Thursday 22 March 2007

A bag 'O Sh**te

An acquaintance of mine, who's proud of his degree from the University of Life, thinks this art, spirituality and expression stuff is bollox. "Let's sort out global warming, war and famine first" he says.

I say "Hear, Hear. Damned right we should. But tell me then, why are you working for Tescos and not Unseco?"

Do your bit, and pay your taxes to support those that have the ability and genius to make a big difference. We should play our little parts, and contribute in what small way we can, to improving our human condition. Let's not all do the same thing. It'll get a bit crowded.

This clip came to mind;

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Who needs art or spirituality when we have global warming, war and famine?

jamon said...

Perhaps we consume so rampantly to fill some 'spiritual' void. The size of your car becomes important in this respect.

In reducing our consumtion, which we're beginning to do I hope, there will be left a gap. For the many, this will need to be replaced with something more wholesome. Something more, spiritual, one may say.

Without this, the TV consuming masses will resist this change. I think.

Bear with me, I hope to make myself more clear in the coming days / weeks ;)

Unknown said...

My solution: compulsory lobotomies for everyone....sorted!

jamon said...

That'd do it.

Matt Colborn said...

"Who needs art or spirituality when we have global warming, war and famine?"

I'm somewhat staggered by this comment!

Some would suggest that one of the reasons we HAVE these problems is because of a lack of a central place in our lives for spirituality/values/art etc.....

As for me ;

1. I suspect that the human race will be extinct long before we've sorted out our problems enough to worry about 'extras' like art.... So we'd be puttiing them aside for eternity....

2. They're not really extras at all. Look. What's the point of life/civilization, etc. if it's bereft of beauty and the little extras that make life worth living? without these, we're just existing hand-to-mouth, and hand-to-mouth is rather too close to extinction for my liking....

3. The statement assumes that EITHER we sort out serious global problems OR we have art, spirituality. It seems perfectly reasnable to me that we can BOTH sort out our problems AND have art,etc.

False dilemma, here. (BTW this argument's very similar to those that say that human space flight (or insert any other thing you see as superfluous) is a 'waste of time'

The question is;

Superfluous to whom?

jamon said...

Hi Matt,

Thanks for the considered reply. I agree with your points.

However, I'm confident Murph was being ironic ;)