I didn't mean to connect "fagging" as such to military ability. I was trying to connect the tacit encouragement of sexual relations between pupils to the (increasing) militarization and anti-domestication of English male society after the 17th century, in which militarization, by the way, I would include the navy as well as land armies. I remember reading in Paul Scott's biography that one of his public-school educated friends had never sat in an arm-chair until the war was over. He'd gone straight into the army from school, and neither furnished arm-chairs to their inmates.
I don't think I'd connect fagging to the disappearance of patriotism either, as I said. I do think that the whole women's rights movement, and the appearance of women in formerly all-male institutions like Cambridge and Oxford, very gradually changed "Establishment" men's outlook on women and domesticity, so that they became less hostile to both, and less eager to flee female influence, as well as less able to do so. The decline of patriotism is probably an entirely distinct phenomenon.
Clio
Now, having said that, I'd like to add, in response to the latest commenter, who speaks of conditions in the public schools: yes, I am aware that the discipline in early 19th-century public schools was almost non-existent, and also that there was a major reform movement to improve them later in the century. However, the reason I assumed that conditions there remained bad for some time is that the citation I included from Symonds' formerly restricted writing on the subject, indicates that conditions at Harrow, where Byron had gone to school in the early 19th century, remained appalling until at least the middle of the 19th century when Symonds was a pupil there. His description refers to the year 1854. But yes, it is a mistake to assume that conditions there were still similar in the early 20th century, or that they are similar today. I don't think that was the point other commenters were making, though. Most North Americans are rather horrified by the idea of sending children to boarding school before the age of puberty.
22 comments:
Most North Americans are rather horrified by the idea of sending children to boarding school before the age of puberty.
I can see that, but
1) It strikes me as parochial to infer from this sensation of horror that people who do send their children to boarding school can only have evil motives, such as saying 'it never did me any harm' whilst repressing the thought that it did.
2) There are obvious cultural reasons why the US didn't develop boarding schools in the 19th century in any great quantity. For instance, sending one's children 'away' to school has roots in mediaeval aristocratic practice, and aristocrats were thin on the ground in 19th century America.
3) Obviously, boarding schools are not the only way to educate people, but there are good reasons for separating 'family' and 'education.' For the children, it means being socialised in a wider world outside the family and gaining independence. For the parents, it meant that it was possible to have a large family without spending the next 25 years thinking about little else. There are practical reasons why only a tiny number of devout parents have large families today, and one is just that 'horror' of allowing others to bring the children up.
4) The present tense was used by all commentators, not just by you, Clio.
Actually, I didn't use the present tense at all, except when referring to the conditions in prisons. I used the phrase "put up with it", but the context makes it clear that I was referring to the past.
I know, through having done a fair bit of research into the history of education in England, and, er, throuh reading Ruth Rendell, that conditions in English boarding schools improved greatly over time and that "fagging", already much attenuated, stopped completely in the 1970s.
But you'd be mistaken in thinking that there were no boarding schools in North America. In fact, in some regions they were essential because teachers and schools were thin on the ground, and bad roads or weather made day-schools impractical for pupils who did not live in a city or town. It's the youthfulness of the pupils who were sent away to school that surprises many North Americans. But I take your point: it was hardly possible for parents to refuse to use the system once it was in place.
Clio
I think the youthfulness of the pupils might come from prep-schools. Prep-schools in our terminology are for boys c. 8-11. One goes to a prep-school to prep for the Common Entrance exam. This is or was a very difficult exam - I remember the joy when my brother passed it. I would conjecture that, as it became more and more difficult to pass common entrance and get into the best public schools, prep-school became not an optional extra but a necessity.
If as I keep enjoining you you would read Ferdinand Mount's memoir, published this spring, you would see that by the 40s, boarding school had lost all the terrors of Byron's schooling.
Once it became a social norm, an upper middle class or upper class boy who didn't go to boarding school but was educated at home by tutors would be handicapped for life - he wouldn't have the connections, the references, the lingo, the culture. The analogy of not going to University today is probably too weak to describe it.
It's called Cold Cream.
It is because people became sentimental about the upbringing of children that they ceased to have large families. Discuss.
I have accepted your point! Indeed, I never really disagreed with it. I was defending my other commenters, who didn't know the history or the circumstances of the people of whom they spoke, and who stretched their generalizations until they snapped.
Clio
Anonymous, whoever you are, you cannot have read the commenters with any attention whatsoever. None of them used the present tense throughout; most barely used it at all. Sister W did use the present tense, but began with "was", clearly establishing that the context of her comment concerned the past.
And your comment is ad hominem masquerading (ineptly) as discussion:
Most North Americans are rather horrified by the idea of sending children to boarding school before the age of puberty.
I can see that, but
1) It strikes me as parochial to infer from this sensation of horror that people who do send their children to boarding school can only have evil motives, such as saying 'it never did me any harm' whilst repressing the thought that it did.
You are the one inferring from a horror that only you can detect and only you have mentioned to your conclusion that the commenters were parochial. And what evidence do you have that North Americans' horror at sending children away lies behind their comments? What if it does? Could you point to something to justify that ad hominem and cheap psychologizing of yours? And could you do your victims the common courtesy of trying to respond to the points they made the effort of making?
And Clio, I am genuinely disappointed that you could only muster in response to anon's silly, unjustified pop-psychologistic ad hominems that "I didn't use the present tense at all". Perhaps you should have done your readers the courtesy of checking to see whether they had used it themselves before you...
...claim to be DEFENDING (!) your commenters (where was this defence?) and then follow that up by saying those same commenters "didn't know the history or the circumstances of the people of whom they spoke, and...stretched their generalizations until they snapped."
All this in response to a completely unfounded attack by an anonymous commenter of limited reading skills and equally limited integrity.
And you folded in the face of that weak-minded assault, inviting anon to point its finger away from you and at others. Shame on you.
I, for one, found the initial subject, i. e. homosexual behavior as hypermasculinity, fascinating, and, though I have little to say on the subject, am sorry the discussion veered away from it. Many thanks to Leonard for posting the links to the articles on prison behavior.
I have lots of gay friends, and my first instinct is that the type of behavior described in prisons/barracks/boarding schools has little in common with their lives other than the sexual act itself. The motivations seem so different. But I'd love to know what other people think.
Calm down. I was quoting Clio on the horror point. I was thinking of Sister Wolf's present tense, but there may have been more than one. There wasn't anything ad hominem in the sense of personal about my point. My point was that the discussion was insufficiently contextualizing British boarding school life.
Calm down yourself, anon. You stated the present tense was used by all commenters, not just Sister Wolf.
It strikes me as parochial to infer from this sensation of horror
You said that, didn't you? "Sensation of horror" is an adjective that refers to the state of mind, isn't it? And you have still not provided any evidence that your unwarranted psychologizing about people about whom you know nothing (parochial of you, don't you think?) is even correct on its own terms. You have no idea whether or not anyone is inferring from a personal emotional state to a position about the subject at issue.
I am, of course, simply making the point "that [your] discussion was insufficiently contextualizing [the comments made here about] British boarding school life." Please don't be too upset. I'm actually angrier at Clio right now. I like to think of myself as her friend, and I hope she doesn't take my disappointment with her the wrong way.
Thanks, Kevin, for bringing us back to my original point. It was never my intention to condemn modern English boarding schools. I was talking about a particular period in their history, and trying to take a guess about why they might have condoned such behaviour by their pupils, and why parents tolerated it.
Clio
p.s. That's the first time since early this morning that I've been able to post a comment here.
May I add that in the present tense, male rape is still practiced in the Marines, as a way to let off steam and break in new recruits.
Anonymous, do you want to call my horror "provincial?"
Go right ahead!
The male rape in the Marines comment - any evidence of that? If my own military experience (US Army twelve years ago, not the Marines) is an indicator, Sister Wolf's assertion is an absurd molotov coctail.
In Basic Training, recruits have no steam to blow off after they retire to the barracks. Also, there is virtually zero privacy in a training environment, and access to the chain of command, chaplains, and teh AG (legal oversight) is drilled into every recruit's head to the point that some of the more delicate ones grumble about seeking recourse there when the drill sergeant so much as yells at them.
Once outside of a training environment and working at their permanent duty station, all the abovementioned protections still apply, and there is no longer the prison enviroment of Basic Training that in otehr circumstances woudl be conducive to the rape scenarios.
Pa, I was told of this practice by two friends who read the memoir "Jarhead." I was shocked but took it as fact.
Sorry to spread untruths if such is the case!!!
I ran across this quotation from Cyril Connoly earlier today, in a Christopher Hitchens review of Connoly's Enemies of Promise and it seemed relevant. I'm throwing it out purely in a for-what-it's-worth spirit, as I have no knowledge of any of this stuff beyond what I've read.
"It is the theory that the experiences undergone by boys at the great public schools, their glories and disappointments, are so intense as to dominate their lives and to arrest their development. From these it results that the greater part of the ruling class remains adolescent, school-minded, self-conscious, cowardly, sentimental and in the last analysis homosexual."
Connolly was born in 1903 so I guess he would have been at school mostly in the mid-to-late 19-teens?
Brilliant, thank you, maclin!
I don't think that's brilliant. Cyrl Connolly doesn't seem to be speaking about anyone except himself and others of his own aesthetic sensibility. If we are interested in history, a good way of getting to know the people of that generation is the Obituary columns. The best one in this country, is in the Telegraph. Every two or three weeks the Telegraph still carries an obituary of someone who died in their 90s after earning medals in the second world war. They don't sound like effete, screwed up people to me. Connnoly can call them cowardly if he wants - I can't recall what if anything he did in WWII? If that generation had been cowardly, England would not today be a separate nation from Germany. From the obits, most of these guys have three or four children, so if they were homosexual, they must also have been AC/DC!
Here's an example from a few days ago
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/2778586/Lt-Col-Mike-Tomkin.html
"...doesn't seem to be speaking about anyone except himself and others of his own aesthetic sensibility."
That could well be true, I'm sure. I have only a vague idea of what or rather who his "ruling class" really was, and their general role in, say, WWII. I'm thinking that I have heard something similar to what Connolly says in connection with Kim Philby & other cold war turncoats, but I can't place it now.
Can I post a comment now? Testing. (Can I post anything now?...)
September 15, 2008
I, for one, found the initial subject, i. e. homosexual behavior as hypermasculinity,
I posted a comment on this in the original thread -- this connection between "homosexuality" and hypermasculinity would be very familiar to the ancients. Sparta is the most prominent example, but you can also look at Alexander, Achilles and Patroclus, numerous other examples. It makes sense for warrior societies where men are away from home for long periods, alienated from the feminine domestic sphere, and the most powerful emotional affinities are with the homosocial group you fight with.
However, it's very different from homosexuality in the modern sense of an exclusive identity -- modern exclusive homosexuality is an outgrowth of 19th century ideas of romantic love as the key determinant of identity. Ancient "homosexuals" all appeared to have female lovers as well, homosexuality was a supplement and not a replacement for that. And the key was the intense homosociality, with the sexual part a byproduct.
I suspect our current taboos against homosexuality as unmasculine are strong enough that even with very homosocial groups actual sexual expression would be resisted. However, you can still see the phenomenon of intense homosociality in macho subcultures alienating men from women.
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