Elite rule?

So the last time I checked, we were supposed to be living in a liberated country, freedom of speech and opportunities for all; yet why am I finding myself stuck in this elitist predicament?

Working back at my old job on the checkouts I see this all the time with the majority of customers treating you like you couldn’t rub two sticks together. A perfect example being a ‘gentleman’ coming to my till and asking for silk cut MOAVE cigarettes? I felt like saying hang-on earlobes... but I replied saying you mean purple, of course he had to get on his high horse and call me colour blind. So I handed him the cigarettes and said oh my mistake, me and silk cut must have got it all wrong. He either could not stand to be corrected by someone on a checkout or someone younger. Kind of makes me laugh because those beliefs will hopefully die out, but it seems unlikely as they get passed down through generations. This is where the media needs to change attitudes and I think Channel 4 do this brilliantly and let the viewer step back and think for themselves. Just like their recent documentary ‘My new brain’, where a bright young student fell from a 20ft wall drunk trying to gain entrance back into a club and was in a coma for 5 months. When he woke he had to start from scratch like a toddler and it was very upsetting and effective. They aired it right before big brother (large teenage audience) and made it relatable. It was there on screen laid out with no judgements; no plea for others to stop drinking, just the story of what happened and that was all that was needed. You tell someone not to do something and they are going to want to do it. I think this documentary caught onto this and engaged the viewer to think for themselves.

I have been at Southampton Solent University for a year now and got an impressive 2.1 for my overall grade, so typically I was in the minority of fellow peers who didn’t have to retake any units. Still why is there this rivalry between the established university and the new? The simple answer is that they think they are better than us, it is a common misconception passed down from generation to generation of elitist attitudes. I have studied a unit like this at my university which consisted of looking at the literary ‘canon’. This is basically a measuring table of literature that is supposed to make you a more educated and cultured person, which nowadays seems like a pretty prehistoric theory, yet it still holds importance. These writers earned their place on the ‘canon’ by either conforming or rejecting the hegemonic (most popular belief) ideology of the time it was written about. Although the ‘canon’ is forever changing it is still bound by the white upper-middle class man’s 20th century ideas. This is why you still get these pompous busybodies trying to make everyone conform to what they believe and rejecting those who don’t or who have different ideas about life and politics. This is what has been passed down to a high percentage of top university students and it therefore becomes a monotonous cycle. Life experience has to hold for something and none of us have the same and we should listen to every voice, not just these rich canonized authors.

That is why I think it is important to have universities like Solent who have different/less routine outlook on this and educate in a way that we have to use our own minds and not rely on what has gone before. I don’t want to rely on what’s gone before I want us to explore ideas; I want us to be creative and innovative. This is what I want and not what they want, and that is why I cannot understand people who are quick to judge. They may call us dumb and I can see why because there are such wasters in the world like the girl I walked past and overheard saying, “I don’t know why my mum’s so mad, at least I got something in the alphabet.” I’m guessing her results weren't... great. But we should not get tarred with the same brush, we try, we are innovative and creative.