Bronx Cheer (Oxon.)

After a seven-week tour of the U.S. as a member of the Oxford University Players, Robert Robinson had formed a few "unequivocal judgments" about the Americans he had seen. He admitted that they were hospitable enough, but beyond that, deplorable. Wrote Briton Robinson for the undergraduate Isis:

"The majority of Americans I met socially I found to be childlike, equipped with rather more than the usual number of national and personal prejudices, inclined to assess all things--motor-cars and nations--with an uneasy blend of emotion and economics. I found that they tended to avoid standards based on intellect. They did not seem to be very good at thinking, largely, I suppose, through lack of practice . . ."

O Bigger Reality. "Of even the beginnings of the minutest embryo of a homogeneous culture there was no sign: there was a general reaction of bewilderment (not unmixed with pity) whenever it was tentatively suggested that knowledge and appreciation might be acquired for their own intrinsic values, rather than as catalysts for the amassing of bullion, respectability or washing-machines. Education, therefore, is economic and expedient--four or five subjects, such as brewing, real-estate, creative-writing . . . and angling, are taken by each student. This melange is styled a 'liberal education,' meaning that a student is permitted to know nothing about four things, instead of something about one. Accent is on the dispensing of economically useful information (sound Marxist doctrine, that!) and not at all upon the development of the mind as a thinking unit. Thus, the American student inclines to statements that are dogmatic and unoriginal: he has an implicit and almost mediaeval trust in Authority . . .

"A general preoccupation with trivia--I mean Coke-machines, launderettes . . . laxatives and baseball--I construed as the American attempt to exclude the bigger reality. If you have a lot of little gadgets to divert attention, the larger issues are unlikely to occur to you, and existence is less satisfying but a damn sight more comfortable . . ."

O Lord. "Physical life is led at a greater rate than (say) in England--distances are longer, cars are faster, and people are about in New York at four o'clock in the morning. This gives the illusion of a greater national vitality. But it is only illusion, and can only be, in a country where Godliness is next to cleanliness."

For American hospitality, concluded Oxonian Robinson, "I raise a foaming mug of pink ice-cream in ginger-beer (the national beverage) and pledge my sincere gratitude. But a Bronx cheer for the neons, the nylons, and the nut-melbas--each one of the Twenty-Eight Flavours--and Odo-ro-no, Times Square, the subways, the Empire State, drugstores, candy and campuses ... O Lord."

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