Caledonian Antisyzygy

[Luddite]

I'm not sure if this fully belongs in the "politics" forum or where it would be more appropriate.  I've recently found myself delving into this fascinating but somewhat wanky sounding term 'Caledonian Antisyzygy'.

 

Anyone familiar with the term and the philosophy behind it? Can you relate to it at all?

[Johnny Martin]

Wha's like us?! 

[D Angelo Barksdale]

We're aw Henry Jekyll's/Edward Hyde's bairns.

[Luddite]

2 hours ago, Johnny Martin said:

Wha's like us?! 

 

1 hour ago, Ziggy Sobotka said:

We're aw Henry Jekyll's/Edward Hyde's bairns.

Do either of you think there’s anything to this?

When I was a young lad I read a book about contradictions in the Japanese psyche and felt I could relate to some of it.  Like us the Japanese are also a small island nation (well, we are sort of..another example of antisyzygy?) located on the fringes of a huge continent full of more powerful neighbours.  

Also, as much as we mock Americans for not getting our subtle ironies, turns out we are a much less “high-context” (I.e irony-laden) country than the Japanese.

I say all this to ask are we really that special? Maybe we are, I don’t know, just floundering around looking for other opinions on it…

 

 

 

 

 

[ScotiaNostra]

It could be argued its the same in most countries if not all countries. 

Edited August 25, 2023 by ScotiaNostra

[Guest]

10 hours ago, Luddite said:

I'm not sure if this fully belongs in the "politics" forum or where it would be more appropriate.  I've recently found myself delving into this fascinating but somewhat wanky sounding term 'Caledonian Antisyzygy'.

 

Anyone familiar with the term and the philosophy behind it? Can you relate to it at all?

Definitely belongs in this subforum as national identity at least partly informs folk's preference for nation state constitution. It's a wanky term, indeed, needlessly impenetrable -  antisyzygy looks Hungarian - when its only describing quite a simple concept. I hadn't heard of it until your post here and all I've done since is read the appropriate wikipedia article and listened to the video linked above, so this is my completely uninformed take. 

The first thing I'd point out is that empire is crucial to worldview and only the imperial establishment are ever allowed to have certainty in their identity. That's London Brits, Istanbul Turks, Parisian French, Madrid Spanish, Moscow Russians, etc. Reason being that within their linguistic spheres, they are the default. Therefore they've never been forced to introspect or to consider their own position in relation to others, they've only ever made that demand of others. Everyone else has to constantly prove their identity and respond to scrutiny of it. The further a group of people are from that locus of power, the more they have their identity questioned and dismissed. That's why you end up with an Armenian Question but not a Turkish Question, because the intelligentsia are in Istanbul.

The Wikipedia article states T.S. Elliot first put forward the idea that Scottish identity is incoherent. He was a man so obsessed with security of identity that being born in USA of Boston elite stock wasn't good enough for him, he had to move to London. Well even within the metropole of empire, you still get this imperial dynamic where the locus of power questions the fringes. That meant London constantly scrutinising the "odd" celtic fringe to the British metropole. That's the vantage point, with all its hubris and self-centred certainty, from which T.S. Elliot diagnosed this supposedly Scottish malady.

The reality is all national identities are incoherent because they are imagined ideas and we should always look to examine these identities. Its to our improvement if we can be honest about the contradictions within our national collectives.

[D Angelo Barksdale]

8 hours ago, Luddite said:

 

Do either of you think there’s anything to this?

I suppose, although to me it just feels like the Duality of Man superimposed onto a national/cultural/ethnic group. Contradictions are to be expected both on an individual and societal level and aren’t solely an inherent trait of Scots.

You've mentioned Japan, but it'll be present in other places too I'd imagine with the extent of each 'antisyzgy' different from the next.

[coprolite]

Never heard the term before today. doesn’t sound like there’s much behind it, from a particularly Scottish point of view. As someone else said, it sounds like duality of nature which is covered in most cultures, eg yin and Yang. 

Sounds like there’s probably some newspaper column inches in it and probably a few morningside/kelvinside dinner party discussions. 
 

I think in general that many people give too much credibility to the concept of “national character “. I think that it is true that some personality traits are associated with cultural norms which do vary across nations. But they’re only tendencies, and variations within populations are huge. And nationality is a slippery concept too.

[Cassie]

In high school back in 1987 we had an English teacher who went big on this when introducing us to MacDiarmid.  

Hadn't heard the term before, and this is is the first I've seen it since.

[Gibby82]

Always associated it with MacDiarmid. I think the particular Scottishness of it was in relation to Scots and its relationship with the culturally dominant English language, and how those contradictions give shape to our culture and identity. English in the classroom, Scots in the playground. The example given in the video about about Glasgow and Edinburgh seems spurious though and pretty common throughout the world.

Edited August 25, 2023 by Gibby82

[oneteaminglasgow]

Aye, generally it seems like a pretty broad bit of analysis of almost every society that someone’s stuck a fancy word on and made about Scotland. Which is fine, I suppose.

1 hour ago, coprolite said:

And nationality is a slippery concept too.

I agree with you, but would go further to say that basically every way in which humans identify themselves are meaningless beyond the meaning which they hold to that individual. You’re right that while Scottish culture exists, and has it norms and quirks in the way that any other culture does, the idea of a unifying national character is disputable at best. And a lot of the things that we tell ourselves and the world about what Scotland and Scottishness are can be shown to be utter nonsense a lot of the time. 

I think that’s (one of) the reasons why the Susan Calman Bank of Scotland adverts irritate me so much. 

[Luddite]

On 24/08/2023 at 23:29, FreedomFarter said:

The reality is all national identities are incoherent because they are imagined ideas and we should always look to examine these identities. It’s to our improvement if we can be honest about the contradictions within our national collectives.

On 25/08/2023 at 03:44, Ziggy Sobotka said:

Contradictions are to be expected both on an individual and societal level and aren’t solelyan inherent trait of Scots.

You've mentioned Japan, but it'll be present in other places too I'd imagine with the extent of each 'antisyzgy' different from the next.

On 25/08/2023 at 04:12, coprolite said:

As someone else said, it sounds like duality of nature which is covered in most cultures, eg yin and Yang. 

I think in general that many people give too much credibility to the concept of “national character “. I think that it is true that some personality traits are associated with cultural norms which do vary across nations. But they’re only tendencies, and variations within populations are huge. And nationality is a slippery concept too.

Do any of you think there is any case whatsoever for a greater level of contradiction within Scots/Scotland or is it just purely narcissistic navel-gazing?
 

@coprolite

Do you think, with the symbiotic relationship between the relatively recent development of the Industrial Revolution and the relatively recent social construct of “Nationalism” (assuming you agree with that premise) it’s easier for us Postmoderns to question nationalism as a “slippery concept” with a cynical clarity due to us getting the short end of the stick in regards to late capitalism/Thatcherism/ neoliberalism, that seems to require a more globalist mentality.

 

@Cassieand @Gibby82

assuming you mean Hugh McDiairmid, I have practically zero knowledge of him. Care to share what you recall your teachers discussing RE antisyzygy?

[D Angelo Barksdale]

3 hours ago, Luddite said:

Do any of you think there is any case whatsoever for a greater level of contradiction within Scots/Scotland or is it just purely narcissistic navel-gazing?
 

@coprolite

Do you think, with the symbiotic relationship between the relatively recent development of the Industrial Revolution and the relatively recent social construct of “Nationalism” (assuming you agree with that premise) it’s easier for us Postmoderns to question nationalism as a “slippery concept” with a cynical clarity due to us getting the short end of the stick in regards to late capitalism/Thatcherism/ neoliberalism, that seems to require a more globalist mentality.

 

@Cassieand @Gibby82

assuming you mean Hugh McDiairmid, I have practically zero knowledge of him. Care to share what you recall your teachers discussing RE antisyzygy?

Definitely a lot of the latter going on. 'Whae's like us ?' 'Whit are we like eh ?' Scottish exceptionalism.

[Blue Brazil Forever]

13 hours ago, Ziggy Sobotka said:

Definitely a lot of the latter going on. 'Whae's like us ?' 'Whit are we like eh ?' Scottish exceptionalism.

They ir a' oot o step but oor Jock !

[coprolite]

16 hours ago, Luddite said:

Do any of you think there is any case whatsoever for a greater level of contradiction within Scots/Scotland or is it just purely narcissistic navel-gazing?
 

@coprolite

Do you think, with the symbiotic relationship between the relatively recent development of the Industrial Revolution and the relatively recent social construct of “Nationalism” (assuming you agree with that premise) it’s easier for us Postmoderns to question nationalism as a “slippery concept” with a cynical clarity due to us getting the short end of the stick in regards to late capitalism/Thatcherism/ neoliberalism, that seems to require a more globalist mentality.

 

@Cassieand @Gibby82

assuming you mean Hugh McDiairmid, I have practically zero knowledge of him. Care to share what you recall your teachers discussing RE antisyzygy?

I meant nationality can be subjective and hard to define at the edges.

If i think about what it means to me to be Scottish, it's mostly shared cultural reference points, supporting the national team(s), kids tv programmes etc but also a bit of the language and some sense of shared history. All of those things could be very different for different people.

Even similar people will have a different experience or understanding of their nationality.

Some people might share my categories of membership criteria but have a different view of what the details should be. But other people might have a more genetic or ethnic view, or geographical or residence based. 

That's before we even get on to multiple overlapping identities. At the risk of being mocked by p&b's reactionary McGlashan faction, many Scots (myself included) also identify as British. Others might see themselves as also Irish, Polish, Bengali, Chinese, Nigerian, whatever. People can also view themselves as part and part, as well as simultaneously, different nationalities. 

That's what i meant by slippery. 

[Guest]

On 26/08/2023 at 18:09, Luddite said:

Do any of you think there is any case whatsoever for a greater level of contradiction within Scots/Scotland or is it just purely narcissistic navel-gazing?

I don't think there's a case for that and that's not what was being argued by G. Gregory Smith or by Hugh MacDiarmid. What's happened since is the term has been appropriated by academics in the 1990s and applied by them to a different idea. As Kirsten Stirling explains:

(https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2010/11/09/scotland-deformed/).

 

What the antisyzygy meant to Smith and MacDiarmid was a description of how allowing for linguistic and identity diversity produced greater creative freedom. They were both railing against imperial standardisation. The imperial powers at the time were obsessed with purity of identity. This was the early decades of the 20th century when the concept of racial purity was near universally believed in by the elite. Any challenge to that pure identity within the metropole was seen as dangerous for the empire. From MacDiarmid's essay The Caledonian Antisyzygy and the Gaelic Idea:

 

MacDiarmid was against the attempt to force unitary identity onto people and he argued Scots, like many people around the world, were comfortable drawing upon more than one cultural tradition. That was antisyzygy.

Edited August 27, 2023 by FreedomFarter

[oneteaminglasgow]

On 27/08/2023 at 11:05, coprolite said:

I meant nationality can be subjective and hard to define at the edges.

If i think about what it means to me to be Scottish, it's mostly shared cultural reference points, supporting the national team(s), kids tv programmes etc but also a bit of the language and some sense of shared history. All of those things could be very different for different people.

Even similar people will have a different experience or understanding of their nationality.

Some people might share my categories of membership criteria but have a different view of what the details should be. But other people might have a more genetic or ethnic view, or geographical or residence based. 

That's before we even get on to multiple overlapping identities. At the risk of being mocked by p&b's reactionary McGlashan faction, many Scots (myself included) also identify as British. Others might see themselves as also Irish, Polish, Bengali, Chinese, Nigerian, whatever. People can also view themselves as part and part, as well as simultaneously, different nationalities. 

That's what i meant by slippery. 

It can go the other way as well, I think. Scottishness, as you’ve identified, means to one thing us (by us, I mean people who live or grew up in Scotland), and even that’s going to differ from person to person. But someone who, for example, was born in the USA with Scottish ancestry will have a different view of ‘Scottishness’ and is their connection to the concept any less valid really? Or what about people who’ve just arrived to live in Scotland and are encountering it for the first time.

There’s also the more local identities. I see myself as being Glaswegian (even though I’ve lived in Edinburgh for 12 years). For me, that doesn’t diminish my feeling of Scottishness, but others might feel more connected to their local area than to the wider country. I’ve only ever lived in Edinburgh or Glasgow, so won’t pretend I’m an expert on it, but my understanding is that there’s some people on Shetland or Orkney view themselves as Shetlanders or Orcadians first, and then maybe Scots or British. How does that experience of Scottishness differ from others?

I think it goes back the question of how do you know you’re Scottish? It’s largely because you just are, and you know you are. Like, I was born in Scotland and have lived my whole life here, and I’m Scottish (and wouldn’t ever describe myself as anything else, including British). Yet others with exactly the same history will, perfectly fairly, call themselves something else. Yet others will have been born elsewhere, never lived here, and yet to them, they’re as Scottish as I am. I’m Scottish because I just am, and like you say, trying to define what that actually is is a really slippery slope that would probably lead to a ‘right way’ to be Scottish, and a wrong way.

My apologies for rambling, it’s just a subject I find extremely interesting.

Back on the topic on anti syzygy, I think that in order to demonstrate that ‘Scottishness’ has a greater level of contradictions than other identities do, you’d need to be very knowledgable on the complexities of other cultures alongside Scottishness. And I don’t believe that is the case with the people I’ve seen suggesting it.

[coprolite]

13 minutes ago, oneteaminglasgow said:

It can go the other way as well, I think. Scottishness, as you’ve identified, means to one thing us (by us, I mean people who live or grew up in Scotland), and even that’s going to differ from person to person. But someone who, for example, was born in the USA with Scottish ancestry will have a different view of ‘Scottishness’ and is their connection to the concept any less valid really? Or what about people who’ve just arrived to live in Scotland and are encountering it for the first time.

There’s also the more local identities. I see myself as being Glaswegian (even though I’ve lived in Edinburgh for 12 years). For me, that doesn’t diminish my feeling of Scottishness, but others might feel more connected to their local area than to the wider country. I’ve only ever lived in Edinburgh or Glasgow, so won’t pretend I’m an expert on it, but my understanding is that there’s some people on Shetland or Orkney view themselves as Shetlanders or Orcadians first, and then maybe Scots or British. How does that experience of Scottishness differ from others?

I think it goes back the question of how do you know you’re Scottish? It’s largely because you just are, and you know you are. Like, I was born in Scotland and have lived my whole life here, and I’m Scottish (and wouldn’t ever describe myself as anything else, including British). Yet others with exactly the same history will, perfectly fairly, call themselves something else. Yet others will have been born elsewhere, never lived here, and yet to them, they’re as Scottish as I am. I’m Scottish because I just am, and like you say, trying to define what that actually is is a really slippery slope that would probably lead to a ‘right way’ to be Scottish, and a wrong way.

My apologies for rambling, it’s just a subject I find extremely interesting.

Back on the topic on anti syzygy, I think that in order to demonstrate that ‘Scottishness’ has a greater level of contradictions than other identities do, you’d need to be very knowledgable on the complexities of other cultures alongside Scottishness. And I don’t believe that is the case with the people I’ve seen suggesting it.

It’s a subject I find interesting too, although nationality isn’t particularly important to me. If I was asked for five facts to describe myself I’m not sure it would be on the list. I find the whole notion of being proud of nationality a bit alien. I’d never really thought about it in Scotland but after moving to Wales and hearing people describe themselves a “proud Welshman” I thought “why are you proud of that?”. Not that they should be ashamed or that there’s anything wrong with being Welsh in particular, just it’s an accident of birth and didn’t require any effort to attain. Anyway, that was my turn to ramble.

On your last paragraph I think that’s right.  People can see the fine detail close up and have a simplified view of things in the distance. I doubt that an exhaustive scientific comparison against Tajiks, Ecuadoreans and the Zulus has been carried out.

[Dan Steele]

The term is probably most discussed around Scottish literature, its history and relation to "English literature" as a cultural construct. Many writers fought back against the Tartanry (the cult of tartan, thanks to Walter Scott, and the shortbread tin portrayal of Scotland) & Kailyard body of work by authors whose works were set in Scottish communities, peopled by stereotypical characters and come across as idealised and sentimental stories of rural life (like JM Barrie's Window in Thrums). Whether it's still a valid way of trying to understand Scottish literature or wider aspects of Scottish culture, maybe not. One big problem is it seems more of a looking back than a way forward.

 

 

[topcat(The most tip top)]

I suspect that the whole concept of antisyzygy may have originated in a desperate attempt to cheat at Scrabble that got out of hand