World Wars and New Horizons

To celebrate the release of the new Franz Ferdinand album - who knew a song about performing oral sex could be almost as enjoyable as oral sex itself?? - I've been reading up on my WWI history. I thoroughly recommend Richard Vinen's 'A History of Fragments' for a general analysis of the 20th century, which places as much, if not more emphasis on social matters as it does on the crucial, but overwhelmingly over-treated domain of politics and diplomacy. We know there was a lot of fighting. We know states battled with each other for global supremacy and we know that communism as it was practiced didn't really work out. But what was life like? How much did the development of the atom bomb actually impact upon the average slack-jawed peasant yokel beating his children in rural Slovakia? Vinen answers this and many other questions with gusto and aplomb. Check him out.

One of his main points is that the awfulness of post-1914 Europe is generally overstated because many writers at the time yearned nostalgically for the certainties - and prosperity - of the first decade of the century. This view, however, was propagated by those who lost the most, the rentier bourgeoisie and, truth be told, for most citizens of the third mall from the sun, life was little worse in 1918 than it had been in 1914.

I mention this because it kind of has an interesting contemporary paralell. The 'Bradyization' of UCD is being lambasted by student and scholar alike, and speaking to many people, one is left with an apocalyptic vision of a university that has abandoned its students and betrayed its staff.

Bollox. UCD has NEVER cared about its students, and it never will, and to hark back to the pre-Brady era as some enlightened, compassionate nirvana whereby all students were allowed to suckle at the teat of wisdom and comfort is as foolish as thinking that a fairyland existed in early 20th Century Europe for anyone outside Virginia Woolf's circle of friends and family. Why does it feel like opposition to Horizons is largely coming from Arts students who don't want Christmas exams, and wizened academics, growing fatter and lazier with each passing moment, who wish to be left alone in their ivory towers to exploit the third level system for their own narrow aims?

Incidentally, I'm not a Brady cheerleader. I think he's a tosser. I just don't really believe he's any more of a tosser than Art is or was.

Sorry for the rant, just sick of people complaining about how awful life is. It isn't!