Wednesday 7 February 2024
A sort of loathing for real life
We are so divorced from it that we feel at once a sort of loathing for real life, and so cannot bear to be reminded of it. Why, we have come almost to looking upon real life as an effort, almost as hard work, and we are all privately agreed that it is better in books. And why do we fuss and fume sometimes? Why are we perverse and ask for something else? We don’t know what ourselves. It would be the worse for us if our petulant prayers were answered.
Fyodor Dostoevsky - Notes from Underground (1864)
Here in the UK with a general election looming, we see the loathing Dostoevsky saw over a century and a half ago. Our political classes have built it into the necessary art of political life, pandering to petulant prayers which must never, ever be resolved by consultation with real life. Below the pandering, the projects nobody voted for may continue.
Real life would destroy everything, all of our political games, fantasies and the political screen behind which we are not supposed to look. Keir Starmer and his Labour colleagues have no interest whatever in providing answers to anything real. No interest in correcting anything from the vast pile of failures the Tories have left, no interest in anything which could possibly be measured against real life.
The result is a mendacious swamp where nothing can be interpreted against a reliable yardstick because that would open the door to real life. There is no point trying to make sense of the swamp on its own terms because tomorrow those terms will have shifted. Real life is loathed and those who insist on referring to it may find themselves loathed too.
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7 comments:
Mendacious swamp ... yes.
"Real life is loathed and those who insist on referring to it may find themselves loathed too."
Today's events in Parliament have been particularly instructive in that regard. As soon as Sunak does something slightly more useful than usual - pointing out that the idiot opposite him doesn't appear to know what a woman is - there is a huge attempt to discredit him by waving the shroud of Brianna Ghey.
I'm wondering what the poor woman was doing in Parliament anyway. Two deranged kids killed her child. That's newsworthy, I guess. But why did she get to visit Parliament? It's almost as if someone thought that she needed to be paraded around to illustrate some point or other. Hypothesis: If you want to know what's in store for us, look who they are keeping in the public eye.
James - and not worth entering. Tempting, but not worth it.
Sam - and the poor woman doesn't seem to realise she is being paraded around. House of Lords next perhaps, because you are right, look who they are keeping in the public eye is a sure guide.
From Wizard of Oz... Dorothy pulls back the curtain and discovers the Wizard is nothing more than an ordinary man. Sometimes the curtain is blue, and sometimes the curtain is red. And blue or red it's beginning to look a bit tattered.
Je suis Dorothy Gale.
DJ - that's a good analogy - and until the curtain is pulled back, the Wizard is comfortable with his mendacity.
You can tell that Starmer is grandstanding. He doesn't deal in real life, as you say, as Brianha Ghey wasn't murdered for being a 'trans' - and wasn't even no 1 on their mad list. They just wanted to murder another young person; anyone would do for them.
Tammly - I agree, Starmer is grandstanding. Dishonest but that's the game, the only one he plays.
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