photo: Paul Wade
Recently I've been thinking about who, what and how we commend. I am struck by the contrast in my grandparents' letters between what's seen as supportive behaviour - writing often, sending things, making plans for the future, volunteering in hospitals - and what we're doing now. Donations, yes, Volunteering, yes. But also applauding. I recently saw a meme suggesting we applaud children for being okay with having their lives disrupted. Part of me can't help but think, really? Why are we so sure that any friction, disruption - discomfort? - is inherently problematic, inherently something we need to congratulate ourselves for surmounting? It's not that it's not commendable. Just. I think we're made of stronger stuff than that acknowledges. This isn't about 'keep calm and carry on' - I loathe that phrase! It's more like when passengers applaud when a plane lands. Yes - the pilot can fly. If they couldn't, why would they be at the controls? I think we're like that - there's a great deal we can deal with, all of us, when it's necessary to do so.
Today we had two letters, both postmarked 12 May 1945. The first was actually written on the 9th. It's interesting how the frequency of these readings has led to us being almost in sync, 75 years after the fact.
It's interesting to be reading these in the context of VE-day celebrations, particularly in the context of Britishness.
One of the underlying themes for me in this project was always this sense of travel - when I made the installation for the first time, I wrote out, on the wall of New River Studios, the various locations I've lived.
I was born in the same city as Jack, who actually travelled further than I have, but unlike me, his absence was temporary.
But back to V-E Day.
Quite the graphic that.
There is so much comparison happening online, on memes, etc. comparing the current state of affairs to WWII. At least in the UK. Is this happening in other places? I would like to know.
A friend shared a meme the other, with a schedule of how to hold a VE-Day street party in the time of COVID.
This feels bizarre to me in a way I can't quite articulate in words.
The "Beachhead Bulletin", along with its rather curious and by appearances first-hand description of the German surrender (where did this text come from? who wrote it?), includes an impressive array of statistics on the financial and human cost of the European war. It counts 27 million humans, in the European war alone, and something in the region of $275 billion - it's unclear if that's just in Europe, or across all theatres.
These numbers are so large that they are hard to grasp.
I feel inarticulate today, like I'm not sure exactly what it is I'm trying to say, what it is that strikes me as wrong about all of it.
I suppose it's a few things. (When in doubt, make a list.)
On one hand, it's to do with the human and the financial. They're placed side by side here, but money is mentioned first. The human cost, though, is discussed in greater detail, it includes a far more atomised breakdown, by nation, and also acknowledges that some combatants were not fighting by choice.
There is an acknowledgement of all the Underground activity as well.
The detail suggests that these are valuable resources, whereas today, particularly in the United States, it feels like the sole tool by which value is measured, indeed the only thing able to be assessed as having any value at all, is money. Financial markets.
I look at the number of decisions about virus containment measures that seem to be made purely according to economic metrics.
But even before this, it was clear that the only measure of value that matters in monetary - we see it in the distribution of resources, in the relentless marginalisation of anything that doesn't march in lock-step with capitalism.
I began the post thinking about the lack of sentimentality I perceive in these letters - there is emotion, yes, even strong emotion. Today's letters for example - they're full of Jack's love for Winnie, his outrage at the behaviour of someone called Mrs Breneman, who seems to have claimed the whole of her (presumably dead?) son's insurance money, leaving (what appears to be) his wife and child in financial uncertainty.
But there is no vacuous emotionalising. There is nothing fluffy. I admire with this, even as I know this was a time in which it was hard to be a woman, a queer person, a person of colour. There is much to get really angry about in the 1940s and there is a great deal that needed to change.
That said, though - how is it possible that we seem to have arrived at a point where we acknowledge more fully the value of human emotions and the diversity of human experience (and the equal worth of those diverse expressions of humanity) and simultaneously subordinate human needs to financial ones.
This feels profoundly inhumane.
Perhaps it's also why I feel confused - by the V-E Day block party meme, by the clapping.
What is the evocation of WWII meant to effect in modern Britain? Are we supposed to recall a time when the ultimate sacrifice was demanded? Is it supposed to reinforce a patriotic sense of exceptionalism? Is it to remind us that it's possible to win? Except the context is completely different and it feels a bit absurd and somehow - is the word I want insulting? I genuinely don't know - to make the comparison.
Whatever it is, it doesn't feel very well considered.
Other questions emerging from today:
what items of clothing would you be most keen to purchase in a wartime environment? (khaki twill shorts, anyone?)
how long after a wedding is it appropriate to consider the couple bride and groom (or any combination thereof)?
Until Thursday,
Be Good.