Philosophy Tutorial Pt. 03

The Philosophy assignment had been "What would Nietzschean transcendence mean for me". In brief, Nietzschean transcendence meant every person needs to create their own values. Nietzsche did this by having a 3some with Salome and Ree (2 other artists and free thinkers).

We are 4 Students attending the tutorial to discuss our essays with the Professor.

I am Heather (21) and married to Kevin (23). We are both working class in an increasingly middle class world. I am very happy with my marriage. I love Kev and he loves me. He is my bedrock.

MY HISTORY

I am the first person in my family line who has attended University. My known family line stretches back to the 1800s. The highest position any of my forebears had was in the 1850s. My Great, Great, Great Grandfather owned his own village shop in Tredegar. He left for Newport for some unknown reason.

OUT OF LOVE

I am out of love with my Newport world. Perhaps I never was in love with it. Perhaps my part of the world doesn't deserve to be loved. Perhaps at best I have a love-hate relationship with Newport.

There is a You Tube video channel called "Turdtown". It called Newport the worst place in Monmouthshire. It advised people just to continue on to Cardiff.

That is just doing a hatchet job and purposefully ignoring the good that is in my City. This hatchet job was despite the narrator going to depressed towns where the mining activity finished and no one has been able to find major employers.

But statistics don't lie and within Newport there are many multiple deprivation areas. My house is in Pillgwenlly (known as Pill) which is one of the poorest. Turdtown used Pill as evidence of Newport's turdiness.

I have 2 reasons for wanting to go to University.

UNDER MILK WOOD

The major one is the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. He wrote a radio play for the BBC where an omniscient narrator invites the audience to listen to the innermost thoughts of the inhabitants of the fictional small Welsh fishing town, Llareggub.

I want to write something of that nature based on Newport. But you have to jump through the hoops the University sets up. You can't study only what you want to study. You have to choose subjects to go along with your main choice.

That meant me taking lots of "academic disciplines" other than English Literature. That is why I ended up doing Philosophy.

So at least I had some knowledge about a philosopher.

Sociology would be about people in groups. That, I hoped, would help me to write my version of Under Milk Wood.

SOCIOLOGY OF NEWPORT HIGH STREET ON A SATURDAY

For many in Newport, Marx and Engels are considered as gods. Most know the term "the dictatorship of the proletariat" even if they can't spell the term.

In the centre streets various Marx inspired groups vie for shoppers attention. Few shoppers bother with them. The groups compete with stalls trying to inform you about libertarian or animal rights groups. These groups are equally ignored.

Sometimes there is a local issue, like a threatened road expansion scheme and people try to get you to sign a petition. The last one I recall, because I signed it was to "Stop Newport City Council building 140 houses at the bottom of alt-yr-yn viewpoint".

All these compete with charity collections by local people. Alongside all these are people trying to get you to take out a monthly standing order for some charity. They are paid professional "charity muggers" with standard openings like "Can I ask you a question?"

I wish someone would answer "You just did. Now fuck off and never come back to Newport."

More realistically I would ban them. There is the difference. The amateur collectors with their tins are people giving their time for a cause they hold dear. It is a community act. The politicos and animal rights people are the same. It is "from the community trying to aid the community".

Of course the charities have shops where cast offs are sold cheaply. Again from the community for the community. They add colour to shops which otherwise would be boarded up. Lots of people, including Turdtown, see charity shops as a marker of deprivation.

I see them as a marker of community. They are only possible because unpaid volunteers run them. They help citizens, like Kev and me, who are too poor to buy clothes and artifacts in the shops. They are ecological.

The charity muggers have taken these laudable acts and tainted it by making it a full time job. Even the petition is now automated. There is an organisation available online that people sign.

A part of community is going, perhaps never to return.

A DIFFERENT CONCEPTION OF EDUCATION

My other inspiration is John Ruskin. He had a radically different notion of what education should be. He was against the fragmentation of education and an over-reliance of the 3 Rs (Reading. 'Riting and 'Rithmetic).

I feel in my bones that education is way too specialised, fragmented and elitist. It is not designed for the working class.

There are facts and figures which show how few working class people get to English Universities as students, and fewer get employed as lecturers. There are personal histories of the difficulties working class folks have going to Uni.

CRUMBS

People tell me I am lucky to get to University and should be grateful. I am not grateful that I get crumbs from the rich man's table.

My fellow students say I walk around with a chip on my shoulder about most everything. That is a charge I can not deny.

THE GRANT APPLICATION

Another chip is the way the Welsh government's grant application is worded.

My husband Kevin has a lowly paid job as a Care Assistant. I had a succession of dead end jobs. But I had 2 A levels and a husband who wanted me to "be all you can be". As Kev said "What's the worst that can happen you get more dead end jobs? But you could get something better with a degree."

Those in relative poverty can get a full or partial Student Grant rather than a Student Loan.

It felt like my husband was begging for money on my behalf. He was my "supporting partner" on my funding application.

They didn't allow him his proud status as my husband. The Welsh government took away the mystical union of a husband with his wife and reduced it to a mere matter of money.

Just calling him "partner" would have been better.

But no, he had to be my "supporting partner" which makes it sound like he is the dominant person in our marriage. We share our resources, all monies in go into a joint bank account. All expenses go out from it. Financially and emotionally and sexually and spiritually we are partners.

The Welsh state won't even allow us to be ourselves. We have to be labelled according to their whims.

MY UNIVERSITY FRIEND

My one friend is Fiona (22). She is not married. She is my opposite, but like magnets we attract each other. It is not a lesbian, "I want your body" kind of attraction.

I am straight laced, prim and proper, while Fiona is called "The Mattress" because so many men have lain on top of her. She has taken the saying "sowing your wild oats" to a whole new level.

If joke with Fiona. I tell her were to get pregnant then she would be like a woman who had fallen into a lot of nettles and didn't know which one stung her.

NIETZSCHE'S 3SOME

That was why the idea of transcendence caught my imagination. The Professor had displayed a nude photo of Nietzsche and Salome and Ree on the big AV screen. It was shocking actually seeing a famous philosopher showing his wedding tackle.

I couldn't imagine Marx posing nude.

I tried to imagine setting up a 3some, like Nietzsche himself did.

If he came home and said that he wanted to set up a 3some with another woman, I would be devastated. If he came home and l told me that we have lost our house and were homeless, it would be less devastating. At least if we were homeless we would have each other."

I thought of the old maxim "Whatever is hurtful to you, do not do to any other person". This sounds easy but is actually very difficult.

I assume that Steve wouldn't take to the idea of sharing my body with another man. I assume that he would feel belittled especially if, like Nietzsche, he was playing second string to Ree,

I certainly wouldn't take to the idea of sharing Steve with another woman. The thought of Steve using our bed to fuck another woman made me feel sick. I would feel jealous and insecure. A third person in our marriage would ruin it.

I don't think that Steve or I could just have sex. It would lead to an emotional attachment. I know Steve. He might think he could avoid falling for someone he fucks. But he would only be fooling himself. He would soon realise that he was in love with 2 women, with all the complications that would entail."

The idea of a 3some didn't gell because I love my husband.

NIETZSCHE AND THE COMMUNE

Nietzsche, Ree and Salome wanted to set up a commune for artists and philosophers. That was what I wrote about in my essay. Transcendence, for me, would be to create a new society. One which doesn't compartmentalise us, treat us as consumers or adherents to some faith or political philosophy.

And definitely one where the Welsh government recognises the spiritual bond that is marriage.

But I was in for a shock. Because my theory was to be stress tested in the tutorial.