Yup. That's a chick with a grasshopper on her head.
So I had my last new classes today, and they were something of a mixed bag. In the morning I have this incredible haiku class that is at once superlatively comprehensible and very informative. I think it's the only lecture class I've had yet about which I can honestly say that I understood everything the professor said. The other class I had is this double-length Japanese language class taught by Grandmotherliness. She's this old Japanese lady that is just like some sweet grandma who's too nice to assign actual work or do much more than chat with the youngsters before making them some nice cookies and sending them on their way with a shiny new quarter in their pockets. The entire class I was seized with the nigh-uncontrollable urges to hug her and fall asleep, in that order. The class is going to be way too easy unless by some freak of chance the difficult jumps up to about ten times its current level. It seems like most of what we're going to be doing is chatting and drilling characters. Chatting is all well and good, but the character drilling is a couple years behind my level and therefore likely to be pretty boring. I guess that's all right, though, as it'll just make sure that I have an airtight knowledge of the basics.
The Japanese band I'm listening to right now ask very sagely, 'Are you ready or not for fly?' I don't know about you, but I'm not sure if I am.
I'm supposed to sort every bit of trash I use into burnables and non-burnables, with seperate pick-up days for each. This is manifestly impossible, so I gave up as soon as I moved in. The garbage monster to the right of my desk will soon enough take over the world, but he is a kind and gracious master whose yoke is light and smells slightly moldy.
As it turns out, the only class of mine that will have any contact with the English language in either the class sessions or the readings is this English in International Politics thing I was conned into taking by the Aussie girls. It's being co-taught by two American professors and is actually all in English, although they encouraged us to try to do the readings in Japanese. One of the professors honestly believes that knowledge is virtue; has there ever been a more murderous or inhumane doctrine than this? It says that the intelligentsia are not merely more educated than the proles, they are in fact better people; no prole has the right to question the dictates and pronouncements of the educated elite, because the prole's judgement operates at a vastly lower moral maturity than that of the elite. The best educated naturally become the rulers, for who better to rule than the most virtuous men in society? This rule is by nature autocratic and authoritarian, for why should the most virtuous listen to the unclean, the Great Unwashed? To do so would sully the moral purity of the elite. Is this not at the root of every murderous dictatorship in that most murderous of centuries, the twentieth? Communism starts out with the rule of the intelligentsia, then must exterminate all intelligentsia not involved with the government for fear of their setting up rival moralities and leading the proles astray. Then it must keep the uneducated, immoral masses docile and obedient through whatever means necessary - if the most virtuous determine that murder is the only way of securing lasting peace, who would dare question it? And if the uneducable are unalterably depraved, how could it be wrong to kill them? If the proles live in terror of the State, should not Evil fear Good?
As in most things, fascism follows the exact same course with different rhetoric.
This foolish error is common enough in the intelligentsia, as it is extremely flattering at first glance; a great many intellectuals value their pride too highly to look twice.
