You’ve come a long way baby… er, I mean, dame…
: So Anita Roddick is now a dame.
Uh-oh. So she’s a member of the ruling class, the establishment, the power elite.
This will ruin all her fun.
For her, fun is dissent and dissent is fun. She wrote about it on her website.
Suddenly dissent has become popular. It is spreading around the world at ever increasing speed. It will change everything and it will get more significant as the decade advances….
The voice is at times unhappy, silly, brave or absurd. But however it appears, it expresses dissent or insubordination. At its least it says “there is a ruling class, but no, I’m not member of it.” At it’s most it says, “Not only am I not a member, but what a ridiculous/wasteful/vicious/unfair way to run the show.” This I take to be dissent.
Dissent, let me tell you, is not an end in itself. Nonconformists like me can quickly and easily become outmoded, obsessive and even reactionary. So it has to be sharpened. It has to be linked to systematic action, if it is to be anywhere near politically fruitful.
And, by God, it has to be fun.
Despite her protestation that protest is not an end in itself, clearly, for Roddick, it is. She defines herself — as do many of her confreres — by her dissent, her nonconformity, her negativity. They are always against something. They protest for fun and sport.
That is essentially irresponsible. Ms. Roddick — pardon me, Dame Roddick — face it: You are part of the ruling class and your silly, meaningless little award from the silly, meaningless Queen confirms it. At some point, you need to admit that you have wealth and power and influence and you need to use it for with your fellow ruling-class powerful to build. You need to do more than just complain.
