The Rise Of The Anti-Socrates

I’d like to reference two of my favourite pop culture icons in a discussion of the rise of what I like to call the ‘anti-Socrates.’

First, The Simpsons episode Little Girl in the Big Ten…

“Laziness is counter-revolutionary. Questions are decadent. Fast hands mean less whipping.” See here.

There Is Nothing New Under The Sun

I have often made reference to my 1970s childhood when discussing the racism-obsessives at the Guardian and the so-called BBC. Back then there really was racial prejudice – the language you heard on the street, the unfunny racist ‘comedians’ on prime time television and monkey noises on the football terraces when an opposition player who happened to be black got the ball. This last one mystified me as fans of my hometown club would do it even when there were several black players in their own team.

 

The 1980s, a much-derided decade, was a great one for me personally as it was when I was a teenager and was able to leave home to attend university. This simple act – leaving home at eighteen – forced me to grow up and learn about things I had taken for granted, cooking my own meals and washing my own clothes in particular. The horrendous expense young people face at university today forces many of them to live at home; I’m pretty sure my university days would have been much less enjoyable had I been forced to live at my parents’ house.