Language of the riots

 Of all the analysis being rushed out in response to the riots nothing has been written that sounds as honest and full as the riot girls on the bbc radio show who said, ‘We’re just showing the rich people that we can do what we want.’ (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14458424) Apart from being a lovely clear sentence with a great rhythm (joke, but true) the line’s form and content is in unity. Something in them resonates and they have the words to express it.

The political and journalistic class don’t. Think about Cameron or Miliband, every time they start making a point about morality. Suddenly a little rupture opens up between the words and the meaning. The words seem to shrink. It is the overpowering feeling of modern British moral talk—a disconnect. The concepts get articulated but only the mouth is engaged, the rest of the body is numb. Or a faint engagement of the heart, a remnant of what is desired. And it is the most common feeling I’ve had while reading the commentators and listening to the politicians. A speech that tries to find words for sentiments that don’t really have any belief. Calling society sick when they mean that they themselves are in robust health but an underclass is ill and in need of their corrective. Why is none of them saying ‘we are sick…’? That shift in language would suddenly give someone a genuine voice—a full bodied voice. A speech whose burden would be shared by a community, a people, a history, a Fall. 

   Some deeper problems in Britain are being articulated in these articles, not in the meaning of the sentences but in the ever diverging paths of the words and their feelings.