Class

Gale force wind, a continuation of the rain-gloomy weather we’ve had this week. I talked to Mum and Dad about how Western ‘civilization’ has ruined primitive cultures such as the Kalahari Bushmen, the American Indians, Zanskarians, Eskimos etc., and has reduced them to theft, alcoholism and degradation.

I went over the top by saying, “Perhaps it’d be as well if we were all wiped out by a nuclear war . . .” which brought anger down upon my head (Mum: “I never want to hear you say that here again”). I didn’t really mean it; it was just a manifestation of the mood which produced all those negative vibes on Sunday.

This, in turn, spurred on Dad to talk about the “better” class of person who aspire to own their own houses and have (he says) the “welfare of the country at heart.” He claims they're superior to “morons” who like to booze, gamble and live in council houses. I hated the class position he was taking up, as if his beloved home-owners are any better; they just wallow in shit of a different type and are equally as narrow minded only in a more subtle way,

 To illustrate his point he used Nanna B. & Nanna P. as examples; the former, once the wife of an aspiring self-made man was ruined by the Depression: the latter “never wanted anything better.” Yet who's the more selfless, the kinder, the more broad-minded, the better human being?

It made me sick, but I felt a kind of sorrow also.