Collective Joy

Jenny Diski 
30 July 2012

http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2012/07/30/jenny-diski/collective-joy/

'I forgot how rare and intoxicating collective joy is. It
revives the heart, a bit, doesn't it?' said Megan
Cat-Noises on Twitter. I may be the only person in the
country to have woken up depressed on Saturday morning.
Perhaps it's just what collective joy does to me and I am
therefore to be pitied. It's certainly the case that I
deeply dislike spectacle of all kinds and the heavy
symbolism it demands. Still, let me try and clarify a
little my response to the Olympic opening ceremony.

I'm pretty sure that nothing more overtly political or
antagonistic to government policy could have been staged
in such circumstances, and Danny Boyle, his writer and the
performers are to be saluted for giving the dissenting
left a morale boost. Even more they are to be
congratulated on provoking the right and forcing the likes
of David Cameron and Boris Johnson to put a brave face on
the veiled criticism they were forced to view.

It also revealed the extent to which the right abhors the
NHS and what it calls variously 'multiculturalism' and
'political correctness'. On the night, the Tory MP
previously known mostly for attending a Nazi-themed stag
party complained: 'The most leftie opening ceremony I have
ever seen - more than Beijing, the capital of a communist
state! Welfare tribute next?' Toby Young felt as if he'd
'just watched a #27 million Party Political Broadcast for
the Labour Party'. (That would be the Old Labour Party of
myth and story.) On Saturday, the Daily Mail wailed about
'the NHS being shamefully glorified', and then went on in
truly mad-dog style about a scene: 'showing a mixed-race
middle-class family in a detached new-build suburban
home'. It went on:

This was supposed to be a representation of modern life in
England but it is likely to be a challenge for the
organisers to find an educated white middle-aged mother
and black father living together with a happy family in
such a set-up.

Even the Mail had second thoughts about this paragraph,
and revised it to read:

This was supposed to be a representation of modern life in
England but such set-ups are simply not the 'norm' in any
part of the country. So why was it portrayed like this and
given such prominence? If it was intended to be something
that we can celebrate, that two people with different
colour skin and different cultural heritages can live
harmoniously together, then it deserves praise.

So far so good. What was more, there was no sign of either
Tony Blair or Stephen Fry in the entire three-hour show.
The liberal press and twitterers who regularly howl about
the doings of the coalition government delighted in it,
and spoke of its 'progressive imagery' and the
'subversive' content.

But back to my antipathy for spectacle and the scant
opportunity it gives for more than a general lift to the
low mood of those of us who feel we are witnessing the
grand finale of the welfare state and collective
responsibility. What we got in the montage of English
(rather than British) history were some very crude broad
strokes. The bucolic contentment of an unenclosed
countryside circa the age of the fairies, where everyone
played catch or danced round the maypole, gave way to the
evil industrial revolution, all smokestacks, fat-cat
capitalists and dirt-encrusted workers creeping out of the
earth. A dig at enterprise capitalism, the destruction of
the unions? Probably. Then the NHS sequence of dancing
nurses and bouncing sick children threatened by J.K.
Rowling's Voldemort. A hymn of national love for the NHS?
Certainly. But the nurses were dressed in the uniforms of
the 1950s and 1960s, and the love was expressed by a dozen
Mary Poppinses seeing off the bad guy. It was a wishful
tale of things long gone. It was love as sentiment, a
nostalgic cry for what has been lost. And it is lost.
There is no party of the left with a different attitude
towards the economy, privatisation and cuts in benefits
and the NHS.

I understand and appreciate the coding, but, unlike
everyone else, it left me as low as before it started. It
looked like a last shout. It seemed to infantilise us as
it pleased us. And after the athletes' parade (during
which, the Mail said, 'viewers dozed off to the procession
of banana republics and far-flung destinations nobody has
ever heard of or even cares for') we arrived at a
celebration of popular modernity: mostly singing and
dancing culture, and the not entirely uncomplicated or
benevolent wonders of the internet as Tim Berners-Lee
ciphered: 'This is for everyone.' It was all as
well-meaning as a village fete. People delighted in
describing it as 'bonkers' and typical British
idiosyncrasy. And that was very nice, but is it a little
sleepy-making?

The next morning the corporate seats for the Olympic
events were empty, the London 2012 shop was still boasting
'we are proud to accept only Visa payment cards', some of
the arrested Critical Mass cyclists were still in custody,
the missiles remain on the roofs, the NHS is still facing
#20 billion in cuts, Tory insistence of austerity
continues to justify slashing local services and
employment, and education is being returned to division by
class and wealth. Those opposed to all this are feeling
good. They've had their moment, publicly laughed in the
face of Cameron, and have a sense of collective
acknowledgment. As to making any difference, I'm not sure
a boost to our morale is quite enough.

___________________________________________

Portside aims to provide material of interest to people
on the left that will help them to interpret the world
and to change it.

Submit via email: [log in to unmask]

Submit via the Web: http://portside.org/submittous3

Frequently asked questions: http://portside.org/faq

Sub/Unsub: http://portside.org/subscribe-and-unsubscribe

Search Portside archives: http://portside.org/archive

Contribute to Portside: https://portside.org/donate