We, Heartless Engineers: A meditation on the danger of a cauterized curriculum

  
The kettle is on, gas whistling through pipes and burning blue (a most occult colour of flame).

What would life be without art? No sharks in fish tanks, nor unmade beds; no Sheffield male-strippers transcending poverty; no Molly Bloom. Yes, no Molly Bloom.

No cold and broken hallelujahs.

But money. Lots of money.

And sharks in fish tanks, lots of those. And unmade beds – enough for you to sleep in a different unmade bed every night for the rest of your life and not sleep in them all. And silver screens that brim full of Monty. But no Molly Bloom. Yes, no Molly Bloom.

And not even the language to express a hallelujah. Let alone one that is cold and broken.

Where the earth is fracked, blue flames will rise from the cracks like daemons unleashed.

We will have art of a sort that shocks and bemuses: pornographic, horrific, visceral, industrial, ephemeral, profitable.

And we, heartless engineers: a vacuum in our gas-blue veins.

5 thoughts on “We, Heartless Engineers: A meditation on the danger of a cauterized curriculum”

      3. Indeed. On a purely practical level, if we want to persuade children to stay in school, so that they stay safe, so that they learn that ‘society’ isn’t against them, but for them, we really ought to make school a place where they want to be. If we can’t be creative, to indulge in music and drama and art, when we are young, when can we? We sure as hell don’t have time for it now we’re all grown up.

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