thanks
i often feel glad that i failed so miserably at so many crucial exams as well as almost every means of earning a living (which is by no means synonymous with failing as a human being, in my book) that life swiftly and permanently propelled me into the underclass; i get much more realistic view of society from down here, i do believe. a more human view. i could all too easily have lived out my life as an academic in an ivory tower, otherwise
..well sort-of, i think, like iris murdoch, i would always have developed an intense interest in the hearts and minds of my fellow human-beings, but... i mean, poverty, in our western, industrialised society is an enormous drag on the psyche. and i'm not sure you can comprehend just how destructive this thing is without experiencing, or at least understanding that drag. at the same time it seems seems to me that the bourgois world which murdoch inhabited is having the life sucked out of it by this intense focus on profit, so it's not even a good place to be any more, not unless you're really shallow. Middle-class people are more comfortable,from a purely materialistic POV, but who the hell wants
comfort above all else? Not anybody i know. Even the academics amongst my aquaintance have had their souls half-destroyed by the drive to force academia to justify its existence 'by turning a profit, and feel they might as well have sold out to Industry instead.
We've
all been impoverished, not just the poor people.
Hmmph. I really like Iris Murdoch, as you can probably tell. And I hope this doesn't sound like so much pretentious bollox. Citing Murdoch might be taken for a bad sign there
Heck, even i suspect myself of talking pretentious bollox, or some other sort of drunken self-indugence
still ot's 6.am, my judgement is prolly slightly wonky by now, Since i gave up drinking half-a-lifetime ago, sleep-deprivation is the nearest i get to being drunk. Better sign off before I start seeing pink elephants, hmm?