The English male-bonding argument also shares many features with similar practices in other cultures: all such ‘ritual disputes’ involve a tacit non-aggression pact, for example – in effect, an understanding that all the insults and attacks are not to be taken too seriously. What is distinctively English about the English version, it seems to me, is that our natural aversion to earnestness – and specifically our predilection for irony – makes this understanding much easier to achieve and to maintain.
2
