To begin, we need to understand that the British are, in a word, OBSESSED with the weather. In fact, if the weather is not part of the conversation you are having with someone, it IS the conversation you are having with them. In such conversations, one also runs into two quintessential and yet contradictory British attitudes.
The first is what some might call a form of learned helplessness; or what Bertrand Russell, the famous British philosopher, would probably re-frame as dogged realism. A recent survey of Brits on the weather, for example, found roughly 70% of them saying, "Yes, the weather bloody sucks; there is nothing one can do; get on with it." Here is the reframe: Tis the truth of all things weather; it simply is what it is; suck it up and deal with it; no whining allowed. And that is the truth of it: the Brits may talk about weather, excessively, but there is no--I repeat no--whining at all.
The second attitude--which, at least initially, contradicts the first--is optimism. Now, a more cynical observer might draw upon Karl Marx, the famous philosopher and economic historian, and call this optimism false consciousness: the inability of a group of people to see things for what they are. But, I think such conclusions, given the first British attitude, would be wrong.
To make my case, however, first we need to talk about the weather itself.
Now, Bill Bryson, in Notes From a Small Island, concludes that the British obesession with the weather is entirely hystrionic, as there honestly is no weather about which to talk. The same hystrionic attitude is found, for him, in the British obsessession with traveling short distances across their small island, as if they were sending you out into the Australian outback, worried you did not take enough gas and water with you to survive the drive from Darlington to Durham (about 15 minuted by train).
Kate Fox, in Watching the English, has a different take. She concludes that Brits talk endlessly about the weather because they wish to avoid talking about themselves. Her view, as a Brit herself, is that these small islanders fear discussing anything remotely close to emotions or true expressions, for fear that they may have to literally answer the question, "How do you do?" Weather speak, she explains, is a way of engaging in British modesty.
I think both points have value. However, I think there is another point staring them in the face that they both seem to miss. I turn to my training as a scientist to explain.
In statistics we talk about what is comonly referred to as standard deviation (S.D.). S.D. tells us how far something varies from a particular average. S.D. generally comes in the form of a high and low. For example, winter in Ohio, where I live, is, on average, near freezing (about 32 degrees farenheit), with a typical range between the low 20s and low 50s. Summer, in turn, goes all the way up into the middle 70s, with a range between the high 60s and high 90s. Right? Get it? In short, some climates, like that found in Ohio, have a very wide standard deviation in weather: it can get very cold and it can get very hot; and it can also have major storms and tornados; etc. In short, in Bryson's view, a climate like Ohio has real weather.
But, here is where I disagree. To me, weather is not just a matter of S.D.; it is also a matter of fluctuation; dynamics, variation within an S.D. In short, while the S.D. in the UK is not significant, the weather dynamics, fluctuations within with its narrowed S.D. are significant. Case in point. I have typically walked out of my flat in the morning, here during the autumn, to find that the sun is out and it is near freezing. From this one might conclude, say living in Ohio, that an umbrella in not necessary. Wrong! By the time I get to my office--a mere fifteen minute walk--I notice that a storm is, as they say, rolling in. I leave my office two hours later and it is now near 40 degrees and raining. Umbrella and me wet, I finish lunch to find that the sun is out again. Now, however, there is a damp, chilling bite in the air. Later, after dinner and in time for my evening walk, it is raining again.
I tested my theory on several Brits over the course of the next few weeks and they all immediately agreed--as if I had somehow vindicated their weather obession; which made them like me even more as a Yankee. In fact, one of my colleagues made of it a good summary, which I am sure someone more brilliant and famous that either of us had to have already said: It is, as if, here in the UK, one can experience all the seasons in just one day. I quite agree, which takes me back to British optimism.
One of the things I noticed in my weather speak with Brits is that all such conversations focus on what is presently happening--it is all about the weather right now. Never do we speak, at least initially, about weather yet to come.
Here is a typical weather conversation, as I pass someone on campus.
"Ah, Brian, lovely weather we are having today! Isn't it?"
"Yes," I say and laugh, "Just wonderful; I so thoroughly enjoy all of this rain pelting my face."
The wind hears us and tries to steal my umbrella away from me. But, then, something wonderful happens in the conversation as we come to its end. "Ah," the Brit will say, "I heard, however, that the sun might come out later."
There it is, right there, see it? This is what makes the Brits so wonderful. They see life as it is--dogged realism--and yet they remain optimistic: the sun may come out. And, given my theory on the weather, the sun indeed does eventually come out. The weather changes so quickly during the course of any given day that the odds are in one's favor that the sun will, indeed, stick out its lovely head. And, when it happens I hear all the time, in the back of my head, George Harrison, from the Beatles, singing Here Comes the Sun.
No comments:
Post a Comment