5th april 2005
start
I had a comment on my blog recently from someone who'd been visiting the monkey, then happened to read a few rants and found that their initial interest had turned to anger. I wonder at the path he weaved through my various online gubbins that led to this conclusion, and although I'm a little disappointed at his conclusions some of what he said is worth a lot of thought:
"At first I enjoyed, later I felt confused and, upon following further links to your rants, I was angry. You never pursue a thought to a conclusion, you are just critical, but not constructively."
"Do you actually try make an active difference without trying to make someone feel less important than you? What is worse? Someone without high intelligence trying to make themselves happy or someone with intelligence using it only to impose some kind of intellectual caste system on a world that is already bulging with enough bigotry and contempt? I say some of your comments are simply the flipside of the Daily Mail coin. There is no room in this world for extremism."
"I picture you as a beared man who waves his hands around shouting "why can't all this be better?" without actually pushing to make a difference. Sure you have a website with some intriguing pictures, and a regular blog, but who cares? What are YOU doing to make things better?"
It's a good question, and perhaps the hardest we all have to face. What are YOU doing to make things better? What? What? What? It won't let up, it wants you to answer, you can take no half-measures or short cuts, justify yourself, what are YOU doing?
what?
So what am I doing? Precious little, everything I can. It boils down to selfishness. What do I enjoy, what do I think I might have some innate skill at, what do I think I can improve on with effort? Writing, photography, (cod) philosophy. These are things I like, these are the things I try to grapple with and try to improve on. It's ultimately a selfish act, I'm not doing volunteer work, I'm not doing charity work, nor am I a doctor or nurse or teacher or policeman; I'm not engaged in any of these essential practicalities which have a positive effect here and now. I'm just doing what I enjoy, albeit with a philanthropic bent.
But this is all I know how to do, all I feel I can do. And while it is not something that has an immediate effect there is the bigger picture of culture and society to consider. Yeah, I'm not adding much yet, but arts and philosophy and science form the fabric of civilisation. It is only through these endeavours that we live in the society we do, it is only by knowing that we have time for thought and art and contemplation that we feel civilised. It is only through this cultural evolution that we are interested in the rest of the world, that we care about what happens to other people, that our views and actions have evolved over the ages, that we have so much richness in our lives. It raises us up, fills our brains with the thoughts and ideas that make it all worthwhile.
All I think we can hope for in this sense is for people to find their innate talents and engage in them fully. These individual, selfish, actions are what have shaped us; great scientists, great artists, great leaders, all were engaged in their own interests. While these selfish interests remain many and varied there is scope for anything, as long as we don't all decide to live as hermits (wither the fire service, the NHS, and just about every other socially constructed body if this were to happen...). And yes, there's plenty of scope for fuck-ups. Plenty of people whose choices don't add to the fabric of culture, of society. People whose actions only bring benefits to themselves or impinge detrimentally on the lives of others (but, interestingly, biology shows us that a population with the best chance of survival and evolution will have both an optimum number of selfish members and philanthropic members, not a domination of one over the other). And yes, there are plenty of people who don't have these choices, people whose lives are filled with hunger and war. There is still much wrong, but is it too unreasonable an assumption to think that all the little things we do, all the things that make our society what it is and try to make it better, will gradually snow-ball until the big things start changing? It's happened before... Have things got better over the last hundred years? We certainly have a better quality of life, we have the ability now to start constructing a truly global society and eradicate war and poverty if we don't poison the earth with global warming first.
So what are YOU doing? Precious little, the tip of the iceberg, what I feel I can do, something I hope will grow with practice and effort, a tiny weft in the global weave of culture. What about YOU?
complexity
So here's the rub, how does this grandiose social philosophy of create and share and celebrate translate to your daily life, to the actions you share with others? I want to share my pictures and my writing, without this ability it would surely be much harder for all of us to grow culture. Without newspapers and books and the internet we wouldn't be able to so freely engage in this discourse that hopes to make things better and challenge us to improve. Again we come back to the question: are these things inherently worth pursuing? Does writing a novel help anyone, does reading one help you? And more, does your perceived worth of something give you the right to impose it on others? Does it give you the right to rant at them, to hector them, to lecture them? Does it mean that you should never criticise others' different choices?
This is where we break down. Life is so complex, so so many shades of grey. There are few absolute rights and wrongs, and many different views on everything in between. Philosophers, politicians, writers, they all have endless ethical and moral questions to explore. But on a daily basis we experience the things that niggle, the things that piss you off, the things that turn your hope to despair at the drop of the hat. So I have a bad day, I write a rant about it. My detractor calls me out, am I being constructively critical, or just shouting and waving my arms about? The latter. Does this make it wrong? On a grand level certainly. I'm not adhering to these lofty values of society and progress and constructivity, I'm just shouting and letting off steam and swearing. Does it make me feel better? Yes. Is it helpful to anyone? No, except maybe those I know who read it and snigger. Perhaps it's something that shouldn't be on the internet, something to keep personal. But is it wrong on a personal level? No. It's worth questioning, but the act is there in those shades of grey. It's not having a detrimental effect on anyone (except possibly by irritating them), it's not living up to a grand dream. But, daily, so impotent do we feel about the power we have to change, so annoyed at those that annoy us, how else to let it out? I don't know if this anger can be used constructively, beyond the fact that it highlights a problem that warrants attention.
Let's consider one aspect. I had a moan about people buying "Being Jordan". People who I considered stupid, stereotypical dumb blonds. I didn't try and make a difference, I didn't try to engage in a dialogue, I didn't even think about why these people might want this book, what worth it might have. I just grinned and bore it out. Not constructive, but what else would you do? Here is the wider problem, we have a situation where there are people who aren't interested in thought, who don't seem to be interested in the facets of life, in why they think as they do, in even what they think. Is it because they lacked decent schooling, is it because they did think about it but came to the conclusion that they'd rather not, is it because there's a societal structure keeping them there? All valid questions and all issues that are not easy to resolve, and there are plenty of people trying. The government is trying to stop voter apathy, the BBC is questioned as to whether it is sliding from a remit of 'educate and entertain' to just 'entertain', stupidity becomes fashion in lad culture and the heat generation. There are so many issues here, so many tiny niggles, that you just can't help but scream. This life is such a tangle of complex issues, you can't solve them and half the time you can't even decide on the right course of action for a given situation, even that separation of one tiny incident from the whole is itself disingenuous as it ignores all the other factors that influence that decision – all the factors that make you you, that make them them, the interactions between, the structure we're interacting within.
And then off on another tangent – everything we do is ultimately pointless as we're just passing time until we die. Is there point in any action then? Is there a point in trying to engage with these issues, or is sitting around watching TV all day just as valid a pass-time as thinking about why someone might want to? The answer must be yes, there is just as much point and just as much justification, it's your life after all, to do with as you please. But it doesn't enhance, it doesn't strive for that philanthropic enrichment of existence and humanity that we might hope our actions attempt. Thus the clash between the grand philosophy and the everyday reality of getting annoyed and upset, the continual, philanthropic hope for a better society but a daily misanthropy that surfaces as that impotent anger. Thus the dislike of the structure that's in place and seems so encompassing and so crushing to our hopes and dreams, driving us to thoughtless apathy. Thus the circle of logic that leads you to berate, then repent because this can never be justified, then to some grey place betwixt the two where it just doesn't matter. But also the feeling that without this anger, without ranting about the bad bits, they'll never change. From here, perhaps, comes a certain motivation to carry on. But also, so many but alsos, the thought that people should be taking a responsibility for some of their actions, can we ever hope to really improve as a species if people choose to be unengaged, if they choose thoughtlessness? And if they do choose this path are we legitimate in challenging it?
Who am I to judge? No one at all, yet I do. I see things I dislike, things I think are pointless and a waste of time. I think it's important to think about life, so I get disheartened when others' don't. We're all locked in these shades of grey, we must justify what we can and at least think on the rest, we may not hope to find such a thing as a 'right' and a 'wrong' answer, but at least steer a course as best we can. Therefore I don't think it's wrong to have these rants and pass these snap judgements, we are human after all, we have such a plethora of spiralling moods and thoughts all the time, but they must be in context and taken for what they are, then justified and contemplated if challenged, or when your mood changes.
What are YOU doing? Engaging in these thoughts to try and improve myself, try and create a dialogue through which I come to understand myself and share that understanding with others. What is it to be human? It is trying, it is thinking, it is succeeding and failing, it is trying to steer the best course of action through a fog without a map. There are no absolutes here, there is a mire of ambiguity and nuance. A mire that we all struggle with, sometimes thinking we've got it right this time, sometimes convincing ourselves we need to change tack, sometimes not giving a fig either way.
WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
That's all very well, but answer the question. Are these actions a help or a hindrance? Disappearing into ambiguity is fine in isolation, but we have to live. We have to take actions all the time, we have to interact with people, we have to decide. These thoughts strike when considering how we make things better. I dislike much of where we're at right now, but time passes and decisions have to be made. If you're a leader, what do you do? You have to take action, you don't have the benefit of this hand-waving negation of responsibility, this armchair criticism that points to flaws and dislikes but seldom offers a better solution – is it because there isn't one?
This is why I don't always get to a conclusion, there often doesn't seem to be one. All we can hope for is that we explore the issues as thoroughly as we are able, that this process helps us and helps us all, and that once we've got as far as we can the impetus spurs us, or someone else, further. What is modern technology if not the product of a towering edifice of scientific discovery built over the years, sometimes painfully slowly and sometimes several stories at a time? George Monbiot's latest book lays out a plan for a new system of world governance. He doesn't claim it's right, he doesn't claim it's finished. He just says, look, we've found flaws, so many problems and injustices in the current method, so here are some ideas, here's a place to start, something to build on. He doesn't claim divine knowledge or absolute truth, just that he has thought about it and now has the hope that these thoughts might go someway to influencing positive action.
WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
So the ranting criticism, is it justified? Is it an action I can now take in good faith, in the knowledge that it is part of me but not all of me? It's a start. Does it help? It helps me to find the problems, it has spurred me on to this, and perhaps this tangled torrent of words will carry me further still. When I read a critic in the paper what is he achieving? A good piece of writing, a funny insult, a review that tells me whether I might enjoy the film or CD or book. I would argue that that can be constructive for those that read it. It is not merely bile, it is not just empty invective. Shouting why can't this all be better is a start to making it better, it is admitting you have a problem even if you don't yet have a solution.
WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
I'm not claiming that I can find absolute truth, I'm not claiming that there is even such a thing, but opinions do matter. Sometimes they're rash and destructive, sometimes you change your mind later, sometimes you wish you could take them back. But what are they if not an innate part of our humanity? How can we ever hope to fully explore who we are, what we are, without going wherever our minds take us, without feeling emotion? The results may prove contentious, or rubbish, or rash, or insightful; regardless the journey is still important. If something annoys me I want to explore why: why I feel like this and what it means to me, where this emotion comes from. Yes, I'd also like to do something about it, think of a constructive solution to whichever of life's quirks has irritated me this time, but that's seldom as easy as the feeling in the first place. And seldom feels possible at all. Perhaps if I were a policy maker, perhaps then I could have a big effect, but do I want that? I don't know if I'd be able to make so many difficult decisions on a daily basis. I rant about the ones that get made that seem, to me, stupid and short-sighted, but could I do better? Sometimes I think I could, but consistently? No. Do I even have all the facts that have added up to these judgements? Nope, I've not read the reports and policy documents and independent analyses. I've read the smattering of facts in the newspaper and perhaps a little more. So my opinion might be "wrong", but it's still valid and still constructive for being there, for having been thought about and thought of. What else is life if not a combination of necessity and interest? The necessity comes with being alive, the interest comes with living.
WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
Everything, nothing, and all that is in between. That's not any kind of satisfactory answer, but it's where I'm at. Maybe I'll discover more that I could be doing, maybe I'll get better at what I am doing so that it does add something to someone somewhere, maybe I'll produce one out of all those millions of books that help us build the something worthwhile and beautiful and amazing and ridiculous and irritating and pointless that is life.
WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
I watched Downfall and was staggered, amazed by the certainty and fervour of Hitler and his followers. They were convinced they were right. I watched Fog of War and was amazed by McNamara's regret and his analysis, in hindsight, of the actions he'd been involved with (firebombing in WW2, Vietnam). He, too, believed at the time that he was taking the best course. And many of the scientists involved in the Manhattan project, they took what they saw as the only possible action, then regretted it when the bombs were so mercilessly dropped.
A friend was talking about the difficulties inherent in government, how you
could get five people in a room and come up with five different ideas about
how something should be done. Extrapolate that to millions and there's a very
big problem. How do we face this? How do we justify what we're doing, how
are we making things better? Through exploring our interests and ideas and
thoughts, by trying to work out who we are, why we are, how we are. By taking
part in culture: in art, in music, in literature, in science, in technology.
By engaging in debate and having at least some element of social awareness,
by realising that this is what we are, that without this we're just animals
engaged in the necessity, not people engaged in the interest.
WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
All we can hope for is to chip away at our bit, our niche, and find the best course. All we can hope for is everyone else to do the same, for our governments to take enlightened actions based on thought and analysis, not snap gut feeling. All we can hope for is that all of these disparate individual actions build a cohesive whole that is fair and just and everything we think it should be, that they got us this far and will get us much further. That we can all build on each other's thoughts and actions. I'm not doing a whole lot, but I'm doing something. I'm trying.
What are YOU doing?