Well, now....
If you glance into driveways on any residential road, you’ll mostly see two kinds of car-parking: the forward-in and the reverse-in. I’ve noticed by far the majority are consistently forward-in. I, on the other hand, always reverse-in. Perhaps most people don’t even reflect on the issue? My reasoning, from when I first owned a car, was that in this unpredictable world it’s only sensible to prepare for a quick getaway: ie, forward-out. Not that I’ve ever needed that quick getaway, except from work in an absurd attempt to ‘beat the traffic’ – as if 10-seconds to reverse makes a scrap of difference! Well, it might?
In long past times when I worked in Cambridge, heading into a great mass of commuter traffic at 17.00 felt more like charging into a war-zone. And whoever got clear of the Lab first would be leading a battalion to join all the other battalions. Even to save a measly 10-seconds, that quick-as-possible getaway became a serious issue.
Today, I still reverse-in - though not if under an open window (or for some other obvious reason). But it’s a philosophy I’ve nurtured in other circumstances - always ready for a swift exit.
Which is why, since I was about 15, short-distance running has been part of my life. Now at 63 I can still set a respectable pace for several hundred metres or so. It was in my teens, though, when I decided how useful it was to be able to sprint.
In those days I had a curious skill for annoying people. Quite innocently, and entirely without meaning it, I would often either do or say something that evoked real anger in some people – those with a sensitive disposition or low tolerance level, I assumed. And it was only adults who were offended, hence the crucial tactic: a fast retreat.
To this day I retain this dubious talent - to accidentally provoke certain types - though these days I can anticipate better. I originally developed this, I reckon, when my age was still in single digits. Being small and frail, unintended insults were mostly tolerated – though I do recall a few hairy moments. By the time I was 15 people were more inclined to lash-out. So all my life, I’ve been wary when in the company of anyone who seemed to me 'unstable' or ultra-sensitive.
I make this sound dramatic, as if I’ve suffered frequent violent attack or threats. Far from it; maybe it's happened two or three times at most. Today I read an article called 'Beaten Down, Isolated, Angry, and Distracted' by Phil Rockstroh(ICH) that revealed what seems, on reflection, the source of this anger I provoked too. Here's an extract:
I noticed how the atomization inherent to the internalization of the corporate state (the manner that the domination of commercial and work space had all but eliminated the public commons) had diminished so many people's ability to converse on all but the most superficial level.
Any invocation to deepen conversation or an assertion that arrived outside of the realm of status quo consensus caused all too many to simply go haywire. People checked out, went blank, testiness ensued…Comfort zones were mobilized for a siege. The space between people became a no man's land, stippled with a minefield of sensitivities.
In short, approaching life and one's fellows from a mode of mind evincing aspects of the human condition that existed outside the realm of workplace expediency and consumer desire had been diminished to the point of being rendered all but absent.
...the act of engaging in fruitful, democratic discourse, with all too many of the people of the U.S., without evoking angst, anger, and a host of demented fantasies, has become increasingly unlikely.
"Awake we share the world; sleeping each turns to his private world." – Heraclitus
(see also youtube:how to share difficult information )
Rockstroh thinks this is a recent phenomenon and blames the media and propaganda, but it's always existed - at least since I was a kid (as I wroteHERE). Much of what I write on this site would probably anger a few people – if they were nutty enough to value my opinion that highly. Why anyone, apart maybe from a few close friends, should value what I think is a mystery. I’ve never felt even remotely inclined to react angrily to someone’s opinion – perhaps not even if it’s someone I know well. And if I have no power over them, what difference does it make to get annoyed? The solution: be a mere disinterested observer… of wars, swindles, rip-offs, etc... at least, of what doesn't affect one directly. As for personal insults – especially if I don’t know the person – why should they have any effect? What does any stranger know? If I reflect that their observation is accurate, then I owe them gratitude for alerting me to some truth. I’d be more offended by a malfunctioning gadget that acts against my interest than by any kind of verbal insult.
I’m no professional at anything, and don’t pretend to be. I know very little about anything, yet I still think and write and shove my conclusions on virtually any issue up onto this website. Many people do this these days, on Twitter or Facebook or Tumblr, and so on. I observe what’s happening in the world, read what various commentators say - people whose honesty I’ve learned to trust and who (to my knowledge) hold no allegiances or hidden agendas, but are involved at or near the core of what they’re reporting about – and from all this I construct a picture, filling-in the gaps with my own ‘informed’ assumptions. By scanning a variety of sources with a skeptical eye, thinking below the surface, I endeavour to see through propaganda and attempts to deceive or misinform. Other people may well find a different picture – but why should they be offended by mine? Why not let me know where I'm wrong - if that's what they think? But how would it be if we all saw the same in everything?
A few days ago, following the Olympic torch fiasco – which author Iain Sinclair explained on Ch-4 News was the brainchild of Hermann Göring (president of the Reichstag under Hitler) - a neighbour described to me how touching it was when she saw a disfigured veteran of the Afghanistan invasion carry the torch along Hastings seafront. (We’d just been agreeing how peaceful and pleasant our neighbourhood was, and Hastings too). I responded: ‘We’re just so lucky our peace isn’t shattered by an Arab invasion, bombing our houses, murdering our youth, as our government has done to them. ’
I’ve no idea if that comment revealed to my neighbour the irony in her being ‘touched’ by a disfigured veteran of a bloody invasion carrying (Göring’s) Olympic torch? Quite possibly, once she’d reflected on it – assuming she did – she’d have found the comment apt. But my guess is that most people would find it offensive. At least, that would be the prevailing sentiment I’d expect in the climate of the time, with huge media propaganda efforts generating insane Olympic euphoria, as previously War euphoria: with the ‘Whatever We Do Is Right’ philosophy. If I believed in an afterlife, I’d say propaganda guru Edward Bernays is smiling very contentedly in his grave.
The other day I saw a TV programme about lifestyle – one of several presented by a guy called Michael Mosely. This is another great potential source of inadvertent offence. Suggest to anyone their lifestyle is unhealthy in some way, and instead of thanking you and requesting how they might improve their situation, the chances are you’ll get an earful of abuse: mind your own fuckin’ business. Who the hell are you to know, let alone advise? That’s OK. Live and let live. Where ignorance is bliss…. etc. Fine. I recall a couple of lines from the end of a poem by Alexander Pope: In spite of pride in erring reasons plight, One truth is clear: whatever is, is right. Or something like that.
The point is – as Hermann Hesse so eloquently points out in his essay ‘Journey to Nuremberg’ – that people BEHAVE (according to subtle – sometimes not-so-subtle – propaganda, and other unconscious motives), and then cook-up some rational explanation to justify how they BEHAVE. Likewise with OPINIONS. If you don’t believe this and think it's one of those dubious opinions, just test it and see. People often don’t want truth, facts, reality…. give them fiction every time. Maybe Lewis Carroll was right: 'Life, what is it, but a dream?' Well, it is, so it seems, for many people - (ie, as above: psychology of denial).
One disconcerting experience I recall was during a small dinner-party at a relation's house in Yorkshire. She and her boyfriend had introduced the subject of heterosexual love (in those days, at least a couple of decades ago, the adjective was a given and not mentioned). When I suggested that it was all down to the survival of the gene, everything stopped. Our hosts both suddenly glared at me with expressions of extreme venom, as if I'd just said or done something outrageous and unforgivable. I immediately qualified my comment by saying we were all familiar with Dawkins' 'The Selfish Gene'. The response was cries of horror, jabbing knives - cutlery had never looked so lethal to me. What utter incomprehensible nonsense I was talking. How could I say such insane things? What could I, of all people, possibly know about love?
There were five of us present, my sister remained calm, and my friend J (who lived a few miles away and who I was staying with) backed his chair slowly away from the table as though preparing for a swift exit. My first reaction was astonishment. I decided I'd better put the dampers on, so instantly retracted my comments: 'I'm sorry,' I said, 'You're right, I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm sure Dawkins is wrong.' The reaction to this was even more astonishing. The tirade of abuse was now at my lack of sincerity, which proved further that I was talking drivel.
Unlike as one might expect following such an outburst, this didn't die a natural death, but went on, getting wilder and more vicious. Every effort I made to quell the anger seemed to fuel it. Even when I said nothing, my silence somehow caused offence. Like my friend J, I too began sliding my chair back. Then, in a brief interval between shouting, he murmured timidly, 'I think we'd better go.' Our hosts agreed with gusto, and within a minute J and I were outside, getting in the car, sighing with relief at having survived - never mind our genes - what for a fleeting moment had appeared a life-threatening situation.
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