If you were born just after the end of World War 2, you grew up with one simple message from your parents and everyone of that generation. We were all in it together. And largely, this was true. Yes, there were defeatists; yes there were some inequalities, yes some were in more danger than others. But the last time Britain had confront a major, major crisis, we were all in it together.
Probably, no set of rhetorical tropes has ever been so misused and so soiled with mindless repetition as those from the year 1940. The sophisticated now mock, the unsophisticated are cynical, the ignorant are just ignorant. But guess what, for the first time in almost a century, it’s true again. We really all are in it together: not just in the UK, but, at least, in the whole of Europe.
There’s a small problem, though. We are a long way into the Age of Me. (I hope we’re coming out the other side, but that’s another issue). For decades now, the unofficial motto of the western world has been, It’s all about me. Hardly anyone now alive now remembers national leaders appealing for sacrifices. Hardly any national leaders would know how to do so without inwardly smirking, and asking if it will play well with focus groups. In the end, if this crisis deals a fatal blow to our current economic and social system (which not everyone would regret) it will be less because of technical, political or managerial failures, grave as they may be, but because of a failure of rhetoric. We no longer know how to talk about what need to be done. We struggle and make noises, but no coherent words come out. Think about that.
Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it 