John,
BTW, welcome to the USMA Listserver! I've enjoyed your contributions very much.
Thank you, also, for this analysis of the UK metrication situation.
Recent Internet rumors have it that the U.S. dollar, the Canadian dollar, and
the Mexican peso are to be replaced by a new North American currency alleged to
be called the amero. This kind of storymongering fuels the fires of U.S.
nationalism and, as you wisely point out, the media do not make the distinction
between nationalistic fears and practical reality. Many Americans would
bristle at the prospect of an EU-like arrangement in North America, but this
fear of loss of sovereignty distorts the measurement issue here, too. SI is
international, and now, thanks to the NASA declaration, it is also
extraterrestrial; it belongs to "all people, in all times." Like mathematics
itself, it does not affect the independence of any country. In fact, like
mathematics, it is a tool for empowerment for each nation. How we get to shout
over the din of local politics about this is a problem.
Your mention of politicization of measurement in the UK is a lesson we
metrication supporters in the U.S. need to learn. I am a bit afraid that, once
a metrication plan sees the light of day in the U.S., politicians will attempt
to make political hay on it here, too. That is why we need the strongest
possible political and industrial leadership on U.S. metrication. Our President
and our manufacturing captains have to join together to explain carefully, but
forcefully, to the American people why it is a practical long-term necessity
for the country to go metric. National assent to the changeover is vital.
Paul T.
----- Original Message -----
From: John Frewen-Lord
To: trus...@grandecom.net ; U.S. Metric Association
Sent: 08 March, 2009 12:06
Subject: Re: [USMA:43491] the UK--metrophobia run riot
Paul:
What you say is perfectly true, although the US and the UK have different
reasons for maintaining a perception of national identity (and I will also
include Canada here, as I lived there for very many years and experienced that
country's, as yet incomplete, switch to SI).
In the UK's case, national identity does come into it, but this is primarily
because of the UK's membership of the EU, headquartered in Brussels. Many of
the UK's current laws and directives now come from Brussels rather than
Westminster, and a good proportion of the UK population resents this - and, it
has to be said, with good reason, for the EU in making these laws is subjected
to far too little accountability and oversight. Unfortunately, completing the
UK's switch to SI is now inextricably caught up in this, aided and abetted by
those UK politicians who have shamelessly capitalized on this EU phobia to win
votes, and further reinforced by a media that is openly hostile to SI.
Compounding this is the perception, also reinforced by the media, that the UK
and the US share a common (non-metric) measuring system (much of it is not
common at all, but again that is ignored by the media), and therefore, so the
reasoning goes, the UK should not go any further down the metric road until the
US does. I am sure that similar reciprocal sentiments operate in the US, even
if only at a low level.
Where politicians of all stripes in the UK have failed miserably in their
duty to the country is showing that the metric system is world-wide, and has
nothing at all to do with Brussels ramming it down the UK's throat. It is
however going to take a brave leader to sell that to the country, even though
having two systems (one legal, one quasi-legal, even though it's not taught
officially in schools!) is costing the country huge amounts in lost
productivity and education time.
Finally, in Canada's case, while the country does not have quite the same
hang-ups about sovereignty in the same way the US and the UK have, it is also
caught between two competing national identity idealogies - one, wanting to
keep some (metric) distance (sorry!) between itself and the US, in case it
becomes subsumed by the US, the other recognizing that the US is by far
Canada's largest trading partner, and that therefore Canada is still going to
have to undertake some business in Imperial units.
If we could square that circle, resistance would be much more easily overcome.
I do hope you enjoy Scotland - a lovely country.
----- Original Message -----
From: Paul Trusten
To: U.S. Metric Association
Sent: Sunday, March 08, 2009 4:13 PM
Subject: [USMA:43491] the UK--metrophobia run riot
It seems to me that the U.S. and the UK share one thing in common with
measurement: a jingoistic fear of changing to metric.
A past issue of Metric Today (March-April 2005) theorized on the origins of
this fear, part of which is a kind of metrological nationalism. The editorial
stated, in part:
But metrophobia finds one of its best lightning rods in patriotism: that
Americans will be somehow less American if they use metric. The often-repeated
riddle in the 1994 film, Pulp Fiction, "What do they call a (McDonald's)
Quarter PounderT in France? . . .they have the metric system . . ." popularized
the distorted concept in the U.S. that metric is an overseas threat instead of
a world standard. The issue often comes down to tying U.S. superpower status
with its measurement units: that the country is somehow supreme because it
adheres stubbornly to its antiquated system, as if the adherence to outdated
measurement units confers a talisman-like protection against conquest.
I have never lived in the United Kingdom, and cannot speak personally for
the British people. Maybe I'll be able to find out more when I visit Scotland
in August. But, now, I see an island nation beset with a world measurement
system closing in on all sides. Ireland, which, in 2005, changed its road signs
to read in kilometers and kilometers per hour, faces the UK border at Northern
Ireland. And, of course, the Channel Tunnel pipes the metric system into the
country from the southeast. So, in the case of the UK, it seems that a new
system of measurement is closing in.
I wonder to what extent, in both America and Britain, it remains
necessary to continue to reinvest in the old units as a cache of national
identity. I hope that, one day, for the sake of both countries, national
strength and popular honor will be found in common sense. Both Britons and
Americans should conclude that metrication is victory, not defeat.
Paul Trusten, R.Ph.
Public Relations Director
U.S. Metric Association, Inc.
www.metric.org
3609 Caldera Blvd. Apt. 122
Midland TX 79707-2872 US
+1(432)528-7724
trus...@grandecom.net
