The North in the mind of the northerners

[Menydh]

The documentary, Magnetic North by BBC is an attempt to define a North's identity in comparison with the South, at every step. What calls my attention here is how often this pattern is repeated when defining the North, as if it could not be defined by itself but only in opposing comparison to the South.

Judge by yourselves.

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dw6J9bYQ4XY[/media]
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPfbM6ySkAk[/media]
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAtEady-06Q[/media]
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shZ62MWpbE8[/media]
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUiyZ2mtRvA[/media]
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOjAZucvh-I[/media]

[Susi]

How do you define things except by comparison?

[Menydh]

You start by defining them in themselves. Then, once yo have defined them, you can compare them to others.

Do you define a piece of potery by comparing it to a piece of china?

[Sergius]

I have a lot of comments on this, but first of all: you have accidently linked the fourth of six parts from the second episode, not the first. Hence the short trip to Estonia in the middle of the whole thing.

Episode 1, part 4:

+ YouTube Video

[Susi]

Originally Posted by Menydh

You start by defining them in themselves. Then, once yo have defined them, you can compare them to others.

Do you define a piece of potery by comparing it to a piece of china?

What does pottery do? What does china do? They have a relatively similar use, no?

You can't define somethign without using some other concept in its definition (i.e. comparison).

[Sergius]

Originally Posted by Susi

How do you define things except by comparison?

This is not just comparison. Meades defines Northern Europe as an opposition to the South, and in a somewhat pathetic way. Especially early on in the documentary does it get irksome, even if it is an ironic reply to the British -for whom the program is explicitly made, as he points out early on- notion that the North is dull.
I have watched both documentaries in this series, and I was very surprised to see that the second part does not deal with Scandinavia, the real North, for better or for worse. It seems strange that a series that claims to deal with the Northern cultures focuses on, for instance, Northern France (essentially in sequence with the Latin cultural continuum moreso than the Germanic sphere, from my perspective, "another language is another soul" and such).
What Meades lays out for the Hanseatic trade empire mentality, and what is portrayed in the second part of the series as the small Baltic nations' provincial Romantic Nationalism, could both be applied to Denmark.

[wilpuri]

The North in the mind of northerners? Which northerners? All I see is a Brit in a suit, talking small about a variety of national cultures.

[Menydh]

"The South... we all want to be there. It's an ideal. It draws us to it. It's a mythical place.

To Britons today the South is exhuberant vines, guiltless hedonism, excitable olives, the immemorial ruins of immemorial civilizations, primary coloured emotions. It' promised land and a role super-model.

A wine is from the South. We eat the South's food. We effectively tan to look southern. Oranges do come from the South.

Our architects are going to remake one down Yorkshite towns as Tuscan villages. Because Britain niftly shares a common culture and a common climate

The South causes the North to suffer a collective delusion about itself. We deny our northerness.

We deny it to such an extent that we are unfamiliar with those countries which share our climate. They might remind us of ourselves for they too are engaged in a perpetual battle denying their northerness. To be northern is to be forever elitist with oneself."

Makes you wonder.

[wilpuri]

Originally Posted by Menydh

Makes you wonder.

I'm still wondering: which northerners?

This is what Meades, a Briton says. I would hardly consider Britain "North". Quite frankly I don't think Britain fits in very neatly with any of the geo-cultural definitions of Europe.

[Kalevi]

Originally Posted by wilpuri

I'm still wondering: which northerners?

This is what Meades, a Briton says. I would hardly consider Britain "North". Quite frankly I don't think Britain fits in very neatly with any of the geo-cultural definitions of Europe.

It makes more sense if you substitute 'northerner' with 'protestant'. But still, being protestant (with all of it's implications) is only a portion of the essence of a people.

Here, I can't see any specific urge of being southern, rather to be 'continental'. But that's quite strictly confined along certain elitist tendencies, and I think it's giving way for being cosmopolitan. ()

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by wilpuri

I'm still wondering: which northerners?

This is what Meades, a Briton says. I would hardly consider Britain "North". Quite frankly I don't think Britain fits in very neatly with any of the geo-cultural definitions of Europe.

Shouldn't you ask that question to Jonathan Meades? He obviously thinks himself to be a northerner.

I found an article about the series, on Britain's Independent newspaper:

Perhaps it's only the scheduler's imagination at work, but the series comes across as a riposte to Andrew Graham-Dixon's recent three-parter, The Art of Spain, which finished last week. In some ways, the programmes overlap and contradict, and Meades doesn't always come off best. When he talked of a northern taste for detail and the grotesque as something distinct from the south, I'd have liked Graham-Dixon to tap him on the shoulder and mutter the word "Goya".

Last Night\'s TV: Jonathan Meades: Magnetic North BBC4<br/>The Smoke House, BBC1 - TV & Radio Reviews, Film & TV - The Independent

Maybe someone should have also reminded him that the origins of the Gothic architecture are in France, and that it is precisely in that country where you are likely to find more Gothic architecture. Very many in Spain too, and although Italy has probably a few less it has more than enough to account for it. As you move north, England and Germany also account for a good deal of the Gothic architecture. But as far as I know it decreases the farther you move north from that point.

Or that some elements of the Gothic architecture are probably influenced by Islamic architecture..

[Carnyx]

Originally Posted by Kalevi

Here, I can't see any specific urge of being southern, rather to be 'continental'.

You mean being part of Western Europe?

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by Kalevi

It makes more sense if you substitute 'northerner' with 'protestant'.

The latter is a consequence of the former, according to some.

Here, I can't see any specific urge of being southern, rather to be 'continental'.

Yet a country like Spain is peninsular, not continental. And this goes beyond a mere geographic connotation.

But that's quite strictly confined along certain elitist tendencies, and I think it's giving way for being cosmopolitan. ()

It is precisely cities like London, Brussels or Amsterdam which are among the most cosmopolitan.

[wilpuri]

Originally Posted by Menydh

The latter is a consequence of the former, according to some.

According to whom? And what is the reasoning? That protestants became protestants because they were north of a certain latitude? Please explain. Its very interesting to see how the "south" (Mynydd) perceives us and to see the reasoning for his antipathies.

[Errigal]

Originally Posted by Kalevi

It makes more sense if you substitute 'northerner' with 'protestant'. But still, being protestant (with all of it's implications) is only a portion of the essence of a people.
...

Originally Posted by Menydh

The latter is a consequence of the former, according to some.
...

I think Menydh's statement is reasonable; Protestantism broke out in many parts of Europe but it only was able to survive in any strength far from Rome.

Originally Posted by wilpuri

According to whom? And what is the reasoning? That protestants became protestants because they were north of a certain latitude? Please explain. Its very interesting to see how the "south" (Mynydd) perceives us and to see the reasoning for his antipathies.

Please not another person taking great offence! I am so bored with this act. Behold the wonderful world Political Correctness has made for us. "I think therefore I am" has become "I'm offended therefore I am".