these are just moments in the woods

The huge popularity of Florence and the Machine’s hermetic, Bloomsbury-meets-Björk aesthetic is symptomatic of a society that has become almost irretrievably divided without knowing it. Though it often makes the right noises and appears sympathetic to reform, liberal, middle-class Britain has abandoned counterculture and true radicalism for an unfortunate lingering obsession with escapist lifestyle fantasy. While inequalities have mushroomed in the UK in recent years, the British bourgeoisie has increasingly indulged in a way of life that seeks to cover over its affluence with vague gestures at radical chic, pastoral myth, and down-at-heel “folksiness”.