Pastoral. It is hard to think of another word that says as much about British culture.

Owning, and actually using, a hardback dictionary is an admission of age. According to mine, pastoral has four meanings:

1. relating to cattle or sheep farming
2. (of a creative work) portraying country life
3. relating to the giving of spiritual guidance by a Christian minister
4. relating to a teacher’s responsibility for the general well-being of students

I am interested in what we can infer from the linkages between these meanings. For instance, let’s consider the linkage between 1 and 2: we imagine country life and the countryside within the context of cattle and sheep farming. We find it very hard to imagine the country without it. Popular television and radio programmes like Countryfile and The Archers emphasize it. We walk through Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, such as the Lake District or Brecon Beacons, without wondering whether they might be even more beautiful, and support a greater abundance of life, if they were covered in native woodland.

Or between 1 and 3: cattle and (especially) sheep farming are central to the Judaic-Christian tradition. In the story of Cain and Abel, Abel was a shepherd. Jesus was/is the Lamb of God, born in a manger. Several Christmas carols feature shepherds and their flocks. The stories influence the imaginations of all of us, regardless of our views on religion. And the pastoral scene is glorified: livestock farming portrayed as the good life throughout our history, from Abel to Arcadia to The Archers.

Or 1 and 4: a teacher is a shepherd and school children are the flock. The linkage within our education system is potent, because it ensures that the pastoral idyll is embedded in the psyche of the next generation.

A few years ago, I attended a public lecture in Oxford given by the Astronomer Royal, Martin Rees. Like the book he was discussing, Rees was mild, urbane and thoughtful. But what struck me most was a comment he made in passing: it is entirely possible that – under the assumption humanity survives long enough – future generations will look back with amazement and disgust at our generation’s consumption of farm animals. Pursuing the thread, I wonder whether those future generations will also marvel at all the accompanying stories of virtue in our media and literature; or the environmental recklessness with which we and our forebears transformed the land surface of the planet to accommodate this very inefficient and probably unsustainable way of feeding ourselves.

But such is the power of the millennia-old idyll that this reaction may be some way off, unless imminent ecological collapse forces a hasty re-invention of our cultural narrative.