The legacy and the woman
Apr. 9th, 2013 03:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lokifanI believe in speaking ill of the dead.
I think this is an opportunity to discuss Thatcher's legacy. I think any discussion of her life, now that she has died, has to include all the damage she wrought and the way her decisions are still reverberating in the rates of homelessness and the lack of social housing and about a million other things. The way she changed what it means to be Prime Minister, both by being the first and only woman to hold that office and by enormously diminishing the power of the Cabinet.
But I am really upset by the posts I've seen on LJ and Facebook celebrating her death. It's depressing and horrible. I mean, I get catharsis, and she was both symbol and architect of policy that hurt a lot of people and brings up deserved rage. But... Thatcher's death does no one any good. Celebrating it bothers me on two levels: first, she was an old woman in decline and celebrating deaths always bothers me.
Secondly, I feel like there's this weird tinge of triumph to it. Haha, we are still here, and you with your bigoted union-busting fascist-defending bollocks, you're in the ground! Except she had no power left - this wasn't a dictator's death where some good might come out of it. Her legacy lives on regardless of whether she does.
I think it's particularly difficult with Thatcher; she was so much a giant among pygmies, with such iron control over her cabinet, with such a strong single personal voice. Distinguishing between the public icon with the attendant associations and the private woman is even more impossible than usual. Which is part of why this is an 'I wish you wouldn't', not a 'don't'. I don't think the celebrating is actively harmful, just upsetting to me.
People can and will say what they want, of course. I just wanted to distinguish between 'don't speak ill of the dead' and 'I wish you wouldn't post party gifs because someone died'.
And, of course, to mark the passing of a giant. Even if she was the kind of giant who eats your cattle and steals your princess.
I think this is an opportunity to discuss Thatcher's legacy. I think any discussion of her life, now that she has died, has to include all the damage she wrought and the way her decisions are still reverberating in the rates of homelessness and the lack of social housing and about a million other things. The way she changed what it means to be Prime Minister, both by being the first and only woman to hold that office and by enormously diminishing the power of the Cabinet.
But I am really upset by the posts I've seen on LJ and Facebook celebrating her death. It's depressing and horrible. I mean, I get catharsis, and she was both symbol and architect of policy that hurt a lot of people and brings up deserved rage. But... Thatcher's death does no one any good. Celebrating it bothers me on two levels: first, she was an old woman in decline and celebrating deaths always bothers me.
Secondly, I feel like there's this weird tinge of triumph to it. Haha, we are still here, and you with your bigoted union-busting fascist-defending bollocks, you're in the ground! Except she had no power left - this wasn't a dictator's death where some good might come out of it. Her legacy lives on regardless of whether she does.
I think it's particularly difficult with Thatcher; she was so much a giant among pygmies, with such iron control over her cabinet, with such a strong single personal voice. Distinguishing between the public icon with the attendant associations and the private woman is even more impossible than usual. Which is part of why this is an 'I wish you wouldn't', not a 'don't'. I don't think the celebrating is actively harmful, just upsetting to me.
People can and will say what they want, of course. I just wanted to distinguish between 'don't speak ill of the dead' and 'I wish you wouldn't post party gifs because someone died'.
And, of course, to mark the passing of a giant. Even if she was the kind of giant who eats your cattle and steals your princess.
