linguistic disunity of America could spell more trouble for them than we face from our Muslims-versus-the-Rest divide, because that linguistic divide threatens to bring with it cultural differences every bit as profound, but in addition to that, to freeze those cultural differences into a permanent pattern.

Talking of British linguistic unification, why don't we in Britain have Spelling Bees? Because I say that we definitely should. Now would be an excellent time to make a big fuss of such clever kids, and about the art of spelling in general. Maybe we do, in which case, British commenters, please enlighten me about that. But although mention was made in Spellbound of how this Spelling Bee thing has gone global, I'm not aware of it having caught on here. If it hasn't, yet, maybe Spellbound will change that – either by unleashing it from a standing start, or by fanning the flames of whatever Spelling Bee sparks are sputtering away here already, to mix the metaphors ("M E T A" – "PHOR"). I was quite surprised to see Spellbound in Blockbuster, which is not an enterprise given to sentimental, politically correct gestures. They only offer for rent what they reckon people will want to rent. And quite a lot of people besides me did seem to be renting it.

Before anybody else says it, let me say it. It doesn't matter how many British schoolteachers would moan about excessive competition and try to stop the thing. It could all be run by a TV company. All that is needed is for some clever kids willing to participate to be rounded up and quizzed, and then for others to join in, and I reckon plenty would.

We in Britain could certainly use such a tradition. What's the betting that in twenty years time, a British Muslim kid will be the Spelling Bee World Champion?

Arts & Letters Daily links to this article by Leo Marx in the Boston Review. Here are its first two paragraphs [their italics in our bold]:

When I was teaching in England in 1957, Richard Hoggart, a founder of the British school of cultural criticism, told me about having met a young Fulbright scholar who identified himself as a teacher of something called "American studies." "And what is that?" Hoggart asked. An exciting new field of interdisciplinary teaching and research, he was told. "But what is new about that?" It combines the study of history and literature. "In England we’ve been doing that for a long time," Hoggart protested. "Yes," said the eager Americanist, "but we look at American society as a whole – the entire culture, at all levels, high and low." Hoggart, who was about to publish The Uses of Literacy, his groundbreaking study of British working-class culture, remained unimpressed. After a moment, in a fit of exasperation, his informant blurted out: "But you don’t understand, I believe in America!"

"That was it!" Hoggart said to me, "then I did understand." It was unimaginable, he dryly added, that a British scholar would ever be heard saying, "I believe in Britain."

Of course it could just be coincidence, but I reckon this contrast does illustrate rather nicely the power of academic ideas.

Britain is now ruled by an elite which is busily breaking it into fragments and melting them into the European Union. I'm not saying that this is necessarily as terrible an idea as some writers here think it is (although personally I think it's a pretty bad one), but it is nevertheless beyond denial that this is what they are doing.

The USA, on the other hand, is still very much together.

Granted, in 1957 there was a lot less Britain to believe in than there was, or still is, USA, but still …

On the other hand, I dare say that "American Studies" perhaps now means something rather different to what it meant in 1957.

(WARNING - some of you may find the following article annoying as it was written after the author shortly enjoyed a fabulous holiday in the sunny Caribbean. Readers forced to stay in grimy and cold parts of the world during this period should skip forward below).

I have recently returned to England from Barbados, the eastern-most island in the group of volcanic islands stretching in a parabola arc across the Caribbean. The trip was obviously thoroughly enjoyable across a number of fronts - not least the cool rum punches, the sea fishing and the seascape. However, away from the usual tourist stuff, I noticed plenty of things I thought worth recording.

Barbados has been an independent nation since decolonisation in 1966, the year of my birth. Despite throwing off the shackles of colonial status, Barbados remains a remarkably pro-British and pro-Anglosphere nation. This is understanderble on a number of fronts. For starters, a huge slice of its earnings derive from British tourism. Britons and Americans are among the main nationalities who visit. From what I could see there were few continental Europeans there.

There are many reminders of its past, not least the grim reality that Barbados's wealth as a sugar-growing island was initially produced by imported slave labour. There is a moving and large statue of an emancipated slave, dubbed 'freedom', close to the main airport on the island. No citizen of this island needs to be reminded of what oppression is. As a Briton I am conflicted about this vile part of our history, in that yes, we built up the island on the back of this institution, but we also were among the first rank of nations to actually abolish it.

You might think that because of this legacy, there would be a great deal of resentment of the British, but if there is, it is very well hidden. School kids regularly sport English soccer T-shirts, there are red telephone boxes everywhere, you drive on the left hand side of the road, and Nelson's column is still proudly displayed in the centre of Bridgetown, the main city. And of course there is cricket. Brian Micklethwait of this blog has already written about this, but surely if the Anglosphere has a defining sport, it is (I now expect abuse from Jefferson's Republic) cricket. The Barbados people are mad on cricket. Sir Gary Sobers, the former West Indies all-rounder, is probably the country's living symbol.

Barbados is a deeply religious island. The Anglican church continues to pull in large congregations. And yet despite, or possibly even because of the Anglican faith's hold, this is a liberal island. For example, prostitution is legal. I was taken aback at how young men, often in the middle of one of the busiest streets in the capital, were offering to sell me drugs. (I did not take up the offer). Of course this was perhaps not so surprising, given the proximity to Latin America.

The people seem to be very entrepreneurial. Taxes are low. Immigration is restricted to those able to show they are financially self-supporting. Men and women are constantly on the lookout to sell you a house, fix you up with jewellery and tell you the best place to get a meal, offer to take you fishing, and the like. Yep, I know the vantage of point of a tourist means I probably missed out on all signs of serious poverty, and after all many people left the island for opportunities elsewhere after WW2, but nevertheless I was impressed. There was nothing like this sort of businesslike buzz when I recently visited France, for example.

On other fronts, Barbados folk seem fairly patriotic. A limited period of military service for young men is compulsory, though it seems not to - yet - cause great unrest. I did not have a chance to check the local press much - I was on holiday! - but I have the impression that there is no great demand for stuff like compulsory ID cards, though like I said, immigration controls are strictly enforced.

I am not trying to claim any profound insights here nor to present the country as some sort of paragon (some may say I had consumed too much Banks beer). But let me finish on this note. Here we have a beautiful island, surrounded by the blue Caribbean, filled with industrious folk speaking English in a lovely accent, who love cricket, Mount Gay Rum, and hot music. What's not to like? Screw the summer holiday, pack your bags, save your pennies, and go to the Gem of the Anglosphere.

A famous Texan is over here in town. So, given the rude noises coming out of the bottom-feeders of the 'peace' movement, with their oh-so original cracks about the 'cowboy Bush', here's a quotation to ponder taken from Ian Fleming's first, and arguably best, James Bond adventure, Casino Royale:

Bond reflected that Americans were fine people, and that most of them seemed to come from Texas.

No rudeness implied, by the way, to citizens of any state outside the Lone Star State, just in case folk get upset!

The Mayor of London (and you cannot begin to imagine how ashamed I am to have to type those words) Ken Livingstone is making a play for the Moonbat Demographic: [From the UK Times]

But the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, branded Mr Bush as "the greatest threat to life on this planet” whose policies will “doom us to extinction".

Obviously the 'global warming' schtick has played itself out.

The mayor also said that he did not recognise Mr Bush as a lawful president and he condemned America’s rapacious capitalist agenda.

Those protestors are wasting their time. The President of the USA will not be in London this week. Just some guy from Texas.

Poor old 'Red Ken' must have been provoked into this outburst by the unbearable thought of those steel tariffs.

I shall miss the fuss in London on Thursday because of a prior engagement in Brussels, but I will spare a thought for the demonstration of collectivists versus the protectionist.

Mr Bush is in the unlikely position of being a villain during this visit to London because he is defending tariffs on steel imports, and I can hardly praise a man for making the European Commission appear like the good guys!

Some of his opponents will actually be protesting against protectionism on the grounds that opening trade is the best hope for greater prosperity worldwide, with the handy by-product of reducing the number of layabout juveniles dreaming of doing something spectacular and violent: they are too busy doing MBAs or training to become plastic surgeons.

I could even support the demonstration if there were a chance that the message would be received in Washington DC that protectionism is an abomination and a great source of warfare (I believe it even triggered the US Civil War, and in that respect the wrong side won).

As for the occupation of Iraq: I continue to despair at the difficulty that anglosphere writer