The Decline of Patriotism, and How to Rebuild it - Part II

One of the things we seem to have forgotten, or not considered, is that education is as much about the transmission of values and traditions.

Part I of this article is available here. For more of Taz’s writings, visit his Medium.

One of the things we seem to have forgotten, or not considered, is that education is as much about the transmission of values and traditions, the cultivation of the next generation into their roles as custodians of cultural inheritance, as it is about what we typically think of when we say the word “education” - the teaching of sums and spelling etc.

Allowing this aspect of education to be ceded to social media and activist talking heads on television, or indeed teachers who have learned their moral code from these places, is tantamount to civilisational self-harm. Indeed it’s a failure of our custodianship, because, to quote the late Roger Scruton:

“We do not merely study the past: we inherit it, and inheritance brings with it not only the rights of ownership, but the duties of trusteeship. Things fought for and died for should not be idly squandered. For they are the property of others, who are not yet born”

Young people have to be taught about why our ancestors considered in the past, and why we should consider in the future, the British Constitution - including the hereditary and symbolic power of the Monarchy, the moderating hereditary and technocratic legislative power of the Lords Temporal, the spiritual and moral power of the Lords Spiritual, in balance with the greater democratic legislative power of the Commons - a good, if not the best form of national governance.

Well-reasoned apologia for Monarchy has been written by some of the greatest thinkers our nation has produced, and often it’s come from unexpected quarters, like George Orwell and Clement Attlee - both men firmly of the Left - to give just two examples. And, although defences of the Lords are less numerous, they have been offered by some of our greatest legal minds often as part of a larger commentary on the constitution, including most famously and extensively by Sir William Blackstone in his seminal Commentaries on the Laws of England. (Sir Peregrine Worsthorne also offered a highly regarded defence of aristocracy in his book In Defence of Aristocracy, and a less formidable mind than Blackstone’s or Worsthorne’s in the form of my own has also written in defence of the hereditary Lords here, and how the part of it which has been broken by poorly considered constitutional tampering could be fixed here.)

This is the grounding that young people need to thrive within the British civilisational context, inoculated against the poisonous resentment born of revolutionary ideologies and misaligned social expectations derived from alien French and American liberal thought. Britons will never have the chaotic and selfish freedom of Americans, nor the pretension of ideologically engineered liberté, égalité, fraternité, and nor should we want them because Americans nor the French will ever have the holistic liberty of Britons, the liberty Edmund Burke describes thusly:

Permit me […] to tell you what the freedom is that I love, and that to which I think all men entitled. This is the more necessary, because, of all the loose terms in the world, liberty is the most indefinite. It is not solitary, unconnected, individual, selfish liberty, as if every man was to regulate the whole of his conduct by his own will. The liberty I mean is social freedom. It is that state of things in which liberty is secured by the equality of restraint. A constitution of things in which the liberty of no one man, and no body of men, and no number of men, can find means to trespass on the liberty of any person, or any description of persons, in the society. This kind of liberty is, indeed, but another name for justice; ascertained by wise laws, and secured by well-constructed institutions.

In short, teaching British kids British values in British schools (along with much better teaching of history) is the first step towards reinvigorating patriotism in Great Britain. It’s the foundation stone which needs to be relaid. Without this, patriotism is impossible - but alone it’s not enough. It must be combined with continued reasons to love our country. The beautification of our neighbourhoods and infrastructure, enabling people to buy into and contribute to our society through home ownership, community engagement, and meaningful economic participation, a reinvigorated telling of British stories on British screens, and the joint unitary and unifying celebration of us - Britons - as a people.

Perhaps the Saints’ Days of Andrew, David, Patrick, and George should be nationwide bank holidays - from Penzance to Haroldswick and Belleek to Bridlington - with state-sponsored festivities. Perhaps each of our armed forces should have a day dedicated to the national celebration of each of them: Waterloo Day for the British Army, Trafalgar Day for the Royal Navy, and Battle of Britain Day (on a convenient but relevant date, there’s a few to choose from) for the Royal Air Force (all events which should be well taught in schools) in which fireworks can be shot off, festivities can be held, and kids get the opportunity to watch red-coated soldiers marching, or climb on ships, tanks or fighter jets. Perhaps the 1st of May should be a public holiday, also with state-sponsored festivities, a celebration of the Act of Union (and maypoles wouldn’t go amiss!). Nothing cuts through ideological cynicism and pessimism like celebratory festivity.

Sadly, Tony Blair’s ill-thought-through constitutional tampering has done considerable damage to the unifying quality of the pre-Blair constitution, as has the rapid philosophical Americanisation of ideals and thought spread through media and the internet, and the diversification of the British populace. Therefore, more needs to be done to hold together our United Kingdom and maintain its historical traditions. It’s up to the state to stop being neutral on this and not resign itself to national decline and eventual dissolution and give those who value Britain, her unity and our constitutional and traditional inheritance, the tools needed and excuses to joyously defend, strengthen and celebrate them.

Part I of this article is available here.