In Our Time - Cultural Imperialism

Episode Date: June 27, 2002

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how a dominant power can exert a cultural influence on its empire. An empire rests on many things: powerful armies, good administration and strong leadership, but perhaps its greatest weapon lies in the domain of culture. Culture governs every aspect of our lives: our dress sense and manners, our art and architecture, our education, law and philosophy. To govern culture, it seems, is to govern the world. But what is cultural imperialism? Can it be distinguished from cultural influence? Does it really change the way we think and should we try to prevent it even if it does?With Linda Colley, School Professor of History, London School of Economics; Phillip Dodd, Director, Institute of Contemporary Arts; Mary Beard, Reader in Classics, Cambridge University.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Thanks for downloading the In Our Time podcast. For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.com.uk forward slash radio 4. I hope you enjoy the program. Hello, an empire is built on many things. Powerful armies, good administration, sometimes strong leadership, but perhaps its secret weapon lies in its culture.

Culture governs, or at least influences, our language, our art and architecture, our education, law and philosophy, and even our dress sense and manners. To govern the culture is perhaps to govern the world. What was the role of culture in the Greek, Roman and British empires? How did these empires impose their cultural influence and how much did they absorb from the places that they're colonised?

And if America controls the cultural agenda today, what is it? And should we accept it or be resistant to it? With me to discuss cultural imperialism is Linda Colley, school professor of history at the London School of Economics. Philip Dodd, director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts and Mary Beard, reader in classics at Cambridge University, an author of a new book, The Parthenon. Philippe God, could you give us a definition of what you understand about cultural imperialism?

Words and phrases have histories, and what's interesting about the phrase cultural imperialism, as at least from what I can see, it's an early 60s phrase. And the reason it's that, it seems to me, is that that was the moment of kind of national liberation in Africa. It was the moment of kind of anti-colonialisation, which meant that, you know, we're a moment that we had to, everyone had to understand how power was exercised when direct sovereignty wasn't necessarily exercised by colonial powers, nor was economic power as simply exercised as it used to be. So cultural imperialism was an attempt as a phrase to understand how power was exercised

through values, beliefs, ideas and institutions. So a comically popular version of this, at least to my children is the asterisk stories, where some poor gall, as it were, becomes a Roman. You know, he wears a toga, he says, are they everywhere? He's always wanting to build bridges, he's wanting to kind of swim in Roman baths. In other words, cultural imperialism affects the kind of everyday parts of our lives. And, of course, at a rather more serious level,

Tacitus famously said, you know, that the whole point about subject peoples is they took novelties of civilization, and what they really were were features of their enslavement. Did the ancient empire, did Greeks, for instance, recognised that culture was a way of asserting their power and bolstering their empire? The Greeks took their coins and imposed them.

They wanted to bring the worship of Athena to certain kinds of places. Judicial, real judicial decisions were referred back to Greece. So in those kinds of ways, it's absolutely the case that economic, military and cultural power always go together and actually an economic and a military power will not be sustained for a long time if there is not cultural power. Marybeard. How far did the Romans use culture to maintain their presence

and their force in what we can loosely call Western Europe? Well, to a very large extent, because partly they simply have to. I mean, the Roman Empire is an enormous empire, and the Romans aren't very numerous. so they simply cannot dominate the territory they hold by force. What happens is they win the hearts and minds, particularly of the elite members of the provincial communities, and then the elite of the old native communities do the Romans dirty work for them.

And they do that by all the kind of things that we associate now as Roman cold chain, bars, togas, Latin, Virgil, Drain's. and eventually the incorporation of these guys into citizenship and the rights of citizenship. There's an interesting example here that, as it were, the Romans conquered the Greeks, but the Greeks conquered the Romans imagination. Well, I mean, culture imperialism in Rome works two ways. It's, in a sense, the imperialism, the influence of Greek culture,

which is in a sense of the culture of conquered people over the Romans. And then, paradoxically, the export, via Roman military conquest, of a certain mixed grico-Roman civilization out to the elites of the conquered provinces. Linda Colley, to what extent would you say that the Roman Empire, let's stick with that for the moment, has been a model to which subsequent empires have established them. And what would you like to add to this idea of an imperialism taking its culture through? I don't think there's any doubt that almost all Western empires

that have succeeded the Roman version have borrowed from it in all sorts of ways. I mean, one thinks of the British Empire with public schoolboys who are going to go out and run the empire learning Greek and Latin in the public schools. Or one thinks of Napoleon taking the eagle as his emblem. Or one thinks of the Americans, even in their early phase, as an independent state. But wanting to be a Republican empire

and therefore deciding that Washington, and they will have a capital and a Senate. These are all classical borrowings. But I think by looking at the longevity of some of these things, we can actually see not just the extent of cultural imperialism, but its limits in practice. Yes, the cultural influence of Greece and Rome continues and still continues. But of course, that cultural influence by itself didn't keep the empire

going as practical entities. I think it's important to realise that all empires actually have a broad palette of strategies. And culture is one of them. But culture by itself is not a sufficient precondition for empire. Mary, now what would you say about that? I think there's two things you can say really. One is it is terribly easy to match up the Roman experience to what looks like the British experience in India,

you know, tiny, tiny occupying force and all kinds of bits of cultural interaction which are constantly partly going right and partly going wrong. But I mean, I think the kind of the sting in the tail in a way is that, of course, throughout the 19th century, the Roman Empire was really reinvented on the model of the British in India. So in some ways it's not just that, although it's partly the case that Rome provides a model

of various different ways, of being an empire, but also we have consistently reinvented the Roman Empire in order to fit our own aspirations for imperialism, cultural or otherwise. Let's wallow in the British Empire for the next section of the programme and take what you were saying to India, if I may use that as an example. It's a very interesting complex example because we had at least two shots at empire in Indian. Even that is a vernacular summarisation which you might frown at. But what happens under the umbrella of the words cultural

imperialism when the British go to India? I think India really brings the issue of what we now call cultural imperialism to the fore in a very specific way because as has been said, the disparity in numbers was so enormous. India was not a colony. The British didn't go there in force. They were always a tiny nucleus in this vast, sophisticated, very variegated, very populous, territory. And so they had to think about culture in a particular way. But of course, they could

never make up their mind what to do in the late 18th century under Warren Hastings. The British are researching Indian traditions of law, deeply interested in ancient Indian cultures, because the argument is, look, we've got to govern this huge area in conformity with their existing indigenous traditions because that's the only way we can hang on. And then you get another phase in the early 19th century where the missionaries say, no, no, that's wrong. We need to convert the Indians to Christianity. Moreover, says Lord McCauley, what we've really got to do since we haven't got enough officials is breed up a group of elite educated Indians, but not educated in their own culture.

They've got to think like Englishmen. They will be Englishmen with a different skin colour. And then after the so-called mutiny in 1857, you've got the British saying, no, actually that's wrong. Spreading British ideas just causes trouble and gives them ideas above their station. We must go back to governing in conformity with ancient tradition, particularly in alliance with the Indian princes and all their rituals and royalties. and again what this shows of course

that empires are indeed very interested in the cultural element but also that they often get it wrong that what empires want to do with culture is not necessarily what they can do in practice. Philip Don. Can I just flip it round about India because it seems to me we've gone through two stages

in the cultural imperialism argument and historians were at one stage, extraordinarily interested in what we did to them. It's equally important what they did to us. Absolutely. So everything that Linda says seems to me true, at the same time you need to think how Britain was completely transformed by its imperial presence.

So, you know, everything from greenhouses and zoos through to what it was to be a man. I mean, if you read E.M. Foster, you know, passage to India, he's renegotiating what it is to be a man, this kind of publicly school-educated sort of Cambridge Don. He's having to rethink himself. So it seems to me we need at the same time to recognise quite profoundly what the Empire did to us as Brits.

I agree with you. That is part of the argument without any question whatsoever. And it was happening throughout the 18th and 19th century. But we're still talking about the fact of this island imposing its will on that continent. and I think there's something more to be said for that before we acknowledge completely the reverse. I think there is all I'm really arguing that all cultures are porous

and ours is porous as much as theirs and there's a danger of the implication that we were all powerful, not that Linda was saying that, and we weren't. What happened to the English sense of itself when it began to take on what it saw as imperial responsibilities, it began to think of itself as a Protestant Israel in one sense that was one of the phrases and so on.

her thoughts? Well, first of all, can I say that it's very important we talk about the British and perhaps even more the British and not just the English because without the Scots, without the Irish, to a lesser extent, much less than the Welsh, and I think we've got to be very careful not to talk about any of these cultures as monoliths. You know, there isn't a monolithic British culture which then goes into other lands and engages with a monolithic indigenous cultures. There's all kinds of fractures and comminglings which need, I think, to be subtly brought out. But there's no doubt that for those people seeking rationalisation for imperialism from these islands, Protestantism was often very important. I mean, all empires historically have tended to argue,

look, previous empires may have been nasty, but ours is different. Ours is nice and benevolent. and an aid to civilization. And one of the ways that the British felt they could make that argument is, well, look, first up, we're Protestant, were not Catholics like the Spanish who were nasty in South America. But they also, of course, refer to their own notions of liberty, constitutional limitations on the monarch, the idea of law, all these things they draw on to say, well, yes, there may be violence,

there may be exploitation, these things are to be regretted, but ultimately what we do is good and will endure. Do you agree with that then? Yes, I mean, I think the Protestantism is extremely important, but I think the thing I want to pick up on what Linda said is this notion that no culture is monolithic, because if you look in the middle late 19th century, the same language that's being used about Africans

by the English and by the British is also being used about the indigenous white working class. In other words, that what actually one's talking about, there's a kind of internal colonisation going on at the same time as an external colonisation going on. Yes, imperialism started in the north of England. Well, yes, no, you and I might believe that, but those are for autobiographical reasons we should well on.

But, I mean, I do think that issue of internal and external colonisation is extremely important. I mean, I think at the same time, the more and the louder you harp on about your civilising, power, the more, of course, you expose the weakness of the argument. And so you very quickly come to a point where the intellectual, at least, is creating an idea of virtue as only existing amongst the conquered savages. But that's why the phrase Protestant Israel is so interesting, the chosen people, those who are separated out from others and have the will of

God, in this case, Protestant, behind them to do good to the rest of the world. Can you discuss that? But I think they also cease to believe it very quickly. the more noise you make about being the chosen ones, and your sense of duty or your right to rule, the more you provoke the opposition to precisely that position. We've all become familiar in the last few decades about sort of a dark side of the empire and so forth. What is interesting at the moment is to say,

where did the British get and how powerful it was the things that Linda enumerated, that we have traditions of liberty, we have traditions of democracy, we can build your very, communications, we can give you laws you did not have, and that confidence. Now, does that seem to be entirely foolish, or what was going on there, Linda? I mean, I think we've got to be careful about, you know,

the kind of sceptical and denunciatory tone that has inevitably informed this particular discussion. One of the things it's very important to remember is that empires, different kinds of empire have been the most common form of authority structure in global history from the beginning. And it is very important to remember that. I think we are led astray by the presupposition we have perhaps at the beginning of the 21st century, that the democratic nation state is where it's at and is the ideal endpoint for all societies. whether it is will remain to be proven. But empires are what most people in most centuries of global development,

not just in the West but also in the East, have taken absolutely for granted. And I think when we talk about what happens when different societies decide to make empires, for most people, not the intellectuals we've spoken to, but for most people, the attitude is, well, sure, we're making an empire, you know, Empires always happened. And we have to think about the phenomenon of empire historically. I agree with that. I think that's a very important corrective, actually.

I think it is. I think moral denunciations, you know, from the comfort of a dark studio in the BBC are not very smart. We do have to understand them. And we have to understand them in all their complexity. And the moral denunciations no good, but nor is the one that simply says they were just there, so they were just there. Well, I just thought the phrase that Linda is, you know, the phrase that was. use that I'd kind of worry about was the idea of taking empire for granted

because I think there's an awful lot of I mean, again, a awful lot of cultural noise made about how this is a natural way for human beings to interact but it seems to me looking at the kind of empires I know that that's constantly up for grabs that no political system really even by people who appear to think least about it

is as taken for granted as we would like these early empires to be I think there's much more questioning going on about the practical nature of the interaction between us and them that we tend to give most people credit for. I'm not saying that these things are unanimously approved of at any time or at any level. There was always dissent at the heart of the British establishment

about the British Empire. So I wouldn't deny that at all. I'm just making the historical point that empire like monarchy has tended to be around most of the time. If I can say, I think that this is perhaps something we need to think about now more than we do. And I'm pointing on to the end of the program perhaps inappropriately, in which case you'll stop me, that the fact that we don't think about empire very intelligently now means arguably that we are quite vulnerable to new style empires emerging because we haven't really, you know, sorted them out.

we tend to think now in terms of nation states. And perhaps we ought to think rather more intelligently and flexibly about the longevity of empire and the different forms it's taken over time. I think Linda's right to say, look, it's taken a whole set of forms. And, you know, one might want to go and argue if one was a certain kind of person that the kind of new European Union is, you know, one of the forms that empire might take in the future. And we might have very different views about what that is. it seems to me where we're are at the moment

and this is why I'm slightly more optimistic than Lender I think the ways we're beginning to think about Empire now have gone from those early moments of cultural imperialism where we imposed on them. They're much more about traffic. And at that level it seems to me we're all learning that actually it's almost impossible to unpick us one from the other and that seems to me a kind of extraordinary moment.

The Berlin Walls have fallen and they're fallen and that sense of intermingling, you know, which sometimes came out of deep inequality and sometimes came out of something else, is extraordinarily important, and I applaud that. And it's a question also, I think, of getting past the rhetoric of approval or not approval of the... It's a question of what the consequences are of these different forms.

But to play the part of the blunt devil's advocate again, that's fair enough, and it's very interesting, and then probably it's an awful lot on its side. But what about the fact that, at the moment, for a lot of people around the world say, look, this is the time of the American Empire. It has its ups and downs, but the dollar rules, has its consultations on that, but American military might rules. Jeans are worn around the globe.

All those drinks that were not allowed to mention us with the BBC, thank goodness, are drunk all around the globe. The English language has now in part the American language and very, very inventively filled out and so on so forth. That goes around the globe. We have an empire here. And so fiddling about, about interchangement. I'm being very blunt here for them.

So I know your susceptibility is ICA. Never mind. It's a point of view. Now, Linda Colley, what do you think of that? Yes, I agree. I think, you know, there is an American empire. I think, again, you know, one of the mistakes people make is that they conflate empire with colonisation.

And because colonisation has stopped on the whole, there's the feeling, well, empire is no longer. a problem. But actually, empire frequently took forms other than colonization. With regard to the British Empire, one talks about informal British Empire. For example, in many ways, Argentina in the 19th century was part of the British Empire. We didn't rule it, we didn't colonize it, but we controlled its economy, British investors determined its banking rates, we built its railways for our own commercial advantages, we shaped its roads, system and so forth. So empire does not have to depend on colonization. And I think, and I'm not saying,

you know, that the power that America now exerts globally is, is, it's good or bad. That's a separate argument. But I do think it can profitably be looked at in imperial terms, not just the manifestation of a particularly strong nation state. It's more than that. But it also can be looked at very, very effectively, I think, in cultural terms. For many people, and I include myself in a lot of this, the American cultural liberalisation of the 20th century, included putting the cinema, I mean, the whole of popular music from jazz and blues to rock and roll and so forth,

an idea of myth of, never-line, idea of classlessness and so. So there's a fuss around the place that says we've got to resist, but there's also another buzz that says we've got to take this on. We like it. The key to this seems to me to understand, yes, there is massive inequalities of power, economically, military and culturally, or in soft terms, as the Americans call it. They are the most powerful people on earth. But it's also the case that, for instance, as you've described, culturally, people can absorb American culture and play it back in an interesting way. So just after the Second World War, French cinema is on its uppers. it's beginning to be penetrated by American cinema.

So what does Truffo, Goddard, all those wonderful people do? They take American B movies and they re-fashioned them and they then re-export them to America. They produce one of the great cinemas of the post-war period. And when Quentin Tarantino invents his company, he calls it Bond Apart, which is a homage to Goddard. So the traffic between them, and all I'm keen on establishing really, is that when you are a subject of empire,

you're not a simply empty vessel, you know, because you eat at McDonald's, because you wear jeans, does not mean now any more than it did in India that you can't adopt, resist, transform, and sometimes be subjugated to that dominant culture. Well, that fits, you mentioned, Asterix, when you start the beginning, an Asterisk is a clearly, you know,

French, anti-American, anti-Disney-type cartoon, which is brilliantly kind of scripted to be a clash between Asterix and the Romans. And there you've got an absolute classic example of the subjugated power fighting back with a cartoon about what it's like to be subjugated. You used the word subjugated three times there. No, it's interesting. Do you think that the fact is that you still feel that there is a feeling around that the rest of the world is, let's keep the word subjugated.

Is that too harsh? Or is it what is what's really happening out there now? Or out here now? It's not subjugation. Of course it isn't. But the realities of power, which has to include economic power and the element of physical force, cannot be ignored under any imperial system.

But perhaps all the interesting things about cultural imperialism is that those who are ruled over, as it were, ruled in inverted commerce, choose to go along with it, choose to wear jeans, choose to watch Hollywood, choose to listen to soul music. I remember talking to Tarik Ali recently who said, you know, when he was 15, he went home and listened to Elvis Presley,

but he also went and daubed rude words on American bases in Pakistan. Having a case, that's cool, isn't. Well, no, they're just the contradictions of living. It's all having a cake, and he. Well, they're the contradictions. I think the key is you don't have to dislike the genes because you dislike the economic power.

Do you? I mean, the key to this, you know, and it is a powerful argument against the cultural imperial imperialism, thesis is Bush saying only the other day, you know, the Palestinians must choose a new leader. And in effect, what that was the kind of profound reference it seemed to me to Roman empires, you know, that he could simply stand up and tell this people who they should or should not delay. And that's got nothing to do with whether you like McDonald's or not. That's to do with a kind of brute exercise of power that's economic in the end.

I mean, I'd still defend using the word subjugation, though I'd kind of gloss it by saying, America is the kind of vampire that exists on the myth that we're not subjugated. I mean, that's the slogan is the slogan of liberty. But as, you know, Tustas said, as you said, Philip, right at the beginning, you know, one of the best ways of enticing the subject peoples into loyalty to the imperialist project is precisely to make them think they're choosing what you want them to. The people like what the people get stuff. Would you say, Lender, that there might be a distinction here,

And it's a genuine inquiry. I don't know that we talked earlier about empires and cultural empires moving into other areas by bringing over the elites, by convincing the elites. Christianity did, Roman Christianity. Well, Celtic Christianity. It's a way that powers move in. You win over the elites.

Might it be interesting thought that the Americans have done it the other way around, which makes them an interesting empire. They've won over the masses of people. You could say that. Through the culture. Yeah, I mean, Eric Hobsbourne once made a... a generalisation, which like all generalisations you can pick holes in, but has an element of truth that post-war Western culture,

so-called elite culture, was still mainly European, but so-called non-elite culture was much more Americanised, so that, you know, Washington smart folk go and listen to the opera, and it's mainly European operas, but, you know, non-smart folk eat McDonald's or whatever. I mean, that's, that's, that's, that's a bit polarized, but there is an element of that. But I think that what I would also add, that what is crucial to the kind of American power in part is not is something cultural,

which is the spread of the English language. Now, we are partly responsible for that because we put English into North America in the first place. But it's been very largely American dominion. since 1945 that has made English world language. A world language like there has never been before. And I think that this is really something that no previous empires had working forward. Latin had a pretty good go, I must have. Well, thank you very much, Mary Beard.

Thank you, Linda Colley, and thank you, Philip Dodd. Next week we'll be discussing freedom. Thanks for listening. We hope you've enjoyed this Radio 4 podcast. You can find hundreds of other programmes about history, science, philosophy at BBC.com.com.uk forward slash radio four.