Stanislav has put his finger on it. He's off to wash his finger even as I type.
Gordon Brown is 'an eternal, blethering student.
That is why he is so irritating. Well, one of the reasons. He belongs to the species Narcolepticus adnauseam, genus Right Onanicus.
I knew them well when I was a student. In debates, they would rise from their seats to shout at anyone who disagreed with them. They refused to believe that they could be mistaken as they waved aloft the book they were currently reading, its author (probably American, probably from Berkeley) having torn the scales from their eyes. Recently. They were going to transform Life, the universe and everything. Only a fool or a villain would oppose their vision.
Their truth was superior to mine because it was self-evidently absolute, although they ruled out the concept of absolutes. Their opinions were superior 'values' (Scot. 'vahl-yews') whereas mine were dismissed as 'value judgements', ipso facto worthless. They would re-make the rules of debate and even philosophy itself in their own image.
Years later, they're still trying, having learned nothing. They are still blind to real life and still impervious to logic. Still vehement. Still superior (of course) and, above all, still right.
Back then, if argument would not persuade me, they would shout. If shouting would not convince me, they would wave placards. If their placards would not cow me, they would march and shout and wave placards. They'd show me and my 'kind'. They were united and could never be defeated.
The point is, they were right and I was wrong and... what was my stupid fucking question again? No, to hell with it, I could piss off. They were going to be the masters now.
In time, they grew too old to wave placards so they inevitably followed the time-honoured path carved by the young Communists whose set texts they had read, without necessarily calling themselves Communists - although some were.
In the good old days of lavish grants to 'student leaders on sabbatical' it was amazing how long some of them retained 'student' status - to age 29 and 30 in some cases. Eventually they were chucked out of the universities, a Desmond or a Thora not sufficing as a pass to the groves of academe, and moved seamlessly into the politics of controlling the people they could not persuade. Trade unions, local councils, quangos, Parliament and finally quangos again. The Lords, too, if their friends were in power when their time was up or their electors got wise and threw the buggers out.
One of them has now risen to the rank of Prime Minister. One or two of his Cabinet I used to know quite well, having engaged them in close-quarter combat when they were enthusiastic placard-wavers in the student politics of London. They have matured more than Gordon Brown - and they are wilier.
But now we have Prime Minister Brown, who grew older but never grew up. Still a student politician at heart. Still shouting and throwing things. He even looks all wrong in a suit.
Yes, you can take the man out of student politics but you cannot take student politics out of the man.
Written with all due respect to any student politician reading this. You do not have to follow that path. You can do better. If you are blessed, time will mature you as it does not mature all. I usually avoid giving advice but I will pass on one thing I was told a long time ago: try to see the world before you decide to rule it.
0 comments:
Post a Comment