‘It’s in the Air, It’s in Your Bones’: Notes on an Aftermath - Salvage

‘It’s in the Air, It’s in Your Bones’: Notes on an Aftermath - Salvage: These are the early days of an even worse nation. 

At least for the most part the Left appears to have learnt that grief is necessary. Where once, after catastrophe, we might have expected many hack injunctions not to ‘wallow’, because  despair is a luxury, they are few today. Instead, in the writings, words and silences of shell-shocked activists since Labour’s agenda-shifting, landslide defeat, has been righteously unashamed lamentation. A wretched and necessary solidarity. Stormzy, so recently so eloquent on enraged class hope, now limns dolour as mass political phenomenon. ‘As soon as it hit midnight … it was like a dark cloud, that’s what it felt like. … Even waking up today, you can feel it. It’s in the air, it’s in your bones.’ 

We must learn to continue while our bones hurt. 

 



 

What happened?

Death to hot takes and to dogma. In the introspection of militant mourning, we stress yet again the necessity of humility. Of subjecting not only  the world but our own nostrums to ruthless critique. 

Granular details and breakdowns are emerging, but we need more, and more detailed, to approach a full analysis. What follow are starting points for analysis and discussion; obs