The Scottish mind: Glaswegian social structure and its relationship to the Scottish character

Abstract

This thesis is an attempt to describe Scottish National Character in Structuralist terms, working at that level of abstraction concerning the Social. It commences by taking a synchronic view of one Scottish city, Glasgow, which would at first sight appear to be atypical, and analysing it as a Dual Organisation. The flaws and inadequacies of the model in dealing with the Glasgow data give a firm directional bane from which to extend the boundaries of analysis both spatially and historically. Scottish History is examined for signs of Dualism out with the modern Glasgow era. It is found that a propensity for dualism can be observed in several periods of history, especially at times of societal stress, but is not quite so marked at other times. However, underlying the thread of Scottish History, there is found a constant factor, a certain "style" of which dualism is an extreme manifestation. The style is termed "defensiveness". The specificity of Scottish history and character is found to lie in the fact that when society perceives things going wrong; blame is laid on outsiders or anomalous insiders. When life is perceived as proceeding well, the Scots are more tolerant, but a propensity towards xenophobia is always dormant, awaiting activation when bad times arrive. An attempt is made to elucidate the generator of this style, and the concept of "template" is used. A Scottish Template is discerned which satisfactorily explains the above characteristics, and which also allows one a rethink of the Glasgow data, showing Glaswegian behaviour to be one particular manifestation of the general pattern, thus securely anchoring Glasgow in the total Scottish context.