An image struck me when I was watching an old documentary about Britain's failed "System-Built" housing scheme of the 1960s. It was the image of the Queen opening a particularly nasty set of Brutalist flats in Glasgow. That image, and its significance, really sums up this weekend's unquestioning tossing of itself to the royalist crocodiles.
Any monarch is a three second ripple in a sea of misery, exacerbated by royalist reference. Open some flats, put up a plaque, wave politely and smile gracefully. But once she's gone, with the whiff of privilege lingering in our trite nostrils, the decay starts to show. This is the problem of a society with a figurehead: it rips to shreds our own worth.
And similar to the strive to build shoddy, inhabitable housing projects, we celebrate with wild abandon without looking for the consequences.
"Fuck you, Ma'am."
No comments:
Post a Comment