The emergence of the stiff upper lip

Brexiting. A series on being English. # 03

The emergence of the stiff upper lip

It may be hard to imagine when looking back from our 21st-century perspective, but before the 19th century, rationality and restraint were unusual traits with English people. It was the opposite of stiff upper lip which means to take it on the chin, or not letting on, keep calm and endure. To show one's emotions used to be considered interesting and good manners. For instance, like most of Europe, the English had held the French in high esteem as an example to be followed. All over Europe, the upper class spoke French and this was for a reason. The French had shown no restraint whatsoever. Its nobility never took the plight of their subjects into account and saw no bones in exploiting them ruthlessly. No wonder these subjects showed no restraint either when they started to unleash their wrath against the nobles in 1789.

More or less coincidentally, precisely at that moment in time, in English society a
budding trend was coming into full bloom and this was to live according to new concepts of restraint, like being polite, which meant not showing one's emotions except if and when such showing would be a sign of respect of others present. It was being manly, which Samuel Johnson in his famous dictionary of 1775 had defined as "firm & brave, stout, undaunted, undismayed".

For centuries showing one's emotions was the accepted and expected behaviour, for men and women in equal measure. Around 1770 - 1780 it had even become highly fashionable to show one's affections for one another. It had been greatly influenced by the arrival of the romantic novel on the scene, written by a stodgy old man, Samuel Richardson. His first try, Pamela, was an astounding bestseller, complete with merchandising. It changed everybody. However, by the end of the 18th century, this idea of letting feelings prevail over intelligent thought, had gradually been superseded by a feeling that to have one's life and country being led by rational decisions made more sense than to use one's emotions as a foundation of decision making. Obviously, the French were still moving along the old rut of emotions, then called 'sensibility', and this had been the accepted way of being 'polite' all over Europe because it included being sensitive to other people's feelings, too. However, the idea of having 'sense' began to make more sense, especially in view of the slaughterhouse that France had turned into after the revolution of 1789. Nevertheless, 'making sense' remained a contentious element in society, so much so that when Jane Austen wrote her brilliant novel Sense and Sensibility in 1795, it took 16 years before she and the publisher had enough courage to venture a publication, and then only anonymously "by a Lady" (see illustration showing the title page of the first edition).

This 'sense' was to become symbolized by a 'stiff upper lip' because a person without control over his emotions would show a trembling upper lip when stressed. At least, that was the conviction of the upper class at that time. The upper class used to entertain the weirdest notions, perhaps to show they are different. Not showing one's emotions became a characterizing trait of being English, symbolized by the stiff upper lip. It entered into English idiom as a phrase. This, of course, is the politically correct explanation and the one that the English themselves prefer.
However, there is another explanation which is more likely to be the real source of the phenomenon. In the 18th century, sugar was still rather expensive. Excessive use of sugar was a sure indication of wealth and status. Dental hygiene was still in primitive stages and seeing any relationship between sugar and bad teeth was a preposterous proposition, of course. Everybody knew that rotten teeth came from invisible tooth worms - another crazy concept of the time. The upper class tried to hide the black holes and grey areas in their teeth, or their lack of teeth, by keeping their lips over them. And that is the correct explanation, if you ask me.
Cultural habits remain long long after their usefulness has disappeared, we all know that. I invite the reader to inspect the customs of halal and kosher slaughtering rituals. They make a lot of sense in a hot climate in the desert in the year 600 B.C. and the year 660 A.D. Today it is done to assert religious identity. Whatever.

The custom of stiff upper lip accounts also for the unintelligible mumbling of  such people which they have come to consider a token of their class - another exercise in how crazy can you get. It is a real challenge to understand what dukes and marquesses are actually saying. But, then again, they do not want to communicate with you anyway, not really, their interest in you is only good manners and pretence, so their incomprehensible accent is no matter to them.
A curious aspect of this lisping and mumbling is that they themselves are not really aware they do this. It is natural for them. When in 2016 Prince Harry went to Germany to help teaching 'proper English' to German high school classes, the goodwill project was abandoned quickly, the reason being that the pupils complained they could not make out what Harry was saying because he mumbled and swallowed his words so much.
Now, in case you find yourself in front of the English Queen or her husband or the odd 'peer of the realm' who will be mentally stuck in the time that England indeed was great and high living was at its peak, then take five for the correct way to answer or, rather, counter all that lisping and mumbling by uttering some unintelligible chatter yourself, with an occasional good word interjected so that you appear to say something in their own speak and then they cannot do anything but feign to understand you. They will nod and smile or, if they have a high esteem of you all of a sudden, they would say "Right" or "Indeed" or something like that. And then they will like you because they will think you are one of them, or they will hate you for exposing them.

I really love it, this stiff upper lip and lisping business. A conversation might go like this. The crazy duke says: "A dzolly good frtzbnlmnsssh, what?" And you say: "Oh, dyess, I really wrrottzzzdwayblshid tzettorz dzedodzorze dizzznomed it all up." Some faint sound mix that resembles the word "horse" had better be present in your answer if the lisp that looks at you down his nose is a man. Then the only thing he can say is: "Right so!" And then you are friends. If, however, he says "Really?", you may be enemies for life. Actor Peter Ustinov was a master in imitating this curious habit of the English upper class people to lisp and mutter. You can hear a prime example of it in this videolink.

By the end of the 18th century, making sense (= being led by rational considerations) took rank over sensibility (= being led by emotions). It paved the way to become organized and smart about the ways of the world instead of simply reacting and try to find one's way by 'emoting'. This novel approach combined with their massive fleet of war ships and trade ships enabled the British in the 19th century to expand their Empire rapidly and reap enormous riches from trade with their colonies and dominions. Rationality or 'using good sense' made for a way of governing that required very few people to control many millions. In 1805 only 9,000 Britons controlled 300 million people in the Raj, i.e. India, Bangladesh and Pakistan combined. Using sensibilities instead of sense would have required immense armies and vast legions of administrators. For it takes tremendous force to enforce one's emotional will upon another person but it takes hardly any effort to impose one's rational policies upon another person. The reason behind it is that rationality takes into account actualities and a wide range of contexts and derives a solution from that. Rationality takes into account the other person's needs and wants, next to one's own needs and wants, whereas emotional force does not. At the moment of this writing, the new American president Donald Trump forms an excellent example of the ineffectiveness of using emotional willpower to enforce policies that only benefit one's own private situations.
After adoption of the use of 'sense' instead of emotions as the guiding principle, governing had become easy for the British and there emerged even a phenomenon like Pax Britannica that would last one and a half century.

Summarizing, rationality replaced emotionality in the English culture around 1800. Being ostensibly unperturbed by anything, in other words 'the stiff upper lip', became a dominant trait of English society and has been their stock in trade ever since until this day because it reminds them about the good old days when Britannia ruled the waves.