Monday 15 November 2010

The Voice Of Entitlement…

Yesterday 50,000 people marched in London against the proposed Coalition cuts to higher education.
Most of them did a lot more than march, didn’t they?
What brought everyone out on to the streets? The general consensus was anger.
No, it was a raging sense of entitlement, sweetie. That’s all.

The ones who have a right to anger are too busy working to worry about rioting, as 'Fuel Injected Moose' points out…
The rights afforded by education are not simply the reserve of the elite
Oh, stop right there!
One of the speakers at the rally was Angela Maddock, an art lecturer from Swansea University. She rejected the idea that the arts should be subordinated to so-called "useful" subjects, and instead argued for a defence of "art for art's sake".
Well, she would, wouldn't she?
The Government's decision to ringfence science and technology while cutting the entire teaching budget for the arts and humanities, points to an alarming ethos.
What, that the state and its taxpayers should only subsidise useful subjects, if they subsidise any at all?
The biggest cheer came when speakers made the connection between the "eye-watering" price of proposed tuition fees and the banking scandal. Radicalism is in the air. The rage is palpable.
What connection?
Perhaps this drove a small group of protesters, by no means representative of the whole, to smash their way into the lobby of Millbank Tower and on to the roof.
Or, perhaps not. Perhaps this was always the plan?
Most of the demonstrators I spoke to did not condone these actions, but were glad that the message of the day was clear, written in red paint and unfurled from the top of Tory HQ: Stop The Cuts.
I think you'll find a quite different message was received - loud and clear - by the rest of us....

6 comments:

Bucko said...

""Most of the demonstrators I spoke to did not condone these actions""

Not pubicly but they still want their free lunch so they didn't denounce these actions either.

Ta for link.

Anonymous said...

oh dear have the poor little darlings forgotten who brought in the fees? course they have, history is a short lived subject these days for most of these imbeciles.

Lets try this: 16-20quid a week for each course attended? wow thats not bad and guess what no debt?? thats what 3-4hrs flipping burgers or pulling pints or less than they would spend on one round with their mate per week.

Better still stick them all in the army and use them to find IED's so the real troops can do their jobs.

For goodness sake said...

when I was younger, the phrase "Arts for arts sake" drew the witty response:

"Farts for farts sake."

I rest my case.

Jiks said...

I'd like to idle around for 3 years but I need someone else to pay, maybe these students could fund me?

ivan said...

Looking back 60 years to my time in university I don't see that we had everything given to us. I got a grant of £35 a year - anything else I wanted I had to find myself by working very early mornings and late evenings.

Maybe to-days students should have to work their way through uni as we did. There would be less energy for demonstrations and the endless pub crawls that seem to be a very large part of university life today.

JuliaM said...

"oh dear have the poor little darlings forgotten who brought in the fees?"

No, I think they they just feel that it doesn't matter...

"Looking back 60 years to my time in university I don't see that we had everything given to us. I got a grant of £35 a year - anything else I wanted I had to find myself by working very early mornings and late evenings."

Indeed. And as a consequence, students were better prepared for work. Whereas today's crop...