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Something's very askew with the priorities here. Of all the many ways in which human beings are systematically wrecking everything that surrounds us, the blight of urban litter is by far the least consequential and the most petty. Condoms and crisp packets aren't killing off the rhinos. That small heap of spent lipstick-smeared Benson & Hedges lapping against the kerbside isn't threatening the survival of all life on earth.What's really at stake? The thing that really distinguishes litter is that, unlike carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, litter is visible. It looks grubby; it offends the senses; it makes it harder to pretend that everything is fine, that the planet isn't slowly overcooking in its own juices, that we aren't being ruled by a gang of malevolent chipmunks. In the world of the itinerant latex-gloved sprucer, what really matters is the look of the thing: the world must appear to be pleasant, even if it's a lie. This attitude isn't misguided community spirit. It's massive, untreated neuroticism.Obsessive cleanliness has always stood for madness, but some of Sigmund Freud's insights might be useful here. In Civilisation and its Discontents, he considers the idea that the ideal of order and harmony in civilised society might just be a version of the neurotic tic of endlessly returning to the trauma. "Squalor of any kind seems to us to be incompatible with civilisation […] Order is a kind of compulsion to repeat, which, once a pattern is established, determines when, where and how something is to be done." Mess is anarchic and different, while cleanliness is rigid and always the same; in other words, the wisdom and sanity of society are in fact founded on an original madness. Most memorable is Freud's characterisation of the object of the neurotic's desire as an "immaculate anus". Arseholes will always be a bit mucky, but the neurotic is the person who scrubs theirs bloody in the hope of expunging any possible trace of dirt. Of course, for Freud anal eroticism also re-emerges as an attitude towards money: the anal-retentive is a miser, scrimping and saving, fiercely opposed to the reckless creativity of the anal-expulsive. No wonder the Tories are so keen on cleaning for the Queen. Their whole austere fiscal policy (not to mention their defunding of the arts) is just the horror of dirt, expressed through economics.READ: Why Keep Calm and Carry On Still Won't Fuck Off and Die
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