When I was a kid – 6 or 7 years old – there was a craze for badges, in which I participated willingly. I remember some business friend of my father’s obtaining a BP badge, and the car companies used to sell them or give them away, I can’t remember. I must have had 30 of them, all pinned to my anorak.
Badges are a public statement of belonging to something. If you see someone with a ‘ban the bomb’ badge or a ‘rock against racism’ one they are trying to identify themselves, to people they don’t even know; where they stand, what sort of people they are.
Of course when I was six BP, in some vague way, was an association to be aspired to, for a child with no formed views of its own, but in later life I ask myself ‘why?’. I have quite firm views on fascism, racism, all manner of things, but I don’t profess them in the street. The reason these people do is a complex that they actually have nothing to offer in the way of opinion or conversation so they may as well hang their hat on some aspirant goal. It is a sign of weakness, of inarticulacy.
So what I want to know is why the American president has to wear a badge. George Bush wore one – I’m not sure if it was the same one – and I think Clinton, too. We can’t quite see it. Is it the vague aspiration ‘I’m pro democracy’ (let’s hope he is) or is it the sort of mawkish, folksy thing The Sun would issue to its readers ‘supporting our boys in Afghanistan’ (again, let’s hope he does, he’s the Commander in chief).
What can it be that, before shaking hands with him, before recognising him as the most powerful man in the world, we are supposed to think ‘Oh, you’re one of those guys who is a supporter of….’?
I think we should be told.
Badges are a public statement of belonging to something. If you see someone with a ‘ban the bomb’ badge or a ‘rock against racism’ one they are trying to identify themselves, to people they don’t even know; where they stand, what sort of people they are.
Of course when I was six BP, in some vague way, was an association to be aspired to, for a child with no formed views of its own, but in later life I ask myself ‘why?’. I have quite firm views on fascism, racism, all manner of things, but I don’t profess them in the street. The reason these people do is a complex that they actually have nothing to offer in the way of opinion or conversation so they may as well hang their hat on some aspirant goal. It is a sign of weakness, of inarticulacy.
So what I want to know is why the American president has to wear a badge. George Bush wore one – I’m not sure if it was the same one – and I think Clinton, too. We can’t quite see it. Is it the vague aspiration ‘I’m pro democracy’ (let’s hope he is) or is it the sort of mawkish, folksy thing The Sun would issue to its readers ‘supporting our boys in Afghanistan’ (again, let’s hope he does, he’s the Commander in chief).
What can it be that, before shaking hands with him, before recognising him as the most powerful man in the world, we are supposed to think ‘Oh, you’re one of those guys who is a supporter of….’?
I think we should be told.
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