Tuesday, January 24, 2006

The self-pity of intellectuals

Not only do the so-called intellectuals despise the very society that supports their comfortable, coffee-drinking, suburban lifestyles, but they also suffer from great self-pity (perhaps for the same reasons?). I recent argument for a State-funded university education has recently reached my ears (from the mouth of a Leftist university student, of course): The cost of sacrifice for the university-attending student is underestimated by economists, and should be considered a reason to protect the hard-pressed student from participating in the cost of his or her own education.

I have seldom heard such nonsense before!

What about the sacrifice of the worker who has to pay x% of his salaries to taxes instead of y% (smaller than x%), making his working hours longer, his pay-check smaller and hence clothes, housing, food and spare-time less in quality and quantity? What about the benefits of having a university degree? Better and more pleasant jobs, higher wages, more respect, and so on and so on. Why even bother to attend a university if it is such a sacrifice that it must be put on non-university attending people as a financial burden and a kind of punishment for even having a paying job!

This is the height of the Leftist intellectual arrogance. I hope I will never hear anything like this again.

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