Sneering at the English: nature-writing, nostalgia, reactionary politics
July 9, 2018 3:24 AM   Subscribe

"[B]efore long, there was barely a single facet of English rural life that wasn’t being prevaricated about from the three-for-two table in Waterstones. Joe Kennedy in the New Socialist writes about the intersection of nostalgic cultural criticism, nature-writing, psychogeography, and 'benign' or 'progressive' forms of English patriotism.

"It wasn’t long, either, before the melancholic Englishness curated and cultivated in various ways by Harris, Ackroyd and Doherty turned into a much more straightforward idea about the niceness of Englishness. The uncanniness and spookiness, even Harris’ soupcon of “sur le continong” experimentalism, was filed off in the ascendancy of what Alex Niven, in a slim polemic called Folk Opposition, describes as “Green Toryism”."

Picking up the nature-writing/pastoralism aspect of Kennedy's piece in particular, it's worth noting Richard Smyth's article in The New Humanist about the historical links between nature writing and English fascism (20th century and current) as well as more genteel reactionary politics: The dark side of nature writing. "The wildwood furnishes a fig-leaf for the foulest far-right canards; fascists, no less than corporations, are adept at applying greenwash."

Kennedy discusses author Paul Kingsnorth in particular, whose environmental writing on 'Anglarchism' and 'benevolent green nationalism' have been accused of shading into reactionary politics and fascism.

Set against this, Garry Budden ("In the current political climate [...] stuff that can seem harmless and a bit woolly can end up lending itself to some very dangerous narratives about belonging and national identity") calls for an explicitly anti-nationalist way of thinking about our relationship with place and identifies a number of sharper, un-twee and non-conservative examples of British landscape writing: Awake Awake Sweet England: Why We Need Landscape Punk

Similarly, London Permaculture's article, A Chill Snake Lurks in the Grass, discusses their discomfort with the growing reactionary strain in a movement they consider themselves part of and how links to reactionary politics are promulgated 'on the ground' in UK environmental circles. "This of course is the Grail question — Who Does it Serve? What will these ideas be used in the service of? Who do we share common ground with?"
posted by ocular shenanigans (20 comments total) 36 users marked this as a favorite
 
This is going to be about Henry Williamson, isn't it? *checks*. Yep.

You know, his nature short stories (eg The Peregrine Saga) are rather brilliant. I wouldn't for a moment call them twee.

I think you could probably work Detectorists into this thesis, somewhere...
posted by Leon at 3:45 AM on July 9, 2018


It doesn't really fit with the post but I can attest to some of the books Budden recommends.
are all wonderful. There may be something there about all three being written by female authors who are engaged with and critical of the traditions they're writing in, in particular MacDonald with her biography of T.H. White's own work on falconry and nature .

Budden's own Hollow Shores is also good stuff.
posted by ocular shenanigans at 3:49 AM on July 9, 2018 [4 favorites]


Altogether a fascinating set of links: thanks for the post! Although I found the article in the first link hard going. Why are you throwing sentences like Despite this foundational error, broadsheet critics leapt in to proclaim the urgent necessity of the intervention, which supposedly corrected the pretentiousness of those whose investment in modernism was grounded in a conviction that it allowed the transcending of pettily national concerns. at me on a Monday morning?
posted by misteraitch at 4:04 AM on July 9, 2018 [6 favorites]


This really resonated with me, because at least one of the books usually cited in this list was written on the backs of underpaid labour by precarious academics, partly through an institution currently experiencing some, uh, backlash about the way that it treats non-white staff. The fact that this is constantly erased by the hagiographic reviews is a bug bear that itches at me every time I see it mentioned. This is the first time I've felt enabled to say that.
posted by AFII at 4:16 AM on July 9, 2018 [3 favorites]


This is a great post.

And yet there is so much more to be said too. Much of the affectation for the English (and it is primarily English) landscape should not be confused with a love of nature or with environmentalism. In many cases, this conservative view of the land and attachment can be extremely destructive.

For example: "At one end of the country, conservation groups are doing all they can to stop the burning of moors. Challenging the grouse shooting estates, for example, the RSPB argues that “there is an urgent need to restore these landscapes by … bringing an end to burning.” At the other end of the country, conservation groups are doing all they can to ensure that moors are burnt."

Much of what is considered harmonious and beautiful in England is that iconic scene of rolling green pastures, never mind that these green fields are for the most part pesticide-laden farmland, devoid of insects, of birds, of wildlife.

The Lake District is a good example: "It's the most celebrated landscape in Britain. It's the spiritual home of the Romantic movement. It's the birthplace of western conservation. So who could possibly be boorish enough to oppose a campaign to turn the Lake District into a world heritage site? ... They argue that the Lake District, more than anywhere else, "has influenced the way that the modern world views, values and conserves landscape". They also maintain that it is "one of the world's most beautiful areas".
I see it as one of the most depressing landscapes in Europe."


Then there is xenophobia. I don't mean just the aforementioned antipathy towards immigrants who are diluting the landscape with their non-English ways but also the rabid xenophobia toward what are termed non-native species. Not the imported pheasant of course since that is part of the landscape. But those stinky Spanish bluebells. The only way to deal with them is to douse them with weedkiller, says every helpful gardening site.

And we need to protect the red squirrel of course even if it means mercilessly killing grey squirrels. There are endless examples of this obsession with non-natives even though they aren't necessarily invasive or endangered worldwide. Their great threat is that they have been deemed non-British.

In the UK, the leaders of the Green Party can be called environmentalists as they acknowledge the obvious idea that protecting nature, fighting climate change is a global effort. But in the UK this is not necessarily the same category as that of a nature-lover with peculiar defined ideas of a constructed landscape.
posted by vacapinta at 5:22 AM on July 9, 2018 [5 favorites]


But those stinky Spanish bluebells.

Oh my god, that article is insane! Replace "Spanish bluebell" with whatever ethnic slur you please and replace "Welsh bluebell" with "English people" and you've got a word-for-word Racist Uncle facebook post.

As if white Europeans weren't the original invasive species.
posted by lollymccatburglar at 5:58 AM on July 9, 2018 [1 favorite]


Reading - and often agreeing with - Paul Kingsnorth, and then seeing his pro-Brexit stand, has been unsettling, and is causing to have to more carefully pull apart the the pros and cons of localism, its history, its cultural underpinnings, and the way that it functions in a highly connected world. It seems like we're progressively being forced to choose between a sterile, atomized globalism in which all culture is (or soon will be) denatured capitalist product, or attempts to revive or bolster highly specific, pre-or-proto capitalist local cultures that are in constant danger of being cynically repurposed by fascists. Or simply commodified and stripped of any real meaning.

I disagree with the critics that say that Kingsnorth has blood-and-soil intentions personally, but there's no denying that his rhetoric can be easily repurposed by those that do (and there's obviously a long connection between notions of a prelapsarian "Englishness" with Empire and nationalism). At the same time, though, I think there is real psychological value to being deeply rooted in a specific place, and to the cultures that grow out of that, or at least aspects of them. And that human beings, on a hard wired level, are adapted to this in a way that the neoliberal fantasia of a world market masquerading as a world community will never satisfy. I don't pretend to know how to resolve any of this.
posted by ryanshepard at 6:12 AM on July 9, 2018


But those stinky Spanish bluebells. The only way to deal with them is to douse them with weedkiller, says every helpful gardening site.

I'm acquainted with people in the US who seem to spend every spare waking hour trying to eliminate the "non-native species" from their backyards.

Some of the imagery in the first article reminded me of the short films Seamus Murphy created for PJ Harvey's Let England Shake.
posted by lagomorphius at 6:15 AM on July 9, 2018 [1 favorite]


I am sadly very addicted to these sorts of books--it's pretty amazing and surprising the selection my local indie bookshop has of them, and then I remember that Canada always feels like a weird combo of the States and the UK at times, enough where UK newspapers at grocery stores make regular appearances too--as I love nature writing and somehow UK writers do it very very well. I totally see the very sort of weird xenophobic and cultural gatekeeping these books perpetuate. This definitely gives me some food for thought, so thank you.

H is for Hawk was great, and Liptrot's The Outrun was one of my favourite books from last year, though.
posted by Kitteh at 6:34 AM on July 9, 2018 [1 favorite]


at least one of the books usually cited in this list was written on the backs of underpaid labour by precarious academics, partly through an institution currently experiencing some, uh, backlash about the way that it treats non-white staff.

Please do name names. You'd be doing the rest of us a service.
posted by adamgreenfield at 6:39 AM on July 9, 2018 [2 favorites]


The bigotry in everything the Daily Mail publishes is real, but it does seem to be best practice to kill them off somehow, and they're resistant by nature, because they're an invasive species and a weed. I don't think protecting your native flora is racist in and of itself, is it?
It's generally good to do, as far as I'm aware. Ecosystems and all that.
posted by AnhydrousLove at 6:41 AM on July 9, 2018 [5 favorites]


>Please do name names. You'd be doing the rest of us a service.

I'd love to, but it would doxx me. it is VERY popular with mefi, however.
posted by AFII at 6:59 AM on July 9, 2018


Battling invasive species is xenophobic now?
posted by gnuhavenpier at 7:14 AM on July 9, 2018 [5 favorites]


The bigotry in everything the Daily Mail publishes is real, but it does seem to be best practice to kill them off somehow, and they're resistant by nature, because they're an invasive species and a weed. I don't think protecting your native flora is racist in and of itself, is it?
It's generally good to do, as far as I'm aware. Ecosystems and all that.


It often is but the language and the attitudes around the extermination of invasive/non-native species are recognised by ecologists as having the potential to influence and be connected to language and attitudes towards human immigrants. It came up on metafilter a few weeks ago.

Also, that non-native and 'no ecological value', or non-native and 'disliked by the public' are synonomous is not a given, as with daffodils. If you want to start a fight among a bunch of British ecologists, the easiest way I've found is to have them try and set limits on what counts as native; how far does one go back? The George Monbiot article vacapinta linked about the Lake District covers similar ground.
posted by ocular shenanigans at 7:17 AM on July 9, 2018 [6 favorites]


Liptrot's The Outrun is an amazingly good book. It's true that it is as much a recovery memoir as a nature book; the two go together well. But please do note that Liptrot is not English but Scottish, or rather Orcadian. Also, allow me please to recommend another piece of nature writing by a Scottish woman: Kathleen Jamie's Sightlines.
posted by Morpeth at 7:30 AM on July 9, 2018 [1 favorite]


The bigotry in everything the Daily Mail publishes is real, but it does seem to be best practice to kill them off somehow, and they're resistant by nature, because they're an invasive species and a weed.

I have no idea what you meant to say because the article you linked to proposes that ALL bluebells are weeds - whether non-scripta or hispanica. If you cannot see what the problem is with the language of Daily Mail article, then I do not know what else to tell you.

A British botanist I know (I took a course from him at FSC) told me that this was all invention - a political issue not a botanical one. The two species are hybrids that coexist peacefully all over Europe. Only recently, as in the past few decades, did the term 'English bluebell" first appear and then, for some reason the press caught on that there were 'English' bluebells and 'Spanish' bluebells and the fake furor began.

It's generally good to do, as far as I'm aware. Ecosystems and all that.

Yeah, that was my larger point. Suddenly everyone is a Naturalist. But there is no scientific grounding here for how one of the hybrids is 'better' for the ecosystem than the other.
posted by vacapinta at 7:55 AM on July 9, 2018 [4 favorites]


Thanks for the link for the George Monbiot article about the Lakes District. Several years ago I walked the Coast-to-Coast trail, which goes right through the Lakes District, and much like Monbiot noted, we saw fuck-all for wildlife except for farmed grouse in the North York Moors. We saw enormous numbers of sheep, relatively few trees given the distance we traveled, and not much in the way of birds, even.

It was a real disappointment, and really drove home the realization that there is almost no "natural" landscape left in England. It's all heavily affected by human activity, to the point where it couldn't support most of the native species anyway.
posted by suelac at 8:35 AM on July 9, 2018 [2 favorites]


Which is not to evade the point that most landscapes in the world are also heavily affected by human activity, but the intersection of that fact and the awareness of it in English nature writing is, um, kind of the point here.
posted by suelac at 8:37 AM on July 9, 2018 [1 favorite]


I too found it tough going stylistically, but I was delighted to see the linked piece observe the reactionary tendencies of neofolk. I've occasionally gotten a lot out of Current 93, but find it hard to defend them/him against the obvious charges of flirting with the unspeakable, and that's before you get to the proud, blatant fascism of acts like DiJ. There wouldn't seem to be much daylight, unfortunately, between a pagan reverence for the Land and straight up blood-and-soil mysticism. (Kinda makes you wonder how Lord Summerisle voted.)

I'm also really glad to see someone call out these tendencies when they arise in the context of permaculture, which is a concept I (again) otherwise find really useful. I've seen similarly xenophobic dynamics crop up at edges of the Transition Towns movement, and boy howdy is it disappointing. Thanks for the links.
posted by adamgreenfield at 12:10 PM on July 9, 2018 [3 favorites]


Coming back again, now that I've read all of the linked pieces, to thank you still more fervently for the post, ocular shenanigans.

This is an extraordinarily fruitful area of consideration for me. For all that all of these arguments about the reactionary currents in contemporary land and craeft thought ultimately kind of converge in a fairly unhappy, dissatisfied and unsatisfying place, it feels like there's a hugely important synthesis lying just beyond that place, just the other side of a relatively thin and vulnerable crust. And that feels in turn like the stirring of an imperative to start tapping at it, with some concerted reading and thinking in the weeks and months ahead. Cheers.
posted by adamgreenfield at 3:32 AM on July 10, 2018 [1 favorite]


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