The Royal Wedding Recently my neighbours have been debating the pros and cons of having a street party on the day of the royal wedding. Apparently there is some public funding available for hosting street parties, specifically allocated for that occasion. While many people hardly need an excuse for a party, some neighbours have expressed serious opposition to the idea, particularly the thought of public money being used as bribes to artificially make it look as though we want to celebrate the wedding. These are people who wouldn't normally take such a political stance, and it makes me think there's a change taking place in public attitudes.
A few days ago I came across this Laurie Penny article in the New Statesman: http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/laurie-penny/2011/01/wedding-government-public She says it all so well: "Over the next two and a half years, a full calendar of bread and circuses has been scheduled to keep the British public happy and obedient while the government puts its economic shock doctrine into effect. This year, it's the Wedding of Mass Distraction; next year it's the Diamond Jubilee and after that the Olympics. The timing is a gift for any government attempting to push through punitive and unpopular reforms - the chance to smother dissent with a dampened commemorative tea towel of pomp and circumstance. This is the highest function of what Guy Debord called the society of the spectacle: not just to distract popular attention from the machinations of government, but artificially to invoke the imagery of a national consensus that doesn't exist. In David Cameron's Britain, respect for the popular mandate is in no way important. All that matters is the iconography of public ritual, just enough to make everybody shut up and shout hurrah." Laurie Penny has a lot of critics, it seems she had a private school background, and she's accused of being a fake. I like her writing, and I think she captures the feelings of the moment. She says it a lot better than me. I wanted to make something around this subject, so here's my humble offering: http://davemiller.org/all_in_it_together/ep_jan22_11.png _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list [email protected] http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
