Anthropology tutorials

When I took Anthropology at university I was in a tutorial with about fifteen other people. We met once a week to discuss the things we were supposed to have read and the lectures we were supposed to have been to. There was a guy in my tutorial that I wanted to punch in the nose. He was annoying.

I will illustrate his annoying qualities by giving the example of another annoying person I knew at university. This person once told me they believed in complete anarchy and wished the police were all dead. He was a bit of feeble poof so I said: "what would you do if a bunch of psychos raped your girlfriend, killed your family and stole everything you owned?" He looked a bit ill. So would I, if there were no police.

The over-educated white middle class pillock in my Anthropology tutorial said two things that made me want to punch him in the nose:

1. Western society sucks. I'd rather live in a mud hut.


2. You can't judge anything. It's all relative.

In my head I had two reponses to both his points:

1. Why don't you go and do it then?


2. Like Pol Pot and Hitler, they just had a different value systems... dude.

I think point two ("it's all relative") has been a pain in the (metaphorical) arse of Western art for quite some time, but it's sort of what you get if you say that wanky guitar solos, or silly paintings have no inherent quality of beauty.

Isn't it?