Since this Cat has been away on Mouse Break, the soothsayers have been jabbering away at very little that's new – and they've been banging on endlessly about the impending strike by the pedagogues, who are getting very hoity-toity about the prospect of losing some of their fabulous taxation-backed pension privileges – perks that ordinary day-labourers, artisans and other lesser forms of human life can only dream about.
While running the risk of sounding as tedious and repetitive as the soothsayers are in their monochromic selection of subject matter on which to pontificate, I really can't help but wonder what's really going on. Here we have a section of the Northumbrian public who – so we're led to believe – are reputed to possess some measure of intelligence. I suspect that this is indeed the case, but then – unlike the soothsayers, who are blessed with infallibility - I could be wrong. This moggy has been incorrect before; the teachers could actually be knuckle-dragging boneheads, whose sole purpose is to indoctrinate their charges with Redistributionist pseudo-intellectual claptrap in order to cultivate a generation of unthinking automata.
But I'm not sure that the educators are simply the mindless drudges of the Northumbrian state and the Holy Roman Empire (which is neither holy, Roman nor an empire). It seems reasonable to me to suppose that at least some of them have a capacity for independent thought; and if this is true, then surely a proportion of them are able to look beyond those issues which affect them personally and identify a greater perspective.
Of course, it's possible that they're so consumed by their hubristic self-perception that they're unable to see their own problems as being subordinate to those of the rest of the Kingdom. After all, the Devil is an extremely intelligent being, but it was his selfish ambition which led him to his insubordination, rebellion and his eternal expulsion from the heavenly realms…
But I don't think that the majority of them are so self-absorbed as to ignore the plight of the rest of their (less fortunate) fellows in the realm and regard themselves as demiurges. I think there's another reason.
The pedagogues who are being invited to withdraw their labour and leave the Little Ones with Mother at home or on the streets are urged to do so by their Trade Guilds – membership of which isn't compulsory, but is presented to them as both desirable and necessary. These Guilds are led by elected self-appointed generals from among their ranks, who are paid substantially vast amounts of money from Guild subscriptions. If the Evil Alliance succeeds in significantly reducing public expenditure, these generals are going to command rapidly-diminishing armies – and their vast sinecures are going to proportionally decrease. So by force of powerful but empty, rabble-rousing rhetoric, they've persuaded their members that they're striking for their own futures – and that if they don't, they must be stooges of the Evil Trees. It's the oldest trick in the book...
And while the educators lose their wages, their commanders will inspire them from behind. In the lap of luxury, of course.
I'm off to find a locksmith. My big mate Leo desperately needs some exercise – and some fresh cat food…
No comments:
Post a Comment