I decree today that life is simply taking and not giving

An area of politics that always strikes me as being considerably under-researched is the psychological aspect of party identification theory because, from where I'm standing, political affiliation is ridiculously closely linked to personality.

Ok, these are clearly huge generalisations but: conservatives are practical types. Centrists dislike conflict. Nationalists are angry. Libertarians are loners. Socialists are often intelligent but empathetic. Communists & left-wing anarchists are generally even more intelligent and highly unusual, the kind of people you can have fascinating drunken conversations with. In short, if you mapped the Myers-Briggs spectrum onto the political compass in a certain way, there'd be some massively positively correlation.

I'm a prime example of this too, admittedly. I'm not even sure whether my personality dictates my politics or my politics dictates my personality, ha. In my personal life, I'm about as independent as it's possible to be: I moved out at 16, been working since 13, dislike monogamous relationships etc. It follows, therefore, that I'd value freedom highly in politics as it's how I like to live my own life. Deterministically, it was inevitable that I'd be an anarcho-capitalist.

Taking the theory further, do we just invent supposedly rational arguments to support our own ideas of the good life? Reading political philosophy texts, it certainly seems that way. Plato & Rawls are particularly culpable. Is there even such a thing as logic anyway? So, like most things, political philosophy is probably fairly pointless. Good thing I'm planning on devoting my life to it then, oops.

Actually, I have a plan for my gravestone inscription (who wants the mundane wife/daughter/mother bullshit ?):

"A female version of Murray Rothbard.

A capitalist version of Karl Marx.

A less ridiculous version of Ayn Rand.

A less authoritarian (and hotter) version of Margaret Thatcher."

Well, it's either going to be that or a Smiths lyric.

Now I just have to fulfil my morbid (in more ways than one, I'm sure, ha) ambitions.

Hmm, on that cheery note, I'll sign off.

Thanks for reading, anyone who does/has :)

Unmitigated misanthropy, sorry

Sometimes I think it would be simpler to be normal. By that, I mean if I liked watching 'Strictly Come X Factor Ice Dancing' and thought David Beckham (as opposed to David Mitchell or David Davis) was the perfect man. I don't know.

The worst part about having vaguely unusual interests and/or beliefs is the way everyone treats you like some kind of exotic bird and coos over how unique & fascinating you are. Then they bleed you dry of all your intellectual thoughts, sap you of all your emotional energy and then get bored. We use each other and then we throw each other away. Nobody's fucking interesting for long, let alone fascinating. We're all just flesh and blood and useless human emotions, and eventually everyone just descends into the same dull drone. Everyone just wants to be loved, right? It's pitiable.

Maybe it's just that I've never been in love, or had anyone properly love me, or maybe I'm just incredibly cold-hearted. Or all of the above. But misanthropy really does seem to be the only option after observing human interaction for more than 30 seconds.

I suppose the human capacity to be an absolute wanker is another useful argument in favour of polyamory though: monogamy clearly won't work because if people spend too much time together, they'll get bored of each other and fall out of 'love'. Polyamory is the only way to keep things interesting enough to stop us all slitting our pathetic wrists. Either that, or we could slit our wrists before the inevitable happens. There's a reason why Romeo & Juliet is considered to be the greatest love story of all time.

Sorry, I'm in a dark mood. I'll have to put a smile on though, got a day full of electioneering ahead of me. Vote Tory* :)

*please don't

Stream of consciousness on a lazy Sunday afternoon

Wow, finally back home after a week with no internet & a series of family arguments. My step-sisters are feisty types. Actually, thinking about it, everyone in the world can probably be divided into two types of people: those who enjoy conflict and those who just try to keep the peace. I definitely spent the week attempting to do the latter, it wasn't terribly fun. Oh well, at least the Devon coastline was breathtakingly beautiful (Look at the photo above, for instance), although I think I now have pneumonia after swimming in the English Channel in February. Oops.

Lol, though, all this build-up to the election is hilarious. I'm so lost as to why anyone would vote Labour at this point; even if you're left-wing, they've gone so far from their ideological roots and the results of their time in power actually reflect conservative ideals, if anything. Take this new 'fairness crusade', for instance, it's so ridiculous that it can only be considered a source of amusement. I mean, this party have been in power for well over a decade and have attempted to implement dozens of pathetic 'equality' initiatives & they've all failed. Social mobility has declined, the gap between the rich and the poor continues to widen, the standard of education keeps on falling. Labour are just a complete joke at the moment, from all perspectives. Especially with these new 'Gordon Brown = the Hulk' allegations, pmsl.

Speaking of politics, I'm visiting the House of Commons tomorrow to see the lovely Caroline Spelman, so that should be funfunfun. Hopefully, I can spend some time in the bar and pick up some good gossip. Ironically, whilst I'm busy chatting up our elected representatives, my LSE rejection is also going to arrive tomorrow, and their feedback will undoubtedly be that I'm not passionate enough about a politics course. Le sigh.

Well, I think that's everything of note (shush, I use the term loosely). Until next time.

This feels like the longest week ever.

Ever since the exams finished, I've felt like I've got nothing to do, especially since I lost my fake ID and my phone (& can't afford a new one) so it's a bit awkward to go out. Days drag on when all you have to do is plan your unwanted gap year, rewatch Daria on youtube and chat in Cafe Nero (or Nerd, as I like to call it) in between other people's lectures. At the moment, it feels like the whole day is one long build-up for a night out tbf. Even PMQs is dull. Plus, I'm looking forward to a possible 'Offer Friday' from the LSE, my 18th birthday on Sunday and getting out of the city for my jollies on Monday. & time always go slower when you're waiting for something. It doesn't help that I'm reading a lot of Kafka, so life is seeming pretty meaningless philosophically; Aggrippa's Trilemma will be the death of me.

This week just needs to hurry the fuck up.

Romance (is boring)

Last week, my best friend/ex-boyfriend died. We were together for two years and then very close afterwards. He had a heart attack in his sleep. At 19. He never did drugs and hardly drank, and was probably the nicest guy in the world. In conclusion, life is shit.

The only good thing to come out of it is the way that death changes the way people look at life. His brother has already cleaned up his act quite a bit. I mean, I locked myself away for a week. But now I feel like I have an obligation to live in the moment, almost like I'm living for both of us. & strangely, death seems to focus the mind on sex. It must be an evolutionary thing.

In fact, romance seems to be stalking me lately. No one seems to be able to accept that people can be perfectly happy being single. Even more irritating than that view are the reasons people give for getting into a relationship, specifically "Oh, we have so much in common." Similar interests are a good basis for friendships, yes, but we don't have to fuck everyone who we get on well with and don't find physically repulsive. Furthermore, if there's anything that internet forums have taught me, it's that there's no shortage of 16-25 year-olds with an interest in misanthropy, politics, scifi and indie music. I went to see Waiting For Godot (the one with Ian McKellen ee!!) last night, for example, and the audience was disturbingly saturated with teenagers. Who knew Samuel Beckett and existentialism were magnets for youth? Young people have been so desperate to become alternative that we've all ended up exactly the same. It's depressing.

Anyway, I've digressed and I'm unsure what the point of this post even was. Oh well. Apologies.

Today was a good day

I've just had the best Wednesday I can remember in a long time: a los campesinos! 6music session, an excellent opportunity to laugh at impotent Obama, more sneaking into UCL/LSE after skipping my History resit, drunken Skyping last night & then a 10-hour sleep, plus I booked some post-offer open days, planned my 18th and cut a fringe in.

The only downside was that History revision has made me realise that the history of mankind is actually just a cycle of destruction, with wars causing more wars. The Seven Years' War caused the American & French Revolutions in exactly the same way that WW1 caused WW2. We're hateful creatures. It wasn't too great a revelation though, always the misanthropist.

Anyway, for once I have little to say. Time for bed.

Hope anyone who's reading had a similarly pleasant Wednesday.

Monday morning

It occurs to me that if you study any subject for long enough, you lose track of it. Philosophy revision is a prime example; by the time I've finished writing out all the arguments and evaluating them (which AQA seems to frantically jerk off over for some reason), they all blur into one and I just retreat to my usual nihilistic scepticism. Maybe study is pointless.

Well, that idea brings me neatly to my most recent dilemma : to gap year or not to gap year? UCAS is distracting me from revision which is ridiculously absurd as I can't even meet my current offers if I don't do well in my exams, let alone meet any future ones. But yeah, I can't decide whether or not I want to be one of those bitter Oxbridge/LSE (if I do get rejected, which I will) rejects who refuses to give up and sacrifices a year of their life for prestige.

More interestingly, I see Cleggy has lost yet more Lib Dem votes by scrapping their old people/parents of young children vote-winners. Honestly, that party needs to sort itself out, all it has right now is Vince Cable's cool hairstyle/accent/supposed economics expertise. Apathy towards Labour & the Tories is, quite rightly, at an all-time high, yet it's refusing to offer an attractive alternative. This latest move just highlights their idiocy; they're never going to get into government so they should worry about practicality as little as possible, especially as most people vote instrumentally now, like consumers in a marketplace. Voters seem to be out for what they will gain if a particular party gets into power, but do not seem too bothered to check out the practicalities of such promises. The Lib Dems should capitalise on electoral laziness. As I said on a forum somewhere, the General Election 2010 is set to be a choice between centrist incompetence, centrist incompetence or centrist incompetence. How democratic.

Anyway, stop distracting me, exams start tomorrow. Argh. I've officially banned myself from all other internet distractions (Facebook chat, msn and Skype are evil), so I should get off here too.

I sincerely hope anyone reading has a better week than I'm going to.