The (slender) benefits of becoming well educated (in Britain, at least).

Dear Diary,

I was sharply reminded of the actual benefits of having studied when I visited my friend(s) in my home town of Bridport recently. One fellow, not an unlikeable man, far from it, a seemingly amicable person, well versed in a good solid trade or two (bricklaying, carpentry, most laudible occupations if ever there were), had not yet read as many books as fingers on his hands.

Books are important. Very important. The University of Cambridge, for example, has a book as its symbol, with what appears to be an eye at its centre. Likewise, my own alma mater has a book surrounded by rays of light eminating from it, symbolic of the knowledge and wisdom that is imparted in the course of study.

I even meet the odd author that has not studied, but has a certain amount of natural ability, that seems to be in awe of someone such as myself, having studied. This one instance is a particularly good example. The lady-author in question and I were at cross purposes. She accused me of being elitist. I tried not to come across as arrogant, but merely stated the fact that I have had to work my way towards acquiring an education, and that Latin, ancient Greek, classical studies, is a subject only seen as elitist by people that have not made any effort to seriously study it. As a result, we became good friends.

I was reminded of this knowledge gap when I visited my friends in Bridport. Okay, education in Dark Age Britain means nothing. That's okay too. As my French friend once said (the late savant Didier Deman), "It is not studying which is important. It is the application of that study to something practical and useful." Of course, in Dark Age Britain, no such application is possible. It is a nation of beggars, paupers and slaves. Education, most especially classical education is not useful here (that is, unless you're some nobby prick that never did a day's work in your sorry ass life and had everything handed to you on a silver plate: daddy's trust fund in some overseas offshore tax haven, moneylanders). Yet there are countries in the world, where education does mean something. These, are the more civilised nations of the world (I do not speak of Britain, for that is a nation of paupers, beggars and slaves, nothing more, evidently).

Forgive me, I digress. Whether it is the lady author from America who said to me, publically, recently, "You are perfection. That is all." or some clodhopper bumpkin that never really read book, the usefulness of having studied (seriously studied) is evident. Okay, in Dark Age Britain, the very best you can hope to ever achieve is minimum wage (unless you turn to crime, of course...) doing unskilled labour, but this is not necessarily true for all countries in the world.

There are places upon this earth, where if you're well educated, honest, polite, mild mannered, a good person, a hard worker, with sound moral values, that you can do more than unskilled labour for minimum wage. Yet this is not Renaissance Italy. It's Dark Age Britain - land of beggars, paupers and slaves.

Max.