What is more important to the survival of an individual in society, compassion or detachment?
I am talented. I don’t say this without thought, consideration or experience. I am talented but I don’t say this to boast. In fact it is the antipode of how I act and how I feel. Never the less, objectively my intelligence is above the average. Yet I have no use for this talent, it is largely neglected. Is this caused by lack of motivation? Perhaps, partly, I accept some blame. But I can find no realistic outlet for my talent. I am proficient writer and enthusiastic artist, I can draw well, I can work with wood and metal, I can sew and knit, I am reasonably well read on various philosophies, politics, and art theories, I am said to be attractive, I am able bodied. I understand the things of life, the objective situation.
However, where has my above-averageness put me? Without home. Without work. Without conviction. Without confidence. Most importantly without satisfaction, even happiness. Why? Because I give up too easily. Because I don’t take responsibility. Because I am neurotic. Because I am undisciplined. Because I drink too much. So often I wonder what the point is, like those countless others before me. Why do so many resort to suicide? Because they have no talent, because they have not found their talent or because they forget their talent. What separates the geniuses of humanity from the billions upon billions of the rest of us? Fear or laziness, perhaps, but more likely it’s the chance, just the chance to apply oneself as one longs to. Let the farmers farm, the bakers bake, the builders build, the dancers dance, the writers write, the speakers speak and the artists... well whatever. I refuse to believe the capitalist rhetoric that each of us can achieve our dreams through application alone; opportunity is not in our hands. We are a race oppressed, save a lucky few - who sometimes turnout a genius. Yet we are so blinded by division that our oppression goes largely unchecked.
But this oppression is not as Orwell thought; a boot stamping on a human face, forever - no, because this image creates an immediate reaction, it is more subversive than this. It is more like a disease, like being born with downs syndrome or autism - you probably don’t know you have it till you’re told by someone who doesn’t. So is this a question of class? I am the underclass, I have always lived far below the monitory level our government defines as poverty, so please believe me when I say that class is illusion - there is no us and them. Even though I am poor I feel no different from the royalties. Class, as a concept, is only another method of false division. Class gives stability to intangible oppression, keeps the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Destroy the concept of class, of heredity money and rights, and we will be brought so much closer. But we all know that. Don’t we?
The world is riddled with the disease of division, isolation, aggressive competition. Natural selection hasn’t been part of western life for a century at the very least, so we replaced it with our own competition. But everything about it is false, everything it teaches leads to ruin. Never in history have so many worked, for so little - and without complaint, save for those who aren’t working as they are. Because it is seen as necessary, necessary to work a till, to sit at a desk, to cold call, to ADVERTISE, for forty hours a week. And those who don’t, well they’re just lazy layabout leeches.
When did we become such sheep? Perhaps in school, the compulsory mangle which we are forced through, to squeeze the intrigue and joy out of life, in the stead of a hierarchy of knowledge: English, Mathematics, History. Because an enquiring, creative or even just realistic populous is not a manageable populous. Perhaps this is where the idea stems, of working hard only to achieve a grade - a number with which you can measure yourself to your fellows and look down on those in lower forms. This is the vicious self-esteem that comes to replace the natural joy which younger children feel.
The purpose of work is not to climb the social ladder, not to afford that new leather suite, that apartment in the west end, but of course, far more worth-while: it is to invent, to create, to produce for needs - not wants - of society, humanity. And this is done for nothing more than your own needs and the inimitable satisfaction that comes with a job done well.
So where do we go from here? Do we anesthetize ourselves against fictitious disorders and diseases, or do we open ourselves to the full analeptic intensity of this bizarre bazaar? Disillusionment is natural, but detachment is not. Disillusionment is brought about by compassion misplaced, detachment is created through anesthetic. In our society detachment is a requirement, the ability to ignore the distress and pain of others is a necessity. Empathy and compassion inhibits the individual’s chance of success at every level of a capitalist society. But when you’ve got your face pressed up against the glass, it is hard to see the whole picture.
And so what shall we wonder at? Our murders and massacres and missiles, and our irreconcilable regiments? Or our treaties whatever they may be worth; our symphonies however seldom they may be played; our peaceful acres, however frequently they may be converted into battlefields; our dreams however rarely they may be accomplished. The miracle of man is not how far he has sunk but how magnificently he has risen. (Ardey, R. 1961)
Yours Faithfully,
Michael
P.S. sorry.
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