We Need New Stories: Challenging the Toxic Myths Behind Our Age of Discontent

by Nesrine Malik

Wink logic broadly has two schools. The first innocently invokes patriotism, love for one’s country and the virtues of tradition. The language here paints a picture of an ideal snapshot in a country’s history. In the United States, it would be a suburban scene from the 1950s, an advertorial from before the civil rights movement encroached on the public peace, when blacks were commendably free and yet conveniently separate. It evokes a time of post-war reconstruction, growing affluence and consumerist plenty. The image is of a white man in a suit and a hat, carrying a briefcase, with a trench coat casually hanging over one arm. He is walking towards his Chevrolet, presumably to go to work, but is half turning towards his bungalow to wave goodbye to his wife and child. In the UK, it would be a black and white image from the Swinging Sixties, a few years after the end of wartime rationing and before the strikes, power cuts, pickets and inflation of the 1970s. Two young white women in mini dresses, sharp bobs and heavily made-up eyes walk on each side of a swaggering man in a fur coat. He is smoking a cigar and feigning shock at the camera as he walks down a cobbled London street.