Against Universities

Not even a stiff drink can stifle the disgust when scenes of ineffable ugliness intrude upon our view. Other means are required.

As you know, I have the misfortune of living within brief motoring distance of a university. Whenever I have reason to be in the area, usually for a supper rendezvous or a cultural event in a coat of Tweed, I am startled by the spectacle of repulsiveness before me. For stalking the university campus and the surrounding neighbourhood are some of the most unattractive people I have ever seen.

Distorted bodies and misshapen faces.

Bizarre, unnatural couplings like a horror-show.

Sociology students with beards and knit caps squatting in doorways chewing pistachio nuts.

Bearded academics in thick socks and sandals walking about unattended in plain view.

Fat bald men in sunglasses sitting in groups of five or more and shouting in various Central Asian dialects.

Throngs of menacing Tongans in hoodies and flip-flops.

I find the whole situation most distracting, when all I want to do is enjoy my wine and codeine in peace. Even I concede that it would be going too far to claim I am personally offended by the grotesque; but at the very least it leaves me seriously disgruntled. There must be a reason for it.

Why the preponderance in academia of people who are diseased and deranged? Maybe it is because such individuals are drawn to scholarly work. Not having been blessed with style or good looks, they adopt a total life of the mind.

Or perhaps ugliness itself is the physical manifestation of the soul-death caused by the bizarre ideas and antiquated theories promulgated by universities. Like an afflicted oak whose withered brown leaves are testament to the disease at its core, the petulant hunchbacks that populate universities are symptomatic of a rotten system.

Whatever the case may be, I have decided, it is our obligation to cultivate a life of beauty and goodness as an antidote to prevailing conditions.