Britain in the Eighties

Abstract

What was it about the social and political climate of the 1980s which rendered it so susceptible to familial ideology? One hundred, perhaps even fifty, years ago, one could safely anticipate living in a world that would look and function roughly like that of one’s mother, if not one’s grandmother. During the latter part of this century, that certainty changed but perhaps most quickly and radically, in the eighties. It was a period of great sociocultural dislocation and upheaval.¹ Drawing on a Barthesian concept of myth, we can see how contemporary mythologies functioned to explain and resolve change and paradox; social phenomena which were, in reality, insoluble.² In the eighties, such myths depended for their anchorage on the ideology of the family. While the family is a material entity meeting real people’s needs, it also meets needs which are socially and culturally constructed. The family annealed the gap between social crisis and political mythology, mythologies which were in themselves riven by contradiction. This chapter examines the historically specific nature of these turmoils and the myths in circulation.

There is no such thing as society, only individual men and women and their families.

Margaret Thatcher, 1983

An era of unprecedented uncertainty … shuffle for shuffle’s sake

Tom Peters, Thriving on Chaos, 1987

Uniformity has given way to broader choices … Mass markets have splintered. Size has lost its significance as it becomes increasingly clear that a company’s rank in the Fortune 500 is of limited importance.

Martin Davis, Chairman, Gulf + Western, Fortune, December 1985