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Let's imagine you have been soldiering away all day avoiding ill people, lest you catch some airborne contaminant that stalks your city, but at night you forgot your struggle and left your bedroom window open - open to the infected air from the restless in the street. In no time at all you join them.
In the quest for better physical health you might make changes to your daily eating and exercise routines, blahblah to people about gym membership. You might decide to go to the toilet more routinely. You might not, but you might. Mental health is a little harder. Well, actually, you can do pretty well just listening to your body, but this notwithstanding, what kind of prescriptions can be had? I'm going to discuss opinion a litttle, as opinion is everywhere and therefore what is bad in it is always 'at large'.
Generally it is understood that opinions are slimy beasts, that intellectually they are not enough and we should not be satisfied with them, and that ultimately even very passionately held opinions probably do not matter. Models for living within one's opinion might be TV talking-heads style programming, radio call-ins concerning topics of the day, personal discussions with others in social situations or on the 'net. Opinion is usually contrasted with knowledge, but I will not be concerned with making such a distinction. Instead I am concerned only with avoiding something that is very 'catching' (and which I have caught in the past and likely you have caught it too).
If you look at the way opinions are expressed you can sometimes tell what implied commitments exist, and you can begin to get a feel for unstated ideas. But there are commitments that are not at all wise, but ones that are almost universally reinforced. My prescription will be an adjustment in how opinions are expressed. This should, however, make expressing opinions much more difficult because opinions are usually given freely, in whatever form they happen to roll off of the tongue, and if an expressive problem exists then this is pretty serious for the world of opinion. There is, therefore, a downside and a cost to this prescription - it's a little like a diet that doesn't quite give you enough energy. Some may say this is a good thing, allowing the mind to focus on other matters, or to help slow down opinion so that it may be assessed more clearly. I really don't care to deal with that, however. Efficiency isn't a problem when it's what you're doing that's in question.
The prescription is really simple; stop saying 'we' when expressing opinions. It is also to stop using the phrase 'as a society' and 'as a country' (perhaps also 'as a community'). Now, I don't care to criticise the use of 'we' as a polite way of saying 'you', such as in articles or journals ('Working through the message systematically in this way, we come to the conclusion that everybody must be killed'), even when this can amount to a mere opinion. I care about the use of 'we' to include oneself in the body politic. Too often people offer opinions by beginning 'I think we as a society...', when it is completely unclear whether society will have them. Likewise, people helpfully offer political opinions beginning 'what I think we should do is just...', when what has just been done by everyone else was likely the reason they began to speak in the first place!
Jokes aside, I could interrogate a use of 'we' by asking whether the individual is really worthy. I might ask whether the 'individual' has the kind of voice that a 'society' could possibly listen to. I might also ask how many individuals, should 'society' be the sum of all these individuals, the speaker imagines could possibly be interested in listening to what is, to others, the fleeting rant of an equally fleeting person.
However, my prescription is not about the limits of communication nor the egotism of the speaker. Usually the speaker is worthy, but that is, for me at least, for far-flung and unpractical reasons, and which never enter the logic of communication. Instead, whenever I hear 'as a country we have done well so far by blahblahblah but we need to ensure blahblahblah', I can only insist that the speaker pick their friends more carefully.
Why say this? Here are some reasons.
In terms of class (why not if it's useful) you could be obeying a general rule to not ally yourself with the ruling classes unnecessarily (and which really means not at all!). Instead of ruling yourself in, 'just in case', what about ruling yourself out, 'just in case'? Don't simply fantasize about whether you can have the credit for your lovely opinion from the people from whom you seek validation. For what if your opinion flowers into something unthinkably good, something radical and earth-shaking, that knocks your bosses out of their boots? Even if not, you certainly will want your thinking to be easily put in the service of the people, should something traditionally political happen. I'm sure there's something very characterful about ruling yourself out for no very specific hard reason, however, and is not so much an indicator of dysfunction (as is usually taken by the reactionaries) but (like this blog post and blog generally) a way of committing to convalescence.
Alas, it is hard to think in this way, because people think they are weak. 'Weakness makes me weak!' they bleat! (I've been reading too much Zarathustra. Time for a lie down).
Using 'we' doesn't guarantee that you speak on behalf of a majority working class either (or 'just in case' you do - that's dangerous!)- it includes you in the 'collective' preeminent sense of identity that is dictated by the ruling class. It grants only grants your opinion a servile ceiling, a commitment to reconciliation with the status quo. I guess that's may sound a little strict to take at face value but, meh. You might argue that the media, even if it is skewed by power, still represents real people, and valorises some working class experiences etc etc. so that you're still including the working class tension with 'we', but in my opinion this tension isn't at all biting. The sense of identity that is granted in the body politic is today of a people understood through the lens of the aspirational ideal - a false work ethic that is easy by now even for children to see through. Anyway, that is for another time.
On my side of things it can be said in a quite blase way that the whole world is in political turmoil, with persistant as well as new wars, conflicts and uprisings. So many examples speak of the ability of the ruling classes to betray us and burn us in our beds. Now, If I consistently side against the ruling classes habitually, I may be able to break fidelity in some fashion at some point in the future. I would advise to be as habitually anti-ruling class in as many ways as possible. It might seem uncomfortable but it's certainly honest come what may, and this prescription is a fairly easy way to start, and not least because once you fall in with the idea you'll begin to see the 'problem' everywhere you hear opinions. The main problem with living in an ideological world is that you give legitimacy to it automatically, without any special effort. One way to deal with that is to look for ways to disrupt your everyday doings in this regard, and I think dropping the collective noun in these troubled and complicated times is a decent idea. After all, you're not really responsible for going to war, are you? One idea to investigate is whether your democracy is good enough to represent public opinion in foreign policy, through due process and the daily operation of that democracy. It isn't, so there.
V
Let's imagine you have been soldiering away all day avoiding ill people, lest you catch some airborne contaminant that stalks your city, but at night you forgot your struggle and left your bedroom window open - open to the infected air from the restless in the street. In no time at all you join them.
In the quest for better physical health you might make changes to your daily eating and exercise routines, blahblah to people about gym membership. You might decide to go to the toilet more routinely. You might not, but you might. Mental health is a little harder. Well, actually, you can do pretty well just listening to your body, but this notwithstanding, what kind of prescriptions can be had? I'm going to discuss opinion a litttle, as opinion is everywhere and therefore what is bad in it is always 'at large'.
Generally it is understood that opinions are slimy beasts, that intellectually they are not enough and we should not be satisfied with them, and that ultimately even very passionately held opinions probably do not matter. Models for living within one's opinion might be TV talking-heads style programming, radio call-ins concerning topics of the day, personal discussions with others in social situations or on the 'net. Opinion is usually contrasted with knowledge, but I will not be concerned with making such a distinction. Instead I am concerned only with avoiding something that is very 'catching' (and which I have caught in the past and likely you have caught it too).
If you look at the way opinions are expressed you can sometimes tell what implied commitments exist, and you can begin to get a feel for unstated ideas. But there are commitments that are not at all wise, but ones that are almost universally reinforced. My prescription will be an adjustment in how opinions are expressed. This should, however, make expressing opinions much more difficult because opinions are usually given freely, in whatever form they happen to roll off of the tongue, and if an expressive problem exists then this is pretty serious for the world of opinion. There is, therefore, a downside and a cost to this prescription - it's a little like a diet that doesn't quite give you enough energy. Some may say this is a good thing, allowing the mind to focus on other matters, or to help slow down opinion so that it may be assessed more clearly. I really don't care to deal with that, however. Efficiency isn't a problem when it's what you're doing that's in question.
The prescription is really simple; stop saying 'we' when expressing opinions. It is also to stop using the phrase 'as a society' and 'as a country' (perhaps also 'as a community'). Now, I don't care to criticise the use of 'we' as a polite way of saying 'you', such as in articles or journals ('Working through the message systematically in this way, we come to the conclusion that everybody must be killed'), even when this can amount to a mere opinion. I care about the use of 'we' to include oneself in the body politic. Too often people offer opinions by beginning 'I think we as a society...', when it is completely unclear whether society will have them. Likewise, people helpfully offer political opinions beginning 'what I think we should do is just...', when what has just been done by everyone else was likely the reason they began to speak in the first place!
Jokes aside, I could interrogate a use of 'we' by asking whether the individual is really worthy. I might ask whether the 'individual' has the kind of voice that a 'society' could possibly listen to. I might also ask how many individuals, should 'society' be the sum of all these individuals, the speaker imagines could possibly be interested in listening to what is, to others, the fleeting rant of an equally fleeting person.
However, my prescription is not about the limits of communication nor the egotism of the speaker. Usually the speaker is worthy, but that is, for me at least, for far-flung and unpractical reasons, and which never enter the logic of communication. Instead, whenever I hear 'as a country we have done well so far by blahblahblah but we need to ensure blahblahblah', I can only insist that the speaker pick their friends more carefully.
Why say this? Here are some reasons.
In terms of class (why not if it's useful) you could be obeying a general rule to not ally yourself with the ruling classes unnecessarily (and which really means not at all!). Instead of ruling yourself in, 'just in case', what about ruling yourself out, 'just in case'? Don't simply fantasize about whether you can have the credit for your lovely opinion from the people from whom you seek validation. For what if your opinion flowers into something unthinkably good, something radical and earth-shaking, that knocks your bosses out of their boots? Even if not, you certainly will want your thinking to be easily put in the service of the people, should something traditionally political happen. I'm sure there's something very characterful about ruling yourself out for no very specific hard reason, however, and is not so much an indicator of dysfunction (as is usually taken by the reactionaries) but (like this blog post and blog generally) a way of committing to convalescence.
Alas, it is hard to think in this way, because people think they are weak. 'Weakness makes me weak!' they bleat! (I've been reading too much Zarathustra. Time for a lie down).
Using 'we' doesn't guarantee that you speak on behalf of a majority working class either (or 'just in case' you do - that's dangerous!)- it includes you in the 'collective' preeminent sense of identity that is dictated by the ruling class. It grants only grants your opinion a servile ceiling, a commitment to reconciliation with the status quo. I guess that's may sound a little strict to take at face value but, meh. You might argue that the media, even if it is skewed by power, still represents real people, and valorises some working class experiences etc etc. so that you're still including the working class tension with 'we', but in my opinion this tension isn't at all biting. The sense of identity that is granted in the body politic is today of a people understood through the lens of the aspirational ideal - a false work ethic that is easy by now even for children to see through. Anyway, that is for another time.
On my side of things it can be said in a quite blase way that the whole world is in political turmoil, with persistant as well as new wars, conflicts and uprisings. So many examples speak of the ability of the ruling classes to betray us and burn us in our beds. Now, If I consistently side against the ruling classes habitually, I may be able to break fidelity in some fashion at some point in the future. I would advise to be as habitually anti-ruling class in as many ways as possible. It might seem uncomfortable but it's certainly honest come what may, and this prescription is a fairly easy way to start, and not least because once you fall in with the idea you'll begin to see the 'problem' everywhere you hear opinions. The main problem with living in an ideological world is that you give legitimacy to it automatically, without any special effort. One way to deal with that is to look for ways to disrupt your everyday doings in this regard, and I think dropping the collective noun in these troubled and complicated times is a decent idea. After all, you're not really responsible for going to war, are you? One idea to investigate is whether your democracy is good enough to represent public opinion in foreign policy, through due process and the daily operation of that democracy. It isn't, so there.
V
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