Anton Savage: JD Vance is a beautiful writer and an awful human being

Originally published in the Business Post.

I have a degree in English. Normally one might say ‘I studied English’ or ‘I earned a degree in English’, but I want to be accurate, and neither of those statements is true; I neither studied it nor earned it.

I arrived to my first week in university wide-eyed and optimistic. My first lecture was given by one of Ireland’s most respected living poets (he was living then, he’s not any more). What followed was the laziest, creepiest hour of self-indulgence I had witnessed, wherein he led an extended public discussion with an 18-year-old student about whether or not it was acceptable to refer to her as a “cute chick”.

When whatever that was finally ended, we moved to a class on literary criticism. Following an hour of exposure to that, I decided to go hang out in a garage for the next four years and just show up for exams. So I have a degree, but it’s un-earned and un-studied.

However, I can change a head-gasket, swap brake disks and callipers, and use a spring-compressor without killing myself or anyone else. These have proven to be much more useful skills than I have seen anyone acquire in an arts degree.

The reason literary criticism ended my academic career was because it is so innately, obviously and inherently daft. It is rooted in a bunch of (mostly middle-aged or elderly, mostly male, often French) academics sitting around having thoughts no one can prove or disprove, that don’t matter to anything and that have zero use to anyone other than the person who had the thought.

Click here for the full article.