corcadorca
02-12-2009, 09:48 PM
McWilliams and the 'good room' metaphor
There are parallels between the way in which the church and the political/financial class have abused the country and then covered up. They've closed ranks to maintain face, used 'mental reservation' to cling to power, refused to admit mistakes or wrongdoing or knowledge of wrongdoing. All the while they've retreating further in to spin and evasion and lies to hold on to prestige wealth, All the while they wring their little hands and sob tell us they've our best interests at heart and though mistakes have been made they want only to make sure everybody is looked after.
Sometime I think McWilliams metaphors and neologisms trite but I like this one alot. The metaphor is of poverty pretending it is rich. I think it works for moral as well as monetary currency.
Concurrently, there's the moral destitution of of the church maintaining the net curtains, the tea and the special biscuits of respectibility for paddy public and the government using the housekeeping money to pay anglo and prettify the banks so we will be well thought of by the more affluent neighbours (what would they think of us if a bank fell).
These two are like the good room. It's not that there's something shameful about not having disposable income, what repells me is the motions of making an impression on people you think you need to, gawdy pretences to having resourses (of a material or spiritual kind,) not actually possesed or enjoyed. This genteel display of a special, uninhabited ornate space bearing little relation to reality, opened occasionallyy, eveyone in sunday clothes standing up straight with hands by their sides trying desperately to give the impression that this how the inhabitants might be found any day of the week is farcical. Everybody concerned of course, including the visitor, knows it's illusory. After the visitor leaves through the seldom used front door the sherry the fine china is locked up again in the room with the porcelain dogs, the gold coloured brush and tongs and the floral wallpaper, and everybody goes back to furtive meaness
relevant to both church and state skip to about 17 minutes in to it.
ZYeFXOpHY4Q
http://www.liverpoolmuseums .org.uk/mediacentre/Imagebank/graphics/large/julian_brain.jpg
There are parallels between the way in which the church and the political/financial class have abused the country and then covered up. They've closed ranks to maintain face, used 'mental reservation' to cling to power, refused to admit mistakes or wrongdoing or knowledge of wrongdoing. All the while they've retreating further in to spin and evasion and lies to hold on to prestige wealth, All the while they wring their little hands and sob tell us they've our best interests at heart and though mistakes have been made they want only to make sure everybody is looked after.
Sometime I think McWilliams metaphors and neologisms trite but I like this one alot. The metaphor is of poverty pretending it is rich. I think it works for moral as well as monetary currency.
Concurrently, there's the moral destitution of of the church maintaining the net curtains, the tea and the special biscuits of respectibility for paddy public and the government using the housekeeping money to pay anglo and prettify the banks so we will be well thought of by the more affluent neighbours (what would they think of us if a bank fell).
These two are like the good room. It's not that there's something shameful about not having disposable income, what repells me is the motions of making an impression on people you think you need to, gawdy pretences to having resourses (of a material or spiritual kind,) not actually possesed or enjoyed. This genteel display of a special, uninhabited ornate space bearing little relation to reality, opened occasionallyy, eveyone in sunday clothes standing up straight with hands by their sides trying desperately to give the impression that this how the inhabitants might be found any day of the week is farcical. Everybody concerned of course, including the visitor, knows it's illusory. After the visitor leaves through the seldom used front door the sherry the fine china is locked up again in the room with the porcelain dogs, the gold coloured brush and tongs and the floral wallpaper, and everybody goes back to furtive meaness
relevant to both church and state skip to about 17 minutes in to it.
ZYeFXOpHY4Q
http://www.liverpoolmuseums .org.uk/mediacentre/Imagebank/graphics/large/julian_brain.jpg