Reasons to be cheerful

In Season 4 of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Buffy is brought back from the dead by her friends who believe her to be suffering torments in hell. One of the pivotal moments is during an episode where the town is under an enchantment that turns everything into a song-and-dance number. As in all good musicals, the songs display the characters’ innermost feelings and secrets, and Buffy reveals that she had not in fact been in hell - but in a place where there was “no pain, no fear, no doubt; a place of comfort and love.”  Heaven, no less. For her, it is the hard and violent “real” world that is Hell.

Despairing, near suicidal, she is pulled back from the brink by the (sung) insight that

Life’s not a song.
Life isn’t bliss.
Life is just this:
It’s living.
You have to go on living.

The whole season is about dealing with becoming an adult and understanding what it is that makes life worth living. The question of what – if anything – makes life worthwhile is a recurring theme (albeit not usually with vampires) through the ages from Seneca’s line: "merely to live is an act of courage” to Hamlet to Dorothy Parker’s poem Resumé:

Razors pain you;

Rivers are damp;

Acids stain you;

And drugs cause cramp.

Guns aren’t lawful;

Nooses give;

Gas smells awful;

You might as well live.

In Buffy’s case, though, the stakes are raised beyond that of the fate of one individual – her dilemma is bound up with the fate of the whole world; indeed the personal drama becomes, quite literally, that of the world. It’s a psychologically perceptive metaphor: we all exist in own individual universe and personal calamity does often feel like the end of the world.

I was reminded of this direct link between individual, personal choices and those of the planet a few nights ago when I was watching the excellent and moving Lungs. It’s an intense, moving and frequently funny two-hander with recognisable people trying to navigate the complexities of a modern-day relationship. They start to question whether having a baby is a responsible, ethical choice since doing so leaves a carbon footprint as big as flying back and forth to New York every day for seven years.

As the late, Eric Hobsbawm wrote, a hundred years ago the idea of global peril was beyond imaginative conception. At that time, mass casualties of man-made calamities were numbered in the tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands. The horrors of the Congo Free State that shocked so-called civilised society and inspired Heart of Darkness were modest in scale by modern standards.

 

The millions dead and wounded during the industrial slaughter of the First World War were such a profound shock to the psyche of the human species that they effectively put an end to the civilised assumption of “inevitable human progress” of the preceding hundred years.

The rest of the Twentieth Century only accelerated this trend of expanding scale of destruction. The word “genocide” was coined in 1944. Three years later Stalin chillingly said that “one death is a tragedy; one million a statistic.” And by that time the world was living with the possibility of nuclear war and today is still coming to terms with the concept of global peril.

Since 1945 as the global population has mushroomed, paradoxically, in Western culture at least, the prominence of the individual has risen. One consequence, perhaps, of this apparent contradiction is the rise of the popular trope of one person “saving the world.”

 

The last few years have seen the world become ever more-connected. Now, for the first time in human history, we are aware of the combined impact of our individual choices on the fate of a fragile world. This awareness can become paralysing.

It is this paralysis that Lungs explores as the couple try to focus on the possible hastening of the end of the planet as a way of assessing whether to take the very human decision of having a child. This is not a polemical piece (unlike, say, the recent Ten Billion at The Royal Court) and the play works because these debates come out of the narrative situation and drive it forward rather than placing them centrally.

On the same day as seeing the play, I had a meeting with an arts organisation and we were discussing what they were doing in terms of Environmental Sustainability. The Executive Director made the point that there is a conflict between much of what they could do and its affordability, citing the example of the high cost of sustainably sourced timber for set construction.

This dilemma is in a similar territory as that of the play. What does it actually mean to be good? How much is enough? I think this taps into a certain viewpoint that can be characterised as “hair-shirt.” That is, we (particularly in the developed world) have got to “give up” up unsustainable habits and change our behaviours. Implicit, and sometimes explicit, in these discussions is the suggestion that to be “good” - to be responsible citizens - we need to renounce the world and live as hermits.

As well as being a bit depressing, this can also be counterproductive – most of us are not capable of doing that; therefore, the thinking goes, anything less is an empty, futile gesture so there’s no point in doing anything at all.

Generally, the framework within which these issues are considered is very often in such polarised “either/or” terms: Utopia/ Dystopia; extinction/ no change; become a hermit/ don’t do anything.

Personally, I find this, whilst understandable, very unhelpful. It’s not a question of choosing between one option or the other. Yes, we need to conduct our lives in a better fashion, more in tune with the warp and weft of the world we inhabit; but surely we would all like to do that? Exploring the possibilities of what that might mean I think is hugely exciting.

In the Pixar film, Wall-E, Earth has been rendered near uninhabitable by a man-made ecological disaster. Humankind has departed in a luxury spaceship hoping that the planet will be cleaned up by the robots left behind. Over generations, cossetted and pampered, humans have lost the ability to do much at all – even walking. When the Captain of the ship discovers all that has been lost on Earth (especially dancing!) he wants to go back. He is stopped by the Autopilot that tells him that the only worthwhile thing left to do is to “survive”. The Captain replies with the memorable cri de coeur “I don’t want to survive! I want to live!!”

The Captain has a reason, a motivation for “living.” What is common to the sentiments of Buffy, Lungs, and Wall-E is that “living” is much more than just existing and that there is a reason behind wanting to “live”. In the case of Lungs, it is linked specifically to creating and nurturing of another life. I don’t think it is reading too much into the play to infer that the immersion in the waters of life – in this case, the joy, wonder and love that comes with parenthood – are powerful reasons for living. And powerful reasons for living can mean powerful reasons for exploring ways of conducting that life that - in the words of Bruntland - “meets the needs of the present without compromising the life of future generations.”

I think this gives courage, perseverance and even hope. It helps make sense of our endeavours. As Ruskin observed, it is not what we get, but what we become by our endeavours that make them worthwhile.

Feeling Reasonable?

Easter Island, which I wrote about in my last post, is the most isolated inhabited island in the world. Its nearest inhabited neighbour, 1300 miles to the west, is Pitcairn Island. By a coincidence, I recently attended a read-through of a new play called “Pitcairn” by Richard Bean (he of One Man, Two Guvnors). It’s a powerful piece and I hope it makes its way into production, as planned, in 2014.

The play tells the events following the mutiny on the Bounty when Christian Fletcher and his men landed on that island and tried to set up a “paradise” republic. The munity occurred in 1789, also the year of the French Revolution, and right in the middle of a period of European political and social revolution that included the American and Haitian Revolutions and saw the publication of Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man and Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. This period is usually known as The Enlightenment and its achievements were celebrated in Jenny Sealey and Bradley Hemming’s Paralympics Opening Ceremony.

According to The Oxford Guide to Philosophy, one of the central tenets of The Enlightenment is that “Reason is man's [or woman’s] central capacity, and it enables him no only to think, but to act, correctly.” We usually think of this period as the beginning of our supposedly rational modern world and, as a result, probably most of us today like to think that we are able to make decisions and judgements on the basis of rationality and reason.

It is something of a paradox, therefore, that it was the Scottish Enlightenment philosopher, David Hume who observed that Reason is subordinate to the Passions. This old insight has proved remarkably robust and one which has been extensively tested, explored and confirmed by modern-day psychologists. Modern day political tacticians talk about the “reason of voters riding into battle on the elephant of intuition” and they advise that politicians “talk to the elephant.” In other words, to “sell” a political idea, you need to appeal to people’s deep-seated values and biases.

Common Cause, a report from 2010 sponsored by WWF, Friends of the Earth and others explores the implications of these insights for those working in the climate change field. Although it is rather dense in places (I was glad for example that I already had some understanding of cognitive science), it is an intriguing and often compelling read. It quotes the scientist George Lakoff who specifically highlights the danger of utilising “Enlightenment Reason” - that is, that “if only people are made aware of the facts and figures, they should naturally reason to the right conclusion. Voter should vote their interest…. [However] Voters don’t behave that way. They allow bias, prejudice and emotion to guide their decisions; they argue madly about values, priorities and goals.”

The report makes the point that if facts don’t support a person’s values and their sense of self-identity, “the facts bounce off”.

There is supposed to be a Saami tribe in Finland who believe that anyone wearing white clothing whilst observing the Northern Lights will be snatched away by the spirits. They believe this even whilst showing the lights to white-clothed (non-snatched) tourists.

The report goes on to quote the cognitive scientist Dan Kahan “The prevailing approach [in trying to influence the public about climate change] is still simply to flood the public with as much sound data as possible on the assumption that the truth is bound, eventually, to drown out its competitors. If, however, the truth carries implications that threaten people’s cultural values, then… [confronting them with this data] is likely to harden their resistance and increase their willingness to support alternative arguments, no matter how lacking in evidence”

So if we do want to influence people’s behaviour, how do we work with (and not against) people’s values and attitudes? How do we harness “passion” and strong positive feelings; how do we engage with people’s values? The report has some interesting things to say on this and I hope to return to this subject again.

Meanwhile, for those of you who, like me, have to attend work meetings, ask yourself what do you remember from meetings – particularly those that have had a positive (or negative) impact? You almost certainly won’t remember what other people said; you might remember some of what you said; but what you will remember – long after the event – is how you felt. There may have been no revelatory insight or significant agreement but if you left with a warm glow of enthusiasm, or inspiration then that warm feeling will not only last but also motivate.

On his return from Elba, Napoleon famously remembered the name of a small-town mayor he had met for just a few minutes some years previously. The man was so impressed that he followed Bonaparte all the way to a pointless death at Waterloo. An example, perhaps, of Reason being not so much subordinate to as eliminated by Emotion…

A few decades earlier, back on Pitcairn after 1789, reason did not prevail against emotion either. Richard Bean’s play is about many things and works on many levels so I don’t want to be reductive but, as well as being a story of extraordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, it is an another reminder from history of the catastrophic failure that results from attempting to create a civilisation that does not respect the natural, human and social capital on which that society is built. As with all good art, big issues – in this case, what makes a just society; and how do we live with each other without destroying each other and where we live – are presented so that you not only think, but - most importantly - feel.

Hidden Friend

My three year-old has a bit of an obsession with the film Night at the Museum in which objects come to life through magic. His imagination is particularly fired by the talking Easter Island head. Since he likes going to museums anyway, it’s not surprising that he likes to visit the British Museum to see their Easter Island statue.

He’s called Hoa Hakananai'a and he is a tall, striking figure that dominates the gallery where he stands. He has been placed so that looks his other-worldly gaze over the heads of the visitors in the direction of Easter Island, or Rapa Nui, in the South Pacific. This is one of the most isolated inhabited islands in the world and, consequently, one of the last places on the globe to be populated by humans, probably between 700-900. Over time the islanders developed a unique culture and they carved large numbers of these statues, called Moai. They were  probably intended to represent the faces of deified ancestors or spirits and many were placed looking on the coasts looking outwards where they must have been an awe-inspiring sight to visitors arriving over the sea.

Like many small islands, Rapa Nui has a fragile ecosystem and over time the island became over-populated and resources over-harvested. All the species of large trees, many landbirds and some sea birds became extinct. There followed an environmental disaster and, by the time of European arrival in 1722, the island's population had dropped to 2,000–3,000 from approximately 15,000 just a century earlier. During this period of upheaval, the Ancestor Cult ended and was replaced by the Birdman Cult. At the same time, somewhere around 1600, the islanders abruptly stopped carving their Moai.

On the back of Hoa Hakananai'a a carving has been added representing this new Birdman cult. It is not easy to make out all of the detail and, to my eyes, is closer to carved graffiti than to high quality religious artwork. It certainly does not compare with the strength, power and mystery of his front.

It is unusual to have the impact of environmental changes carved in stone. Hoa Hakananai'a is a solid representation of the relationship between art/ culture and the environment and a reminder that this relationship has been with us for a very long time.

Art and culture are ways of exploring what it means to be human and the relationship between humans and the world we inhabit. Hoa Hakananai'a, which roughly translates as “Hidden Friend” was a gift from the Rapanui to the British in 1868.  If we care to listen to our hidden friend, he has a message that he has brought with him from the past. Moreover, he will be around after we have gone, carrying his message into the future – a future in which my son will be living with the consequences of our actions today.