Not much has changed

Subject: Not much has changed.

Should art be in tune with the nationalistic mood of the people or should it always be breaking new ground and seek satire as a way of expressing itself. Can we the people be trusted with the joke that all societies are meant to be lampooned because of the very nature of societies own pomposity. 
Reading books on the Raj or the intrigue of Mountbatten to get his place man, Prince Philip of Greece (now the Duke of Edinburgh) into power by marrying Princess Elizabeth and so elevate the name of Mountbatten above Windsor, one is struck by the convoluted intricacy of power and patronage. The so called Establishment with its privilege and rank and all the outlandish gold braid and cocked hats  to herald who is who in the zoo. The white water ride of innuendo and Machiavellian plotting which proceeds upper crust society is ripe for satire if only to burst the bubble of their own self centred interest.
Nationalism was never meant for the ordinary man in the street. Cultural affinity yes but nationalism was the jingoistic device most famously depicted in the poster "Your Country Needs You". "Needs You", well yes as cannon fodder, shooting practice for the German machine gunners. The grainy pictures of undernourished grey little figures, hauled out of the dirty city streets, weeks before, ordered to  gallantly run across the "no man's land" between the trenches (there's and ours) to be systematically mown down and join the others dying all around, is an obituary to nationalism
It was Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen who brought the art of descriptive poetry to bare on the carnage and the wilful disdain of 'class indifference' exhibited by the Staff Officers sending the men into an early death. 

Society back home was largely indifferent to the Butchers the Bakers and the Candlestick makers who slipped and slithered through the mud and the oncoming hail of bullets, each with a soldiers name on it. Society busied itself with other things, things which were beyond the imagination of the soldier. 
Art was not immoderate in depicting the bloody battle. It had itself to slither through the minefield of censorship, necessary as part of the war effort to keep Johnny Public in the dark. The redacted pen, still favoured by those in power who wish, for self preservation to deceive.

In the days of Raj it was the insufferable formality of "form".  Knowing what it meant by the oblique opacity of breeding and what breeding was for (to keep the other buggers out). Efficiency, having a good head on your shoulders, intelligence, were not the keys to promotion either in the military or in civilian business. The school tie and a certain phrase of speech, the ability to accentuate an accent which is immediately recognisable to certain of your peers and which defines which class you grew up in. These were the touch stones for getting on, and not much has changed.