Two Tribes - 17th April 2013

I have been in Therapy now for nearly a year.

Life moves so quickly these days, blink and you miss it.

Margaret Thatchers funeral today. All my anger has abated, it was almost an incidental news item. So many words spoken about her since her death was announced, her legacy, her divisive nature, her battles, her philosophies, her enemies. Two tribes.

For me, aged 50 now, the Thatcher past seems an ancient land, forgotten memories which have returned to me today.

Growing up in the shadow of the very real threat of a new cold war, which could heat up at any moment - unreal and absurdist... - (famously when Reagan was asked to test sound levels for a radio broadcast he decided to announce he had 'outlawed Russia forever' and would begin bombing in 5 minutes - a funny aside which went viral before we knew what 'going viral' meant). Two tribes.

Industrial strife nightly on the news bulletins (fixed times - three channels only); pitched battles between workers and the Police who often taunted strikers waving their overtime pay in their faces. Truncheon charges, mounted Police, like some terrible throwback to the Peterloo Massacre. There were two tribes.

The intolerance of any dissenting voices especially from the left. The rise of the extreme right wing Tabloid press, trumpeting the Tory governments agenda - such as the bribing of the working class by huge public sell-offs of Utilities we already owned and which we always thought would sit on the Monopoly board - immutable we thought. How naive we were.

There were two tribes. And they were at war.

And now we live in a society which is infinitely worse because of her legacy, because we no longer have tribes (which at least hinted at shared beliefs), but now we are all individuals, who have been bludgeoned into distrusting the old tribes, and who live their lives according to a philosophy of entitled individual empowerment, and the selfish pursuit of 'success' measured out not in happiness or contentment, but in purchased goods and access to the latest 'anything'.

Thatcher was wrong, Yes right now there is a society, a very fractured 'society', filled with very fractured people.

I have been in Therapy for a year now, and that process is about finding your voice. We should all be finding our voices.