why it is necessary to exterminate the lower man

i am a gentle soul. It is with great reluctance that i put the case for the extermination of the lower man, who comprises approximately 99% of the human race. As long as one accepts the superiority of the higher man, it becomes necessary to destroy the lower man. This is because the lower man cannot but seek to destroy the higher man, and we must therefore destroy the lower man or be ourselves destroyed.

An educated, tweed-clad gent can quite conceivably allow the dregs to attend their football matches and nightclubs, drink lager, and collapse into their own vomit, as long as they leave him alone. But the lower man cannot let him be.

For the gentleman, the football fan is the unfortunate and unsightly proof that humanity is descended from chimpanzees. But he can, after all, avoid going out at night (the night belongs to Charlie), and pursue his researches in his library, with a decanter of fine wine. He is of course disgusted by the lower man, and would like to exterminate the brutes, but can easily enough forget their existence and enjoy his own life.

The lower man, however, finds the existence of the higher man an insufferable provocation. He cannot tolerate it. He is driven mad by the thought that the gentleman is superior to football. For the football fan, the gent is more than a nuisance or problem - by his very existence he casts judgement (a necessarily unfavourable judgement) on the lower man. By not liking football and lager, by being able to read something other than The Sun, the higher man proves that the lower man inhabits a much circumscribed, diminished world, an insect’s world. For the lower man, there is nothing beyond football, lager, and Big Brother; so when he encounters a man whose whole life is devoted to the things beyond football, lager, and Big Brother, this higher man instantly disproves the basis of the lower man’s existence, and so must be destroyed.

Thus the lower man cannot simply ignore or tolerate the higher man: he must attack the higher man. The lower man regards his superior with uncomprehending suspicion. Everything about the higher man infuriates the lower man. He instantly suspects that the higher man regards him with contempt; whereas in fact the higher man hardly ever thinks about the insects, except when forced to share their company by necessity. The higher man, forced to share an office or flat with the lower man, will probably try to blend in, believing that if he keeps his unusual interests to himself, he will not cause offence. But he will manifest his higher nature whether he will or no. If nothing else, his lack of interest in football and lager and Big Brother will make his true nature clear.

The lower man will begin by making resentful statements about, for example, the higher man’s dress sense, or his supposedly dark view of human nature, or his lack of interest in the usual things. Finally, the lower man will say something like “you think everyone’s bad except you, because you’ve got your fancy education and they haven’t!”

The higher man must beware! The next stage is mob violence, the lower men forming a crowd of angry peasants armed with pitchforks and torches. There can be no peace between the higher and the lower man. The higher man must take the initiative and launch a Bush-style pre-emptive strike on the lower man - and the brutes must be exterminated.