Watching the English_The Hidden Rules of English Behavior by Kate Fox

Author:Kate Fox [Fox, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sociology, travel
ISBN: 9781857886160
Google: ErFBBAAAQBAJ
Amazon: 185788616X
Goodreads: 18528233
Publisher: Nicholas Brealey
Published: 2004-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

THE MODERATION RULE

The phrase ‘work hard, play hard’ became popular in England in the 1980s, and you will still quite often hear people use it to describe their exciting lifestyle and their dynamic approach to work and leisure. They are almost always lying. The English, on the whole, do not ‘work hard and play hard’: we do both, and most other things, in moderation. Of course, ‘work moderately, play moderately’ does not have quite the same ring to it, but I’m afraid it is a far more accurate description of typical English work and leisure habits. We work fairly diligently, and have a modest amount of fun in our free time.

I will not be thanked for this rather dull portrait, so I should make it clear that it is not just an impression or subjective judgement: these are the findings not only of SIRC’s own quite extensive research on work habits and attitudes, but also of every other study I could find on this subject. Neither are these rather staid, conventional, conservative habits confined to the middle-aged or middle-class. Contrary to popular opinion, the ‘youth of today’ are not feckless, irresponsible, thrill-seeking hedonists. If anything, both our own research and other surveys and studies have found that the young of all classes are more sensible, industrious, moderate and cautious than their parents’ generation. I find this rather worrying, as it suggests that unless our younger generation grows out of these middle-aged attitudes as they get older (which seems somewhat unlikely) the English will as a nation become even more ploddingly moderate than we are now.

If you think I’m exaggerating either the extent or the dangers of English youthful moderation, a few examples from the SIRC research might help to convince you:

Safe, Sensible, Bourgeois Aspirations

In our survey, when asked where they would like to be in ten years’ time, nearly three quarters (72 per cent) of young people chose the safe, sensible options of being ‘settled down’ or ‘successful at work’, compared with just 38 per cent of the older generation. Only 20 per cent of 16–24-year-olds chose the more adventurous option of ‘travelling the world/living abroad’, compared with 28 per cent of 45–54-year-olds. The older age group was also twice as likely as the youngsters to want to be ‘footloose and fancy-free’. In discussion groups and informal interviews, when we asked about their aspirations in life, almost all young working people wanted to be ‘financially secure and stable’. Home ownership was a long-term goal.

Future Stability More Important Than Fun

Gosh, what a dull lot, I thought, when those results first came in. In the hope of finding some more imaginative and rebellious attitudes, I turned to the questions on ‘fun’. I was disappointed to find that on the issue of ‘having fun now vs thinking about the future’, where one might expect the younger generation to be at least a bit less mature and responsible, the views of young people and their elders were more or less identical. Only 14 per

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