The Spirituality of Wingeing

Spirituality, as defined on this blog, is what makes you bother to keep on breathing. Spirituality, in my opinion, is the ultimate form of human art. Spiritualities can mean religion, science, accumulating stuff, tatooing horses--the usual pursuit of happiness crap.

For some spiritual die-hards, their spirituality is what I call the Zen of Wingeing. They don't think about it--they just do it. If a tree fell in the woods and no one was around to hear it, would anyone write a vitrolic book about modern Britian (Birmingham in particular)just so the tree would be thankful it was dead?

Although I hate the book (I couldn't make it past page 234, I admidt), Our Culture, What's Left of It--The Mandarins & The Masses by Theodore Dalrymple I couldn't help but be humbled by this advanced tapestry of disgust. It was sort of like watching a Nazi rally during Hitler's birthday--impressive, but chilling. Although I do despair at hearing about the latest man's inhumanity to man, I highly doubt the blame for it could be the fault of the printing of D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterly's Lover. (Although the line about "the rounded buttocks twinkling" does make the eyes a bit sore).

The road to hell is paved by the British liberal intelligensia, and Dalrymple will save us. If you want a Holy Book on how to complain, this is it. (If you were looking to see what a Mandarin is, forget it). I lived in England for over five years. I never once met a member of the British liberal intelligensia. I never saw an ad for one at the Job Centre. I never saw 'liberal intelligensia' as a course offered in university. I never heard anyone say "Hi, I'm Bob. I'm from Bristol and I'm a member of the British Liberal Intelligensia." I never even saw a T-Shirt on a baby saying "Future Member of the British Liberal Intelligensia."

But the fact he got a book published and it wound up in a little library in a Philadelphia suburb deserves a little respect. So I did what any good Dalryimplian would do and used my blog to winge about it.

Thus endeth the lesson.