Obstacles to Kindness

The other day, someone told me that they had noticed that a lady in their building constantly sat inside the doorway and smoked. The building is non-smoking, as my friend noted, with signs next to where the lady was smoking. My friend reminded the lady that the building was non-smoking and her response was immediate aggression. She then told him that she was having a ‘bad day’ and asked if he ‘wanted to make it worse’. My friend noted that there were children in the building who have breathing problems and the smoke makes them worse. The lady replied that she also had a child…

From the way that I was told the story, in a very dry matter-of-fact manner, I believe that it took place as it was told. And quickly we are given a portrait of someone doing something that they know is wrong. My friend said that his expectation would be that the lady would admit that she was wrong and show the least remorse, but, instead, immediately went on the offensive and started playing the victim. As we have said before in these pages, often a sign of being a perpetrator is playing the victim. In this instance, I was told, if she had stood up and taken two steps, she would have been outside, yet instead of this, she decided to play both the aggressor and the victim.

In 1979, Christopher Lasch wrote a book called The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations. In the book, Lasch argues that narcissism has become normalised so much so that society itself functions as a haven for those with narcissistic personalities. Although Lasch’s premise is that it has only happened post-World War II, in these pages prior, we have looked at how the shape of society now was set in the early ages of Western civilisation, with the Greeks and the Romans. We have also looked at examples of people who have challenged this culture and how they would then get nailed to a tree for shining a light on the failings of society. And so, to talk about how the narcissistic culture stems from personal weakness would be redundant, merely repeating myself. However, the second aspect of the title of Lasch’s book is something that we should look at.

Expectations. Now, when one speaks of expectations one can delude one’s self into thinking that society should be like Plato’s Academy (removing the predominant lack of equality, of course) yet this is as foolish as it is unrealistic as an expectation. Rather, one should be more realistic. The simplest things in life are often the hardest. Being kind is, on the face of it, very simple. If you see someone, say hello. If you’re having a ‘bad day’ realise that the other person may also be having a ‘bad day’ and refrain from making it worse. The cry of ‘misery loves company!’ is, as we have said, erroneous, for if misery is in an absolute state, then it would be happy as it is and would enjoy being miserable. Likewise, if it is a state in flux, then it would prefer things which elevate it to a state of not being miserable. Rather, what the saying really means is that people who are miserable, know that to ty to be happy is hard and so, instead of trying, they want everyone to feel like they do. This, ironically, is counterproductive because, a) if you make someone feel bad, you still feel bad and b) someone who may have been able to help you feel happy will now be less inclined to do so. As is written, we often reap only that which we sow. The reason for these behaviours is simple. They are easy. It takes no self-effort, either in thought, reflection, or action, to play the victim and to lash out at those who show our faults. One aspect of Lasch’s book which is key is how the society which is narcissistic and has low expectations all stems from the individual and so, if you wish to elevate society, one must elevate their self. One must have higher expectations of their self. By this, I don’t mean that one should expect one’s self to always ‘turn the other cheek’ and refrain from anger at opportune times, rather, I mean that one should think, just a little, about their self and others- about who they wish to be, about how nice it is when people are kind to them. Then, maybe, simple things such as being reminded that they should not smoke in a non-smoking area will seem like less of a personal attack which may wound them deeply, and, rather, be an opportunity for them to follow the law, and, more importantly, be kind.

‘till next time   

The Truth of Fiction

Fiction comes in many shapes and forms, from early age books teaching us what a dog is, to writers which explore the entirety of existence and what it means. Fiction is by definition a story, and therefore one must assume that it contains no truth. Even fictional adaptations of true events, such as Shakespeare’s play on the life of Julius Caesar, cannot be taken as a true document. This then begs the question, why do people read fiction if, indeed, it contains no substance?

Firstly, it is dangerous to say that fiction contains no substance because all fiction contains substance. All fiction is autobiographical in that it tells the story of the mind which thought it up, the imagination. And so, some of the substance provided is the soul of the writer. This is true of all fiction, which goes to show how different people have different minds and souls, if, for example, you compare a Mills and Boon novel to a Jean-Paul Sartre novel. One is vacuous and insubstantial and one is profound, yet both have substance. This is true of all fiction, be it lived or not. By lived I mean linked to the writer’s personal life. If, for example, you compare a book like The Castle by Franz Kafka to Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time then we can see what I mean. The Dog… is a book about someone with Asperger’s Syndrome, or as the reviews state, someone who suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome. Why they use the word suffers further illustrates the point we are making here. The book was written by someone who does not have first-hand experiences of the condition (note: I am using the word condition as it is part of someone’s make up and should not be seen as an infliction) and so the book falls into the trap of lazy stereotyping designed to put people into little boxes. This makes the book very easy to read and very ‘engaging’ for people as they can understand it as it all fits into the predetermined dehumanising boxes. Then we have The Castle. I have written in these pages before how I believe that Kafka had Asperger’s Syndrome and with this in mind, The Castle¸ makes sense as a piece of art. The confusion as to the structure of society, combined with the confusion as to how the society does not follow the structure, seems a better representation of Asperger’s Syndrome. Indeed, Tim Burton’s version of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein myth, Edward Scissorhands deals with Mr Burton’s own Asperger’s and finds symmetry in Kafka’s work. And so, we can see two conflicting examples- lived experience and non-lived experience.     

Often, in life, we connect with things which remind us of ourselves. This is often why we choose a book to read. Some books are thrust upon us by ‘best of year’ lists, and others we have to seek ourselves. This also is a reflection of our selves, for some are happy to let others tell them what to think and then think that they themselves decided to think that way, and others aren’t content to be told what to think, and so go and think for their selves. But, all in all, we read the books that connect with us. This then brings us to the question of the truth of fiction. We are presented with two conflicting opinions: subjective and objective.

Oscar Wilde wrote that art is objective and we find the author in the book, we see in it what the author meant/wrote as opposed to it being something in which we find ourselves.     

‘Art finds her own perfection within, and not outside of herself. She is not to be judged by any external standard of resemblance. She is a veil, rather than a mirror.’

For Mr Wilde, art is purely objective. However, Marcel Proust disagreed with this notion by stating that for fiction to work the reader must find their own truth in the book. Contra to Wilde, (whom Proust met at least once and so might have been familiar with his works) Proust saw literature as being a mirror in which one could find their self. For Proust, literature was subjective (maybe not wholly),

‘Every reader, as he reads, is actually the reader of himself. The writer’s work is only a kind of optical instrument he provides the reader so he can discern what he might never have seen in himself without this book. The reader’s recognition in himself of what the book says is the proof of the book’s truth.’

And so, the truth of a piece of fiction is only realised if the reader finds their self.

We don’t have the space in this piece to go in depth into the debate, however, what seems to be clear is that we are drawn to the types of books in which we can find ourselves, be it objectively or subjectively and this is why fiction can contain so many lies. If one who does not know the truth of something writes of something as being truth, those who also do not know will take it as truth and so the truth will become more veiled as more people believe that they and they alone know the truth, based on a lie.

‘till next time

Note: a good example of this conclusion can be seen in the story of the The Protocols of the Elders of Zion which was a document fashioned by Russians in the early 20^th century which contained years of anti-Semitism designed to justify anti-Semitism by laying the foundations of a myth of a Jewish take over of the world, a myth which is still believed by much of the world.     

Some Thoughts on Language: Part 2: Censorship

Contrary to popular belief, censorship is not a boat with spy capabilities, rather it is the prohibition of certain forms of expression. The immediate connotation of censorship is that it is bad, however, this is not always the case. Preventing children from seeing pornography or images of brutality is to be encouraged as it helps the child to develop the natural defences that most people have to such things, for example, changing the channel on the television. Indeed, the censorship of racist, misogynistic etc. speech, is done for a good reason- to try to ween a morally bankrupt culture off cheap thrills which may have serious connotations. The brilliant comedian, a man who broke many of the taboos when it came to comedy in the 1960s and was subsequently arrested at his shows and driven to an overdose, Lenny Bruce touches upon this. He says that the power is in the word and so if the word becomes common placed, for example, if the President introduces his cabinet, regardless of ethnicity as, ‘this is my N****r of Defence, this is my N*****r of State, with the N word being interchangeable for the title ‘Secretary’, then the word loses its power and children don’t have to go home in tears because they keep getting called a word as a hate crime. Unfortunately, Lenny Bruce in the 1960s was still far beyond where society is now. Hate Speech now has different gradients, for example, it is not allowed to mock someone who has a different skin colour, something that they cannot control i.e. part of their genetic makeup, but it is ok to mock someone with a medical condition, not the mainstream conditions, but the less common conditions, just as it is ok to mock someone for their height. Whereas the great comedians such as Bruce, Monty Python and Douglas Adams, mocked concepts, mainstream comedy which, to be fair, lacks the intellectual and emotional intelligence of the aforementioned, mocks the superficial and fails to realise that mocking someone for their skin colour is the same as mocking someone for medical conditions. And so, at times, we can see the cries of ‘Cancel Culture’ and ‘Political Correctness Gone Mad’ and ‘Wokeness’ etc. often emanate from those who really should be censored, often because they are not smart enough to use the words that they do.

Whilst censorship can be used to protect people and help to bring about a fairer society where people are no longer discriminated against due to their being, i.e. things out of their control such as ethnicity, censorship is often used by governments to control and supress information. After all, one of the Founding Fathers of America (one of the white guys who oversaw the genocide of the natives) Thomas Jefferson wrote, ‘a well-informed electorate is a prerequisite to democracy’, and so if there is censorship of the words people can say then this can attack the very fabric of Human Rights as people can only know what they know.

The notion that words do not matter often stems from a place of ignorance. Expressions, such as words and protests, can be more effective than we can imagine. In the West, for example, you may often see protests and people using (abusing) free speech and then going home afterwards thinking that they have changed the world. Often nothing changes. However, in other countries, for example China, North Korea, Russia, Turkey etc. such events do not happen. There are very few protests and very few people exercising free speech. The reason for this is very simple, because in oppressive dictatorships words and symbols matter. We saw recently in Hong Kong that people protested a new security bill which would enable China to arrest and extradite people from Hong Kong. The protests came about as people realised that unlimited power meant that China, who is trying to make Hong Kong part of it, as it has with Tibet, due to geopolitical advantages (Tibet is very high and gives good protection to China and Hong Kong is a port to Europe and the Americas) could arrest dissidents and prevent free speech. This was an attack on Democracy. People spoke up in protest and were met with bullets, brutality, the army and gas. Meanwhile, in China, the news was reported as Westerners pretending to be locals trying to cause mayhem.

Above we have looked at two aspects of censorship. One aspect is brought in to protect people and the other is brought in to protect the government from the people. Yet, what both have in common is Human Rights. One has the right to be their self without suffering abuse for their very being and one has the right to stand up to power and say, ‘no, I am a human, I have rights’.  After all, our reality is constructed by words and so words matter. 

‘till next time           

Some Thoughts on Language: Part 1: Why Words Matter

Unfortunately, for once, I found myself aware of what was happening in popular culture. What I saw made me feel uneasy, and not for the same reasons it seems to have made others. Briefly, someone made a joke about the appearance of someone with a medical condition. The person’s husband then slapped the person who made the joke. The only reason why this became ‘news’ was because it happened in front of millions of people, live, on television.

This one little event then filled the media airwaves with the dull drone of a million angry voices. Suddenly, an invasion was relegated to page 2 as now there was a real news story. Most of the commentary I was unfortunate enough to see revolved around the slap. This led to the strange paradox of people going on television and social media to say, ‘it was just words, which is why I have to speak up’. This, as you can see, is absurd. If, indeed, they were just words, and words are inherently meaningless, then speaking up about it is the equivalent of adding a cup of water to the ocean. And, indeed, this is what it is. That one extra cup may be the difference between someone drowning or living. 

The joke was based on one thing- the physical appearance of a lady who had lost her hair due to a medical condition. The argument that this was just ‘comedy’ and people should ‘expect it’ is deeply concerning because these are the sentiments that were expressed to justify racism and misogyny. Would the man who made the joke, who was black, be happy if a white comedian publicly made jokes about his appearance, i.e. his skin colour? And would, if he went on stage to slap the comedian, the media, many of whom were Hollywood celebrities, be condemning his actions or praising him for standing up to racism?

Yes, we have to say that Hollywood, the supposed liberal paradise, has a history of being on the wrong side of events. Charlie Chaplin was ostracized from Hollywood for making the film The Great Dictator, which mocked Hitler. Even though it was known that there were concentration camps and genocide going on, Hollywood adored Hitler and accused Chaplin of being a Jew for criticising him. Also, as we have mentioned here before, there was the time that Marlon Brando sent a Native American lady to reject his Oscar for The Godfather and read a statement outlining the glorification of genocide and the continuing mistreatment of Native Americans. This, as you can imagine, did not go down well at the Oscars and the lady was treated exactly the way that Brando was accusing Hollywood of treating Native Americans. In more recent times, we have the #MeToo movement which showed the level of sexual abuse in Hollywood, something many in Hollywood said they already knew about. From these three examples we can see that Hollywood has no ethical credibility and those who have been speaking up are just reinforcing the narrative of a Hollywood so in love with itself that it abuses others to continue the lie (who’d have thought that those in the entertainment industry would be insecure narcissists?).  

The ‘speaking out’ was not relegated to fascist states (hello Hollywood), it also, predictably, took place on social media. What was interesting was that the argument that ‘they were just words and so they needed to speak up’ followed a set pattern. The words that were used were modern words such as Snowflake and Cancel Culture. A Snowflake is someone who is overly sensitive and Cancel Culture is what many people claim is happening to them when it turns out that, for example, women don’t like being sexually abused. Who’d have guessed it? What was interesting about this was that the speaking up about how meaningless words are happened using certain words with predetermined connotations. Here we had people who thought they were rebels sticking it to people who think words matter by using words they had been told mattered.

All of the above illustrates the importance of language. Words, it could be argued, are the most important tool we have for understanding our existence. We understand the world through conceptualisation. When we were children, we were shown a chair which follows certain properties. The label chair is then attached to it. Later we see something different but which conforms to many of the properties of a chair. We then attach the label chair to it as it fits the concept. Without the ability to label things we would not be able to understand what they are and this would cause chaos. If we wished to express this chaos, then we would need a tool to be able to do so so that another could understand what we are saying. As the other is aware of the concept being discussed, or can be taught what it means, and attach the label through definition, we can converse with the other on the topic. And so, without words, it would be almost impossible to communicate with another. Words, in this context, does not just mean written or spoken, it also includes sign language etc.

Whilst this gives the impression that language is an external construct, without language we would not be able to think clearly. Indeed, we would be forced to create our own concepts and labels just to make sense of the worlds without and within.

Antonio Gramsci, an Italian Marxist philosopher, journalist, linguist, writer, and politician, who was imprisoned by Mussolini wrote,

‘The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters’

as a commentary on the rise of fascism (note: Gramsci is disliked in the United States as he was a Communist who opposed fascism- think about that for a moment) and this we can see beautifully illustrated by the slap. One man thinks that humiliating someone due to their appearance caused by a medical condition is unacceptable yet the establishment sets out not to understand and change, rather to crush the one who shine a light on their failings as an organisation and as people.

One final thought, I challenge anyone who thinks that words do not matter to stand in Tiananmen Square, China, the place where student protesters were massacred by the Chinese Government in tanks and say, ‘This is where the students were killed’, then we’ll see if words matter.     

‘till next time

Check back another time for Part 2: Censorship