Photo: The importation of language always carries elements of the culture in which that language is rooted. (Dean Lewins: AAP Image, file photo)
Countries that share English as their dominant language also share a number of other unfavourable attributes, most obviously the loss of self-control, writes Clive Hamilton.
Vomit. It's unavoidable on London's streets. And not just the leavings from the night before. Dark grey splatters are stencilled into the asphalt footpaths. Bile must react chemically with bitumen. Although London is a city of foreigners, the vomit is almost certainly English.
But it is not only binge-drinking ("le binge-drinking") that continental Europeans see as peculiar to the scepter'd isle; anyone who spends time examining international social statistics soon notices something peculiar about English-speaking countries in general. By all sorts of measures, citizens of Anglophone countries stand out from those of other rich nations, and mostly in ways that do not reflect well on us.
Consider the obesity epidemic that has hit the Western world in the last two decades. It is almost solely a problem afflicting Anglophone countries. According to the OECD, one in three American adults and one in four or five adults in Britain, Australia and New Zealand is obese. Throughout continental Europe the figure is less than one in eight, and one in 30 in Japan. Being fat and English-speaking seem to go together.
Apart from unfavourable genes, obesity has a complex social and psychological aetiology, but it is a pathology especially deeply rooted in English-speaking social formations.
If binge-drinking and obesity are two signifiers of the curse of speaking English, another is television viewing, and the decline in social life that goes with it. Britons, Americans and Australians spend more than 40 per cent of their leisure time watching the box; in Europe it is around 30 per cent.
Here Canada is the 'Anglophone' exception that proves the rule because Canadians' viewing habits are more European. On most measures Canada performs better than the United States, Britain and Australia but not as well as continental Europe, which is what might be expected in a country where the mother-tongue of a quarter of the population is French.
Along with television viewing, use of recreational drugs is a response to boredom and anomie. In Anglo countries, cannabis use is much higher than elsewhere. While around 5-6 per cent of Europeans report using it in the previous year, rates are double that in the United States and Britain and three to four times higher in Australia and New Zealand. (Canada is more Franco than Anglo.) Rates of amphetamine use are also two or four times higher in Anglophone countries.
In fact, maps of illicit drug use compiled by the World Drugs report show Anglo nations standing out one substance after another.
It might be thought that in focusing on such indicators as over-eating and television viewing (although not drug taking), I am picking on people at the bottom of the heap, as it is well known that some of these behaviours are heavily concentrated in lower socio-economic groups. But in truth over-consumption (including binge-drinking) is far greater among wealthier groups; it's just that they indulge in other ways.
They spend on goods and services that enhance rather than ruin their bodies – personal trainers, expensive clothes, cosmetic surgery - or that provide them with status in the eyes of their peers. The growth of spending on trophy homes, high-priced cars and myriad luxury goods can be understood no other way, and again the "luxury fever" phenomenon is an especially Anglo one.
Freedom
There is an upside to all of this Anglo-narcissism. It arose, or at least reached new heights, through the success of the liberation movements of the sixties and seventies. The demand for self-determination freed marginalised groups from discrimination and prejudice so that women, gays and ethnic minorities could chart their own life courses.
But it did not take long for the distaff side to become apparent: the individualism was soon reflected in trends such as the self-esteem and self-help industries and the "me generation" they served. These linguistic inventions are exclusively English ones.
However, even the me generation began to worry about the wider social effects of the pursuit of self-interest before the social interest. It is now widely believed throughout the West that rich countries are experiencing social fragmentation and "moral decline". To the extent that this is true, the decline is being led by the Anglophone countries, a truth supported by data on marriage and the family.
When English-speakers marry the partnership is more likely to founder. The nuclear family is frequently seen as the bedrock of social stability. While always a simplistic view, most would agree that teenage motherhood provides a poor foundation for a stable family structure in which to raise children. Britain's rate of teenage pregnancy is three-to-four times higher than in continental Europe. In Australia and Canada it is double the rate and in the US it is five times higher.
The underlying cause of this social fragmentation is arguably the preoccupation with self that has both eroded social bonds and led to a loss of self-control. Badly behaved children are to be found everywhere, but they are more likely to have their tantrums in English.
The perceived failure of parents to provide clear and well-enforced boundaries for their children's behaviour has been widely noted. The huge growth in the prescription of psycho-stimulant drugs to children diagnosed with ADHD has been dominated by the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, with European countries prescribing these drugs at one half to one tenth of Anglo rates.
Well might the French declare Vive la différence! and scoff at Shakespeare's description of the English channel as "a moat defensive to a house,/Against the envy of less happier lands".
"Thatcherism", "Reagonomics", "Rogernomics" and "economic rationalism" are all English language terms for the neoliberal revolution that swept the world in the 1980s and 1990s. Free market ideology is overwhelmingly a phenomenon of English-speaking countries, one exported to great effect around the world. It is no accident that a view of the world that emphasises individualism, self-interest and competition should grow out of Anglo society. A free-market social conservative is a contradiction in terms.
Language and culture
If language embodies values, behaviours, styles of thinking and cultural forms, then perhaps there is something shared by the deep cultures of English-speaking countries that can be traced to their formation by people of English stock.
Alternatively, statistical convergences rooted in individualism could be explained by the export of American culture over the last four decades or so. English-speaking countries lack the most powerful barrier to the adoption of US norms of behaviour, a different way of thinking embodied in a distinct language.
Whatever the case, the importation of language always carries elements of the culture in which that language is rooted. It is fair to assume that the more a nation encourages its citizens to learn English, the more likely it is to import the unattractive and socially destructive baggage that comes with it.
Nations encouraging the introduction of English can expect that, over time, their citizens will become more individualistic, more materialistic and less compassionate. They are also likely to want to watch more television, eat more junk food, become fatter, marry less and divorce more often. Their children will become less disciplined, more likely to need drugs to calm them down, and to binge on alcohol when they reach their teens.
In London notices on lamp-posts proclaim £500 fines for urinating in public; yet vomiting in public goes unpunished. Perhaps binge-drinking and its technicolour consequences are viewed as an unavoidable facet of English life, a manifestation of what one expert called "the pain of being British". On the other hand, surely there are votes in it for the party that declares it will be tough on vomit, and tough on the causes of vomit.
Clive Hamilton is Professor of Public Ethics at Charles Sturt University in Canberra. He is currently a visiting professor at Sciences Po in Paris. View his full profile here.
The curse of speaking English - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
