Some people travel in straight lines:
Sat in metal boxes, eyes ahead,
Always mindful of the target,
Moving in obedience to the coloured lights and white lines,
Mission accomplished at the journey's end.
Some people travel round in circles:
Trudging in drudgery, eyes looking down,
Knowing only too well their daily unchanging round,
Moving in response to clock and habit,
Journey never finished yet never begun.
I want to travel in patterns of God's making:
Walking in wonder, gazing all around,
Knowing my destiny, though not my destination,
Moving to the rhythm of the surging of his spirit,
A journey which when life ends, in Christ has just begun.
Julia McGuinness
Thursday, 23 October 2008
A non-binary poem
Some people travel in straight lines:
Sat in metal boxes, eyes ahead,
Always mindful of the target,
Moving in obedience to the coloured lights and white lines,
Mission accomplished at the journey's end.
Some people travel round in circles:
Trudging in drudgery, eyes looking down,
Knowing only too well their daily unchanging round,
Moving in response to clock and habit,
Journey never finished yet never begun.
I want to travel in patterns of God's making:
Walking in wonder, gazing all around,
Knowing my destiny, though not my destination,
Moving to the rhythm of the surging of his spirit,
A journey which when life ends, in Christ has just begun.
Julia McGuinness
Sat in metal boxes, eyes ahead,
Always mindful of the target,
Moving in obedience to the coloured lights and white lines,
Mission accomplished at the journey's end.
Some people travel round in circles:
Trudging in drudgery, eyes looking down,
Knowing only too well their daily unchanging round,
Moving in response to clock and habit,
Journey never finished yet never begun.
I want to travel in patterns of God's making:
Walking in wonder, gazing all around,
Knowing my destiny, though not my destination,
Moving to the rhythm of the surging of his spirit,
A journey which when life ends, in Christ has just begun.
Julia McGuinness
Friday, 17 October 2008
I love this
'I have always believed that no matter how abstract our theories may sound or how consistent our arguments may appear, there are incidents and stories behind them which at least for ourselves, contain in a nutshell, the full meaning of what we have to say. Thought itself...arises out of the activity of incidents and incidents out of lived experience'
~Hannah Arendt
~Hannah Arendt
Tuesday, 14 October 2008
The Control of Nature
I've recently finished the excellent Control of Nature by John McPhee. He has a lovely turn of phrase and writes very well. What most caught my attention about this book though was the constant integration between the human condition and our relationship to and interaction with nature. Here's an example when talking about Icelandic attempts to redirect a lava flow in order to 'save' a wee fishing village:
'Even in something as primal as a volcanic eruption, the component of human interference could apparently enter the narrative and in complex and unpredictable geometries, alter the shape of succeeding events. After the human contribution passed a level higher than trifling, the human evolution of a new landscape could in no pure sense be natural. The event had lost it's status as a simple act of God. In making war with nature, there was risk of loss in winning.'
Here is an excellent case of the way we continually mould and shape the world around us. Even in a volcanic eruption - surely there can be little else more symbolic of 'raw' or 'pure' nature - the fundamental human capacity to (re)create our environments persist. I have to admit I find this sort of thing very encouraging.
On the one hand there is the pessimism born from seeing the human tendancy to constantly meddle and interfere. To always have the urge to poke around and be nosy, shunning the option to just let be. And examples of folly of this sort ending up in a sticky end are legion.
Yet there is tremoundous hope here also. That we have such agency leaves us largely able to rectify any mistakes we (collectivly and individually) have created. But it also gives us hope for creating the world we wish to live in around us. If we were more aware of these sort of capabilities and were a wee bit more stubborn in carring these out, maybe we could have far greater effect in affecting change?
'Even in something as primal as a volcanic eruption, the component of human interference could apparently enter the narrative and in complex and unpredictable geometries, alter the shape of succeeding events. After the human contribution passed a level higher than trifling, the human evolution of a new landscape could in no pure sense be natural. The event had lost it's status as a simple act of God. In making war with nature, there was risk of loss in winning.'
Here is an excellent case of the way we continually mould and shape the world around us. Even in a volcanic eruption - surely there can be little else more symbolic of 'raw' or 'pure' nature - the fundamental human capacity to (re)create our environments persist. I have to admit I find this sort of thing very encouraging.
On the one hand there is the pessimism born from seeing the human tendancy to constantly meddle and interfere. To always have the urge to poke around and be nosy, shunning the option to just let be. And examples of folly of this sort ending up in a sticky end are legion.
Yet there is tremoundous hope here also. That we have such agency leaves us largely able to rectify any mistakes we (collectivly and individually) have created. But it also gives us hope for creating the world we wish to live in around us. If we were more aware of these sort of capabilities and were a wee bit more stubborn in carring these out, maybe we could have far greater effect in affecting change?
Monday, 13 October 2008
Geographies of the Everyday: Resistance & Banality
Here are my notes from a talk I gave in Glasgow on Saturday.
I’d like to begin with a story from the US novelist, the late David Foster Wallace, who died a few weeks ago.
‘There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys, enjoying the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?”’
My point here is not to present myself as that wise old fish – here to explain to you what water is. Rather, as David Foster Wallace put it, it is to say that ‘the most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones most difficult to talk about.’ That my last sentence when seen written down appears as banal platitude, I won’t brook pointing out to you. Yet this is my point, that the most banal platitudes often have hugely significant consequences, much more so than what are traditionally defined as ‘life-or-death’ decisions. So far this all sounds like hyperbole, or abstract nonsense. So let’s get concrete…
What I’d like to do here is intersperse some of the things I’ve read in the last year or so with some stories that I’ve picked up during the same period, that led me on my journey to this course, but also choose my thesis topic.
I’ll start with the most important: Hannah Arendt.
A German Jew and Marxist, she lived a fascinating life. However here I want to draw on her most well known work. In 1963, this brilliant thinker wrote Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. In it she paints Eichmann both as the orchestrator of the holocaust, yes, but also as a very ‘normal’ human being, who became so focused on his day-to-day living and tasks that he lost the capacity to distinguish right from wrong. As you can imagine, that someone would draw together and compare such a monstrous evil as the holocaust and such banality drew much debate and ruffled a few feathers to say the least.
Now there are many issues that arise from this. I don’t think Arendt was attempting to excuse or make any less monstrous the evil of the holocaust, and neither am I here. I also realise that some of you may have concerns with describing anything as evil, and question what we mean by that, even in something as horrific as (an attempted) genocide. What I think is important here is to realise that the capacity for evil is greatly increased when our thinking and critical awareness are dulled by whatever banality, for example by being absorbed in a task.
Why is this important? Or any different from any other theory of ‘what went wrong’ in the holocaust? Paul Cloke offers three reasons:
The first point is that our unquestioned life practices can, through a myriad of unquestioned banality, lead to great evil. The corollary of this is the great effect that critically auditing our life patterns can achieve. This can be done in a myriad of ways. When I was considering this in preparing this talk I thought of some of the things that have served this purpose in my life, like spiritual retreats, works of arresting art or encounters with some pretty challenging people – the last being more important to me than I think I realise. There’s the saying where two folk agree on everything, one of them is superfluous. Likewise, if I only spend time in my comfort zone, or with comfortable people how can I grow? (etymology of comfort???)
There seems to be in the world around us a stubborn refusal to accept this point – that our life patterns reflect what we continually do. (As opposed to how we justify, reason away any actions that may be too unpalatable to be seen as of our own choosing.) This capacity is perhaps only exceeded by the human capacity to (re)create the world around us, if only we could muster the awareness to do so. I’ll move onto the second point.
Secondly, while our life patterns may not have been originated by our own choosing, they are often sustained by our own doing.
Now, there can be issues in how we interpret the capacity for action out of this. Arendt seems to be close advocating individual responsibility for the unquestioned banal actions, yet already I can hear the Che cry that atomised individualism is no solution to one of the creators of the problems we are talking about here. It’s a curious point. Arendt herself, when discussing her reaction to her book about Eichmann pointed out:
However monstrous the deeds were, the doer was neither monstrous nor demonic, and the only specific characteristic one could detect in his past as well as in his behaviour during the trial and the preceding police examination was something entirely negative: it was not stupidity but a curious, quite authentic inability to think.
A greater capacity to think, I believe, is certainly not going to be a hindrance in addressing these issues.
This brings me to her third point, which is I think totally antithetical to contemporary notions of freedom as individual rights to privatise and personalise. Freedom, for Arendt, can only be found within bounds, and is realised in our capacity for action, awareness and awakening.
From this theoretical start point, how can we make the shift from poiesis to praxis.
The first and most obvious example of this knowledge affecting me in my practice of ‘being the change’ can be seen in hitchhiking. As I reflected on some of the key axiomatic problems I have with society and social organisation (By that I mean, not merely specific isolated problems, but rather endemic, structural violations of humanity.) Hitching has become as good an example as any of my embodying praxis over poiesis.
I obviously don’t mean this to be proscriptive. If we were all to become hitchers, we’d all stand still – there being no cars. Rather it’s just one example of a change in lifestyle brought about by an awareness of the unconscious mental patters our habits sustain.
If am fundamentally at odds with a society that is run on principles of atomised individualism, unfettered capitalism, hyperrationialism, control, order, hierarchy, the selfish desire to get in a straight line to a precisely known destination - in short the enlightenment principles - then there appears to me to be no better embodiment of these ideals than car ownership or the car culture we see around us. Our water, if you like.
These philosophical interpretations of the car culture are not merely coincidental to the fact that one owns or uses a car. Rather take Arendt’s point, that we eventually embody these ideas whenever we engage with and carry out the action of car driving. The point here is not whither or not we in moments of critical reflective-ness disagree with the ideological assumptions of using a car, rather the point is we are what we continually do, not how well we justify what we do. It takes a remarkable, critical self-awareness to be able to engage in the activity and continually critically audit why we are doing said activity. Indeed, I would even go so far as to suggest, that it is impossible.
So, hitchhiking removes us from the complicity (both of the car culture and it’s philosophical basis), but it also hints at another possibility in the best possible way. What I mean by this, is that it does not preach or attempt to explain away what our actions are, or why we are doing them. (Of course, certain kinds of explanation can also be seen as enlightenment ideals.) Hitching does not preach, but rather suggests an alternative way of doing things. A way that values eating up the surplus waste of car driving (through taking up the spare seat) and where patience takes the place of control; reliance on others, autonomy and affirms the generous spirit in others.
I could also sketch an outline here too for skipping and for hospitality – which is what I chose to write my thesis about in the end. A hospitality that overcomes the personal individual right to property and ownership, and instead embodies a very different value system.
What I’ve outlined here is certainly not intended to be proscriptive (that would go against the very principles I’ve tried to outline!) Instead, I have tried to show how often, far too often, our stated ideals and principles are compromised by our actions – more often than not whilst we are completely unaware of this. The examples I have chosen here, reflect a broad pattern emphasising removal of oneself from complicity, embodying and reflecting how an alternative way of doing things may be possible. Done in a very self-effacing and practical way.
However this can only happen once we have critically reflected on our own life practices. A couple of helpful indicators of this may include evidence of changing ones mind. If I try to think back over the last year and haven’t changed my opinion on any topic of importance, the chances are I’ve not challenged myself enough.
The most important thing though, is to continually reflect on those obvious, ubiquitous, banal realities, that we so very often miss, by continually reminding ourselves ‘This is water, this is water, this is water.’
I’d like to begin with a story from the US novelist, the late David Foster Wallace, who died a few weeks ago.
‘There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys, enjoying the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?”’
My point here is not to present myself as that wise old fish – here to explain to you what water is. Rather, as David Foster Wallace put it, it is to say that ‘the most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones most difficult to talk about.’ That my last sentence when seen written down appears as banal platitude, I won’t brook pointing out to you. Yet this is my point, that the most banal platitudes often have hugely significant consequences, much more so than what are traditionally defined as ‘life-or-death’ decisions. So far this all sounds like hyperbole, or abstract nonsense. So let’s get concrete…
What I’d like to do here is intersperse some of the things I’ve read in the last year or so with some stories that I’ve picked up during the same period, that led me on my journey to this course, but also choose my thesis topic.
I’ll start with the most important: Hannah Arendt.
A German Jew and Marxist, she lived a fascinating life. However here I want to draw on her most well known work. In 1963, this brilliant thinker wrote Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. In it she paints Eichmann both as the orchestrator of the holocaust, yes, but also as a very ‘normal’ human being, who became so focused on his day-to-day living and tasks that he lost the capacity to distinguish right from wrong. As you can imagine, that someone would draw together and compare such a monstrous evil as the holocaust and such banality drew much debate and ruffled a few feathers to say the least.
Now there are many issues that arise from this. I don’t think Arendt was attempting to excuse or make any less monstrous the evil of the holocaust, and neither am I here. I also realise that some of you may have concerns with describing anything as evil, and question what we mean by that, even in something as horrific as (an attempted) genocide. What I think is important here is to realise that the capacity for evil is greatly increased when our thinking and critical awareness are dulled by whatever banality, for example by being absorbed in a task.
Why is this important? Or any different from any other theory of ‘what went wrong’ in the holocaust? Paul Cloke offers three reasons:
The first point is that our unquestioned life practices can, through a myriad of unquestioned banality, lead to great evil. The corollary of this is the great effect that critically auditing our life patterns can achieve. This can be done in a myriad of ways. When I was considering this in preparing this talk I thought of some of the things that have served this purpose in my life, like spiritual retreats, works of arresting art or encounters with some pretty challenging people – the last being more important to me than I think I realise. There’s the saying where two folk agree on everything, one of them is superfluous. Likewise, if I only spend time in my comfort zone, or with comfortable people how can I grow? (etymology of comfort???)
There seems to be in the world around us a stubborn refusal to accept this point – that our life patterns reflect what we continually do. (As opposed to how we justify, reason away any actions that may be too unpalatable to be seen as of our own choosing.) This capacity is perhaps only exceeded by the human capacity to (re)create the world around us, if only we could muster the awareness to do so. I’ll move onto the second point.
Secondly, while our life patterns may not have been originated by our own choosing, they are often sustained by our own doing.
Now, there can be issues in how we interpret the capacity for action out of this. Arendt seems to be close advocating individual responsibility for the unquestioned banal actions, yet already I can hear the Che cry that atomised individualism is no solution to one of the creators of the problems we are talking about here. It’s a curious point. Arendt herself, when discussing her reaction to her book about Eichmann pointed out:
However monstrous the deeds were, the doer was neither monstrous nor demonic, and the only specific characteristic one could detect in his past as well as in his behaviour during the trial and the preceding police examination was something entirely negative: it was not stupidity but a curious, quite authentic inability to think.
A greater capacity to think, I believe, is certainly not going to be a hindrance in addressing these issues.
This brings me to her third point, which is I think totally antithetical to contemporary notions of freedom as individual rights to privatise and personalise. Freedom, for Arendt, can only be found within bounds, and is realised in our capacity for action, awareness and awakening.
From this theoretical start point, how can we make the shift from poiesis to praxis.
The first and most obvious example of this knowledge affecting me in my practice of ‘being the change’ can be seen in hitchhiking. As I reflected on some of the key axiomatic problems I have with society and social organisation (By that I mean, not merely specific isolated problems, but rather endemic, structural violations of humanity.) Hitching has become as good an example as any of my embodying praxis over poiesis.
I obviously don’t mean this to be proscriptive. If we were all to become hitchers, we’d all stand still – there being no cars. Rather it’s just one example of a change in lifestyle brought about by an awareness of the unconscious mental patters our habits sustain.
If am fundamentally at odds with a society that is run on principles of atomised individualism, unfettered capitalism, hyperrationialism, control, order, hierarchy, the selfish desire to get in a straight line to a precisely known destination - in short the enlightenment principles - then there appears to me to be no better embodiment of these ideals than car ownership or the car culture we see around us. Our water, if you like.
These philosophical interpretations of the car culture are not merely coincidental to the fact that one owns or uses a car. Rather take Arendt’s point, that we eventually embody these ideas whenever we engage with and carry out the action of car driving. The point here is not whither or not we in moments of critical reflective-ness disagree with the ideological assumptions of using a car, rather the point is we are what we continually do, not how well we justify what we do. It takes a remarkable, critical self-awareness to be able to engage in the activity and continually critically audit why we are doing said activity. Indeed, I would even go so far as to suggest, that it is impossible.
So, hitchhiking removes us from the complicity (both of the car culture and it’s philosophical basis), but it also hints at another possibility in the best possible way. What I mean by this, is that it does not preach or attempt to explain away what our actions are, or why we are doing them. (Of course, certain kinds of explanation can also be seen as enlightenment ideals.) Hitching does not preach, but rather suggests an alternative way of doing things. A way that values eating up the surplus waste of car driving (through taking up the spare seat) and where patience takes the place of control; reliance on others, autonomy and affirms the generous spirit in others.
I could also sketch an outline here too for skipping and for hospitality – which is what I chose to write my thesis about in the end. A hospitality that overcomes the personal individual right to property and ownership, and instead embodies a very different value system.
What I’ve outlined here is certainly not intended to be proscriptive (that would go against the very principles I’ve tried to outline!) Instead, I have tried to show how often, far too often, our stated ideals and principles are compromised by our actions – more often than not whilst we are completely unaware of this. The examples I have chosen here, reflect a broad pattern emphasising removal of oneself from complicity, embodying and reflecting how an alternative way of doing things may be possible. Done in a very self-effacing and practical way.
However this can only happen once we have critically reflected on our own life practices. A couple of helpful indicators of this may include evidence of changing ones mind. If I try to think back over the last year and haven’t changed my opinion on any topic of importance, the chances are I’ve not challenged myself enough.
The most important thing though, is to continually reflect on those obvious, ubiquitous, banal realities, that we so very often miss, by continually reminding ourselves ‘This is water, this is water, this is water.’
Friday, 3 October 2008
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
