Embracing the Ordinary by Michael Foley

Author:Michael Foley [Foley, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781849839143
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

This is a familiar story. I grew up surrounded by aunts who had never married because no one was good enough for them. There was laughably little basis for their superiority – but the shabby-genteel lower-middle class are the most fanatical snobs. These aunts did not even have accomplishments such as Miss Devlin’s. They sat and grew old amid the chilly circle of their high opinions of themselves. Alice Munro’s aunts suffer a similarly bleak fate.

The problem is that specific superiority quickly becomes general. It is remarkably easy to go from feeling superior in one way to feeling superior in every way. And from there it is another short step to self-righteousness and universal contempt. And contempt tends to generate anger and disgust, and anger and disgust make it difficult to get any pleasure from life.

My worst fault is contempt and my worst fear is disgust. For me, re-enchanting the world is not a luxury but a necessity. This requires unremitting effort because, like any traits acquired in childhood, snobbery and its associated disgust are impossible to eradicate completely. They have become part of the temperament.

When I sat the 11-plus, candidates were not supposed to have seen even sample questions – but my parents cheated, acquired full sets of previous papers and coached me comprehensively and relentlessly. For them, education was the only route to greater social status. Like Socrates, they believed in the examined life, though not in the same way. I remember going to do the exam in winter, with slushy ice on the pavements. I was wearing a ‘good’ Crombie overcoat and many of the other boys had no overcoats at all – nor any idea of what they were about to do or of its possible consequences on their lives. Not only were they entirely unprepared, most did not even know what an examination was and not one had ever seen an exam paper. Some were so thinly clothed they were cold to their bones and slugs of thick, greenish-yellow mucus crept from their nostrils and rested on their upper lips. I hated the Crombie coat that made me a respectable nice boy – but was also disgusted to the verge of nausea by the mucus. So the lesson from the 11-plus, supposed to be simple and fair, was that life was neither simple nor fair.

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