Why we need to understand cheese (not to mention beer, bread and football)

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How can anyone govern a nation that has two hundred and forty-six different kinds of cheese? Charles de Gaulle

…or for that matter twenty different names for a teacake, hundreds of different beers and around 200 professional football teams. De Gaulle’s point was about governing but it seems to me that much of this relates to identity – my cheese is different from your cheese and (probably) better. Even if – as is the case often with football – your team is better than my team that makes no difference as I still like my team more.

Much self-important guff and piffle is talked about sovereignty, national identity and allegiance. Someone from Carlisle probably has more in common with his near neighbours in Dumfries than with his fellow Englishmen in Basingstoke. But that Carlisle resident will fly the English flag; proclaim allegiance to England while in the same breath castigating soft southern nancies for being inadequate wimps. A view doubtless shared by the lowland Scots.

It seems to me that these allegiances to food, to sport, to drinks and to clothing are more significant to us than adherence to some political identity, supposed national personality or supra-national polity. In truth political leaders and governments simply make use of identity – local or “national” – in securing and sustaining power. Such leaders and governments do not create that identity and will belittle it or cast it aside if it stands in the way of “progress” (also known as extending the power of government).

My cultural identity is shaped by the things I like (or dislike), by those I live with and around. That identity cannot be changed by fiat, through the passing of laws or the imposition of controls. And that identity extends beyond the political to a much broader set of values, views and interests. I hope these next few things will help illustrate:

1. In Denmark, voting patterns show a surprising correlation with the distribution of a glottal stop used differently in different Danish dialects. Strange Maps who report this finding have shown similar distributions with Socialist votes in France, political allegiance in the Ukraine and election results in Poland.

2. Bradford Council uses self-identification to place individuals in communities with remarkable effectiveness – ask a set of people where they live and map like responses and you’ll get a good definition of the local boundaries (and you’ll hear just how resentful Keighley people are at being ‘lumped in' with Bradford)

3. Most associations with “home” fade pretty fast in immigrant communities – but check out support for football clubs and you’ll see it passed down the generations especially where clubs have a wider cultural association (Celtic, Rangers, Barcelona, Lazio)

The idea of sovereignty makes little sense at this local level – these cultural associations and personal identities are not manifestations of sovereign power. Yet we talk of sovereignty as if it is simply shaped by a “national identity” rather than imposed by those in power upon the people they govern.

Finally – and before people get too excited about this description – none of this justifies supra-national government. Indeed, I see supra-national government as a backward step, as the reinvention of the bonarpartist myth not as progress towards better government. After all, in a peaceful world we should need no national government just local governance in whatever form local people choose to order that government.

And that’s why cheese, the names we call bread, batter pudding and the way we drink our beer are far more important than the pomposities of administration or the ordering of political power.

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