Monday, October 20, 2014

Order from chaos.

As I walked into the room, I became aware that my appearance was unwelcome.

The hostility was palpable.

There was no suspicion of a smile.

I was greeted with hatred.

While over the months the outright hostility seemed to lessen, my presence was never accepted.

I simply had to accept the fact that as a man, I was the enemy.

We become blind to all possibilities of reconciliation.

At each turn we look for patterns of aggression. 

We become in our turn defensive.
We become in our turn aggressors.

Forbidden fruit?
I see an apple; this is food.
I see an apple; this is temptation.
I see an apple; this is love.
I see an apple; this is poison.

Flailing around in our darkness, we look for security, we look for patterns.

The Red Lion, was just along the road, each time we drove past it was presented as a den of iniquity.

This was something to do with alcohol.  I didn't understand that word.  I wasn't at all sure what it was.

I do remember that I didn't like the smell of beer on my grandfather's breath.  I didn't like beer-smell.

I do remember that his trips down the road to the pub were greeted with scorn.

I had no means of understanding the emotional subplot.

We forget or we are unaware of the reasons for the patterns chosen for us.

We are told stories, we are given histories, which bring some sort of order to our chaos.

 "History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the imperfections of documentation."
Julien Barnes

I have just realised that the multitude of constraints with which I was educated increased the opportunities for me in my life to have adventures.

Going to a pub, normal for many people, for me became a heroic adventure. I was going into a  beast's lair, a mythogical creature's den.

The Red Lion might just have well been Hades.

When we are educated with what for us are an absurd multitude of meaningless constaints it is at times easier to start again from scratch.

Chaos for my parents for me seemed like freedom.

Meaning for me was to go beyond their fearful framing to imagine a new culture...my own remix.

I was fortunate, my parents were forgiving, their hope, their love never lessened.

They had faith.

I was able to spare them the gory details of my quest for meaning.

They wouldn't have understood.

It was not their fault.

Veils of freedom, veils of tears.

I am struck with how a veil might be seen by some women as submission but to others a declaration of freedom.  I am struck with how a veil might be seen by some as a weapon.

I met a friend of mine at a conference.

She seemed distracted, like me she was frustrated by the conference.

We agreed we didn't fit in.

We went out to talk.

How can one be scientific when one is confronted by impossible choices?

Her parents had prepared a homecoming for her - an arranged marriage.

Her parents were unaware that she already had a home, a love, a hybrid culture of her own.

She was presented with an impossible dilemna, she was torn apart by love.

An inflexible frame is a corpse.

A religion for some might be seen as a means of self-determination for others as a prison.

I have been thinking about 'objectivity' in 'human sciences', and I am struck at how a 'scientific lens' may be be used as a tool for repression or used as a tool of liberation.   

Seen from afar, people are objectified, they have no means to evidence complexity of their interaction of their behaviour of their belief.

The scientific perspective of the world has risen us, some of us, up onto a/our/their pedestal of 'progress'.

'Progress' is our  apple.



We see a 'truth' we are blind to 'our lies'. 



















9 comments:

  1. I love everything about this post... the Barnes quote, the Moore quote, and your own text. Thanks for sharing, Simon! More reflecting later ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Maha...I look forward to more reflecting.

      Delete
  2. Lovely post Simon. Since you mentioned science, it made me think about the role of critical/ interpretive research in seeing each others 'truths' and 'lies'. I think that feminist epistemologies can make a good contribution here. I am on my phone so can't give you a link but Google Belenky Women's Ways of Knowing if you are interested. If you are not, feel free to ignore this comment:)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Frances thank you. I have never regretted spending time with my hostile friends. Being ignored is sometimes an act of love. I have never regretted spending time to draw my fluid lines - they feel like freedom. I have never regretted studying a marxist-feminsit interpretation of history, we learn much by borrowing others' lenses to glimpse the world from different perspectives.

      Delete
  3. It would be nice to start from scratch. Can we start from scratch? We are still the product of understandings and decisions of other people's constraints - are they structures? they have been constructed.

    "A religion for some might be seen as a means of self-determination for others as a prison."
    "I am struck with how a veil might be seen by some women as submission but to others a declaration of freedom."
    Are the different perspectives conflicting? Or are we standing on different sides of the elephant?
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Tania
      I would say that we can never really start totally from scratch but we can deconstruct our own stories to understand them as stories.

      Yes I think that the different perspectives are often potentially conflictual. I think that there are some perspectives which are impossibly inflexible.

      Delete
  4. Another brilliant post, Mr. Ensor.
    "Going to a pub, normal for many people, for me became a heroic adventure. I was going into a beast's lair, a mythogical creature's den. The Red Lion might just have well been Hades."
    One man's pub is another man's hell. One man's flexibility is another man's descent into anarchy and chaos. One man's curriculum is another man's prison. One man's prison is another man's freedom. One man's end is another's beginning.
    Perspective, history, framing....lots to ponder. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete