Divided Are We?

Über geek- chique mag the Economist commissioned an extensive study to compare its native Great Britain to its great grandson, the United States. The impitus for this survey was a pair of press conferences by foreign leaders. At Camp David, in July of last year, President Bush called his country's relationship with the UK their "most important bilateral relationship." For his part, new UK PM Gordon Brown commented on the two countries "shared values... the belief in the dignity of the individual, the freedom and liberty that we can bring to the world..."

However, French President Nicholas Sarkozy also spoke of his country's "fraternité" with Great Britain, because of their similar cultures-- tastes in music and literature-- that is independent of the United States.

So, the Economist had this poll done to see just how similar citizens of the two countries think. After all (as has been pointed out many times) we share the same language, values, and the most famous Briton of the 20th Century was 1/2 American.

Its results showed that Britain seems more European than American, as it's far more liberal. This chart is somewhat difficult to read, but it shows the disparity within each country's conservative and liberal elements (notice Britain is more intellectually homogenous), and then compares the corresponding factions against each other. Kind of convoluted, yes, questionable because the poll notes no margin of error, yes again, but interesting nonetheless.

For a complete breakdown of how each country stands on specific issues, consult the table to the left. It's too small to read, so check out the article, here which has a link to the full image toward the end of the page (left side).