The Anonymous Widower

Are The English Arrogant?

This post was selected by the phone-in on BBC Radio 5.

I don’t think arrogance is the word.  But there is a class of the English, that has extreme self-confidence, which means they do things that are exceptional.

David Beckham is a classic modern example, as there are few people, who have achieved what he has done by pushing themselves to the limit.

Throughout history, we have had English leaders who could probably have been considered by some to be arrogant, but they just had this amazing self-confidence. Just look at Churchill, Nelson, Hawke and Thatcher for a start.  In sport, there have been quite a few with it too like Bradley Wiggins, David Hemery, Stanley Matthews, Fred Perry, Nick Faldo, Will Carling, Geoffrey Boycott.

and then there’s the arts and the media, with people like David Hockney, Laurence Olivier, Henry Moore and David Attenborough.

You might think that I’m being very male and white oriented here, but I am tending to pick people, whose careers started and in most cases finished many years ago. In a few years time, the list will probably be different. But even now, you can pick many women and those from the broad non-white community, who owe their success to a supreme self-confidence.

So why are the English like this?

It’s difficult to find a definitive reason.

February 1, 2013 - Posted by AnonW | World | England