April 24, 2009
I'm jumping on the Susan Boyle bandwagon. I think she can handle it. She seems unusually sane (much like our current President. Is an international outbreak of sanity quietly unfolding? But I digress...). What interests me in the Boyle phenomenon is how often people referred to themselves as cynics when discussing their reaction to her performance on "Britain's Got Talent." They were cynics before she sang, and big-hearted converts after.
I don't think cynical is the right word to describe the "before" reaction to Susan Boyle. What was there to be cynical about? Was this person there to con them? The dictionary defines a cynic as someone who believes that all human motivation is selfish, and also someone who adopts the sneering attitude toward others a belief like that would engender. And then, in the way of dictionaries, a throwaway etymology is appended: "cynic" is derived from the Cynics, a philosophical movement in ancient Greece associated particularly with Diogenes of Sinope (he of the lamp).
Now, that's interesting. What kind of Greek philosopher was advocating such a sneery, misanthropic, defensive worldview? I had to find out more. For this I turned to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy ("a professionally peer-reviewed resource").
According to the IEP, the Cynics believed that virtue is the only good and the means to virtue is self-control and independence. They're described as ascetic (famed for novel and invigorating activities like "walk[ing] barefoot in the snow, hugg[ing] cold statues, and roll[ing] about in the scalding summer sand in [one's] pithos")1 but their self-denial and physical trials aren't ends in themselves. They're geared toward preserving their independence from the powerful and the wealthy. Needing nothing from the ruling elite, the Cynic can "speak freely about the silly, and often vicious, way life is lived by his or her contemporaries." 2
Diogenes himself was poor, unemployed, witty and generally regarded as shameless by conventional Athenians (eating in the marketplace; drinking in the marketplace, masturbating in the marketplace...). He subjected himself to a vigorous regime of harsh physical training to withstand the difficulties of his chosen poverty. The end goal was always maximum freedom by following the dictates of nature instead of those of society.
Dependent on no one but himself, Diogenes could say anything to anyone. Approached by Alexander the Great while he was sunning himself in the marketplace, and asked what favor the king could grant him, Diogenes replied "Stand out of my light."3 Fellow philosophers were not spared. "Diogenes Laertius writes that, “Plato saw [Diogenes of Sinope] washing lettuces, came up to him and quietly said to him, ‘Had you paid court to Dionysius, you wouldn’t now be washing lettuces,’ and [Diogenes] with equal calmness answered, ‘If you had washed lettuces, you wouldn’t have paid court to Dionysius’” (Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Book 6, Chapter 58)."4
How we got from Cynic to cynic is a bit uncertain. The modern word has some connotations of the Cynic philosophy, with its questioning of surface motives. But everything else seems to have been lost. Modern cynics assume selfishness as the human default, saving the time it takes to discern individual character. But this cynicism is not directed at the powerful or the wealthy, nor is it complemented with a personal quest for freedom through virtuous, independent living. In fact, it's usually asserted by people who hope to join the wealthy and the powerful by signalling that they, too, are in on the game.
The supposedly cynical "Britain's Got Talent" audience is on the wrong side. The original Cynics skewered exactly the sort of fame-mongering and cult of celebrity that BGT, the three judges, and the easily manipulated audience represent. That's the stuff deserving of cynicism, the motives that should be questioned, the glib shallowness that true Cynics would have eviserated with scathing humor and living example.
And what of those claiming to be cynical about Susan Boyle? They weren't questioning her motives when she walked onto the stage. They weren't on their guard against her inner selfishness, soon to be revealed. No. They saw a frumpy, middle-aged woman and decided that no good could come from her. The word they're looking for is not cynical, but shallow. And also sexist in that peculiar way that equates outer female beauty with inner female beauty in a direct one-to-one ratio.
Few people will proudly proclaim their shallowness to the world, however. "Cynical" has more élan. It tells people you're on to them, before they can get on to you. It connotes savvy and cool. But what could be farther from savvy and cool than the audience for "Britain's Got Talent" or any other reality talent show? Their trained seal responses are choreographed to the core. A sturdy woman walks onto the stage and gives her age (47, gasp), and the audience snickers, boooo. Seconds later, a beautiful voice emerges from her throat and they leap to their feet in adulation, yea! Simon Cowell pronounces that Susan can go to back to her village with head held high, blessed by the BGT judges and audience. Rapture erupts.
I imagine that Susan Boyle already walked around her village with head held high. In fact, it looks like Susan Boyle--modest, self-aware and ascetic--is the real Cynic. And Diogenes of Sinope, resting on the sidewalk at the stage door and eating a banana after his daily 10 mile run, gives her a wink as she exits the coliseum, having bested the lions and confounded the crowd.
1 http://www.iep.utm.edu/c/cynics.htm#SSH3a.ii
2 http://www.iep.utm.edu/c/cynics.htm#H3
3 http://www.iep.utm.edu/c/cynics.htm#SSH3a.i
4 http://www.iep.utm.edu/c/cynics.htm#SSH3a.i
April 17, 2009
Holy Thursday evokes a spirit of contemplation and renewal in Ireland. In particular, the contemplative realization that, ye god, the pubs and off-licenses are closed tomorrow (one of only two days in the year on which they are closed) and a renewal of the home alcohol stocks in an evening rush of panic buying. A day without drinking. This shall not be.
Officially, Easter in Ireland is spiritual. The national radio stations (a good chunk of radio and television programming in Ireland is government-run) play solemn music on Good Friday and celebratory music on Easter Sunday. Theologians and philosophers contribute thoughtful meditations on the day. But unofficially it's a four-day bank holiday where everyone heads to the beach, the pub and the track. It's a family holiday, a spring holiday, a nationalist celebration (the Easter Rising in 1916 sparked events leading to Irish independence) and a chocolate festival. It's a happy holiday. And a mainly secular one.
Easter is not a national holiday in the U.S., because we don't have national religious holidays in the U.S. (aside from Christmas, which presumably snuck through because of its overwhelming consumerist appeal). It's celebrated on the Sunday only, in families, churches and communities. It's hard to imagine Americans rushing out to stock up on alcohol for Easter. In my Capitol Hill neighborhood in Washington, where you could walk past a church of some kind every 100 yards or so, Easter was a great day for new dresses, snappy suits, amazing hats, joyful singing and thunderous sermons that could be heard on the street, with the call and response. It was a day for religious worship. It was spiritual.
Not too long ago, Ireland was a theocracy, with no real separation between church and state. The politicians consulted the bishops before major legislative undertakings and the priests ruled their parish dominions, from Dublin to the tiniest western seacoast village, with no dissent permitted on anything from sex (famously nonexistant in Ireland before television) to the Sabbath. Those were the days. I wonder what Easter was like then? Lamentations and wailing on Good Friday, with comfortable lashings of guilt to last through Sunday? A head count in the parish church with deacons dispatched to round up the laggards?
Or maybe not. The Irish, having been subject to numerous long-term oppressions from church and state, are masters at subtle resistance. They have a way of looking you directly in the eye and agreeing with everything you say while somehow letting you know you're an eejit. Oh how much fun that must have been with the British. A bit more dangerous with priests, perhaps, as the British could only torment you here while the priests could torment you here and after.
Now the theocracy has shattered. Irish bishops have no credibility. Their public statements are parsed and scrutinized (and increasingly those statements are apologies for abuses still unfolding); their resignations demanded when they're found wanting (imagine the Irish laity of the 1980s calling for the resignation of a bishop). The clergy intrude on politics delicately if at all. That colossal monolith of oppression that was the Irish Catholic Church has crumbled.
Meanwhile, in the U.S., religion is everywhere. Prayer breakfasts on Capitol Hill, mega-churches (even in New England!), mini-churches, the born again, the saved, uncountable Christian denominations, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, Zoroastrians, Whirling Dervishes--every religion on the planet. People speak freely of their religious convictions and have no qualms questioning you about yours (once my hairdresser asked me if I'd been saved--while my hair was wet and she was wielding the scissors. I did a quick mental castabout and said I was a Taoist. Pause one beat. "Do they accept Jesus Christ as their Savior?" I had to admit, no. She did not take it out on my head).
So the secular society is religious and the former theocracy is thoroughly secular. What does it mean? Perhaps that people of faith who want faith to flourish should consider the separation of church and state to be their very best friend, Thomas Jefferson their official hero. Where religion is compelled by the state, as it was in Ireland, and much of Europe, it can only be resisted. Forcing what should be the deepest, most private convictions of one's heart through intimidation, shame and violence can gain a temporary compliance. But when the force is removed, so is the conviction.
We had a lovely, unexpectedly sunny, four-day Easter holiday in Ireland this year. The sun shone on the sea at Inch Beach, near my house. Children played in the shallow water and surfers coasted and spun on the breaking waves farther out. Boy racers sped up the beach oblivious to the incoming tide while the dangling black figures of the parasailors hovered uncertainly over their heads. I sat in the cafe with friends, more of whom kept arriving. We took a short walk up the strand. I couldn't stop looking at the evening light on the sea.
This is secular Ireland, free from guilt and coercion, returned to the natural world, to Eastre, the goddess of spring and fertility, the original pagan celebration. A different aspect of the spirit, but a realm of the spirit after all.
March 31, 2009
Just when it seemed the current financial crisis would overwhelm our capacity to understand, when the cause and effect diagram was hopelessly criss-crossed with double-arrowed lines of blame, we were rescued. Not by our own personal bailout, but by the emergence of villains. Evil bankers, evil corporateers (thank you American AIG bonus recipients, for keeping it going) and incompetent politicians (true evil seems to imply the type of brainpower that people are, for some reason, unwilling to attribute to politicians) are being hauled from their glittering lairs to face the glare of public hate. We have our scapegoats.
Suddenly public fury has a target. It's them. A greedy cabal of puppetmasters at the top of society who have been callously pulling our strings for their own enrichment. People who care only for themselves, creating extravagant lives and making extravagant deals in an insular world of excess and bacchanalia while the rest of us go quietly about our business. We are shocked to find speculation going on.
Scapegoats are handy. They make things simple. Who caused this crisis? They did, the others. In Ireland, the others are the bankers, and the regulators who looked at their, um, unique and clubby accounting methods with an extremely benign eye. Although it seems that, in Ireland, lending yourself millions from your own bank, taking loans on and off the books to avoid oversight, providing loans to your fellow banks disguised as ordinary depositors and other accounting innovations are not actually illegal. Oops. We're not going to get our Bernard Madoff moment, when the mighty are led off in chains.
It's clear that the people with the most money at their disposal in the manic Celtic Tiger years were finding the most creative ways to make even more money, and apparently no idea was too outlandish. But they weren't the only ones. In fact--remember?--it was only 18 months ago. We were all at it.
People with land could suddenly ask 100,000 euro and more for a half acre site that would have cost 20,000 pounds ten years ago. And get it. Property development became far more lucrative than farming as the next field over was transformed into tightly packed terraced housing. People with shacks in scenic spots were selling them for 400,000 and taking off for Spain.
People with money were trading up with "prestige" mortgages (ever class conscious in Ireland)--more than 100% of the purchase price (when you buy a million euro home--and a million doesn't buy you much in Dublin and Wicklow--you do have to furnish it)--based on their well-paying, professional jobs (remember when solicitor, banker and accountant were solid gold professions?).
People without money were buying half million euro homes, taking on giant mortgages from unprotesting banks. The house would be worth 100,000 more than you paid for it two months after you bought it, so why not? As the value of the house went up, the value of your credit went up. So you could borrow more, and buy more.
And everywhere, everywhere, we were spending. There was a waiting list for Hermes handbags at 5000 euro. Newly rich property developers threw 250,000 euro parties for their daughter's 21st birthday. On weekends, when Ireland's new immigrants were picnicing at the local beauty spots, the locals were at the mall.
And hey, why not? A wealthy Ireland, a confident Ireland, a happy Ireland, despite the weather (actually, wealth allowed a lot of us to escape the weather, with second homes in Turkey and Spain), was a great place to be. Young people, in particular, seemed like a completely new species of Irish: confident, optimistic, certain of their place in the world. The Economist said this was the happiest place on earth. Who wants to argue with the Economist?
We were all in it, not just them. Not just bankers and not just politicians (who we re-elected convincingly two years ago). All of us thought it would last and last.
Of course those in positions of trust and power who abused that trust and power should be held accountable. But not solely accountable. Not turned into scapegoats, made to bear the weight of the entire debacle. I think scapegoating, like conspiracy theorizing, arises when you feel powerless, when it seems that some secretive and enragingly unknowable force is in control of your world, not you. It's a backwards, maybe ancient way of seeing things, when humans were subject to many forces they didn't understand, with which they could only be angry or placating.
Ireland is not that kind of place anymore, a place where people just try to stay low and get by as they're randomly buffeted by outside forces (England, famine, the Pope). And our bankers, regulators and politicians are not omnipotent. In fact, it's pretty clear that none of them knew what the hell they were doing.
So now the money's gone and we can't get it back. Well, we're the ones who took on those mortgages, racked up the credit card debt, bought the second home and threw that quarter million euro party for our 21-year-old daughter. Now we have to do something else, change our choices. And change our laws and regulations so the ambitious and the greedy (who often do great things while handily enriching themselves) play a lot less fast and loose with money that's not theirs.
But hey, this is a democracy; we can do that. We don't need permission from bankers, regulators or politicians. We're supposed to tell them what to do. We don't need scapegoats; we need to remember our own power, access it and change things.
It will be the new Ireland, still. But maybe with a little less bling.
June 18, 2007
Ireland has a government. We didn't have one for awhile. Not for three weeks, since the election, or possibly seven weeks, from when the election was called. I'm not entirely sure. I didn't want to mention it previously because it seemed like it might be a good time for an outside power with nothing else on its schedule to invade the Celtic Tiger. Might be a nice acquisition for some militarized country with a rotten economy, like North Korea, or Burma. But too late, we've got a government now; we're safe.
Safe from outside invasion, anyway, if not necessarily outselves. Even after nine and a half years in Ireland, I don't quite get the political system. That's ok, though, because Irish people don't get the American political system either. Our mutual misunderstanding creates a mutual amnesty. But let me try to describe it as I understand it.
Seven weeks ago, the sitting Taoiseach (Irish equivalent of the British Prime Minister), Bertie Ahern, called an election. At that point, apparently, the Dail Eireann (Irish Parliament) dissolved. "How can they dissolve?" I asked my partner, Fred. "Does that mean that Bertie's running everything on his own now? Or is it Bertie and the Ministers? But, since the Ministers are all members of the Dail, aren't they dissolved? Wait a second, Bertie himself is a member of the Dail--is he dissolved?"
Not only did I get no answer to these pertinent questions, but no one else in the country seemed to be asking them. There were no panicked newspaper articles or biting pundit commentaries on the fact that Ireland was floating adrift, ungoverned, Dail-less. The only coverage was on the election itself, a ploy, I believe, to distract the masses from the fact that, technically, we could now do whatever we pleased. Who would stop us? The gardai? With no Minister for Justice empowering them? What could the Gardai do?
Irish people did not, however, take this opportunity to run amok (or, no more amok than usual on a Saturday night in Dublin city center when the pubs let out). Instead, they focused calmly on the upcoming election. Imagine it if you can: a 3 1/2 week election cycle. Dissolved, free from governing, and on the campaign trail for only 3 1/2 heady weeks. The media and candidates were in a frenzy. The governing coalition, Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats--PDs (both of whom would be liberal to Americans, but are conservative to Irish people) seemed to be in trouble.
Bertie's finances were an issue. Way back when, in the midst of divorce proceedings, he got money from friends. Kinda sorta friends. People who gave him money, anyway, out of the goodness of their hearts, apparently, to tide him over a tough time. Sounds like friends. Unless they weren't friends at all, but people who were taking the long view and helping a rising party star for future payoffs in political favors of an undetermined nature. Hard to say.
The storied opposition, Fine Gael, hit hard (historical note: Fianna Fael and Fine Gael are the parties descended from the civil war, the Republicans and the Free Staters, membership in which is passed down the generations). Their party leader, Enda Kenny, generally acknowledged to have the best hair on the campaign trail, felt his moment coming. The rural west would rise and reclaim power from the slick Dubs who'd been running the country to suit their high-class business friends for the last ten years. Back to the people. That was the plan.
Oh, there are other parties too. In a system of proportional representation, everyone gets a share. No one gets an outright majority (or, very infrequently does someone get an outright majority) so everyone has to bargain. In addition to the PDs, the Labour party, the Greens, Sinn Fein, the Socialists and the independents could all claim a wee wedge of power. Labour was hoping to ride in with Fine Gael. The PDs were hoping to hang in with Bertie. Sinn Fein was hoping for respectability. The Greens were hoping for relevance. The independents were hoping to win loot for their constituencies. The Socialists were hoping to keep their seat so as to continue niggling whoever was in power.
Election night in a PR system is so much more fun than in a majority system. With proportional representation, you can vote for more than one candidate, in order of preference. Heck, you can vote for them all! Just list them down the ballot, one-nine, or one-fifteen, however many are running. You don't have to feel badly about excluding anyone from their shot at the Dail. The more candidates there are, and the more transferred votes, the longer the count. And a long count is part of the fun.
To begin the count, the party stalwarts muster at the appointed county location with supplies of bottled water and the knowledge of a long night ahead. First, they figure out how many votes it will take to win a seat. This is the number of votes cast, divided by the number of seats available, plus one. Then the first preferences are set out in piles by candidate. If anyone gets the number of votes to win a seat in the first count, they are deemed elected. A cheer goes up, and the candidate is set upon by her (or his) zealous supporters for the obligatory, dignity-damaging shoulder hoist (some supporters add the dignity-shattering shoulder bounce, the TD-elect clinging on gamely, expression shifting between panic and bravado).
But here it gets tricky. Elected candidates transfer their excess votes. So if Candidate A wins her seat with 1567 votes, but she only needed 1487, the excess 180 votes go to the second preference on those ballots. Astute readers will right now be saying "hey, but the second preferences on those excess 180 could be completely different from the second preferences on the first 1487. I mean, if they were counted in a different order, the result could be completely different." That's right! That's why the party tries to control at least the first two preferences, entreating its supporters to put all of their candidates at the top of ballot, 1,2 and sometimes 3. Party loyalists vote the party line. More independently minded voters try to liven up the system with unlikely 1-2 combos like Fianna Fail-Green Party, or Progressive Democrat-Sein Finn.
After the second preference transfers are distributed, there is a second count. If no additional candidates are elected on the second count, the poor schmuck with the least amount of votes is deemed a loser, and his or her second preference votes are distributed. And there's a third count. And on it goes, until the number of seats available are filled. Sometimes the county runs out of votes before it fills its seats, and people who don't quite make the number needed are deemed elected. Sometimes there is a recount, which, in a PR system, means another all-nighter, and the risk of a very different result.
It's fun to see how the different counties approach the count. Here in Wicklow, the count was held in what appeared to be an ancient school gym. The party head spoke from the middle of the room, amidst tables, mingling counters, empty water bottles and general debris. She held the microphone somewhat unsteadily, and gave the count in hesitant Irish, then hesitant English. At one point it appeared a pile of ballots had been lost. The counters were not going to get out of there any time soon.
In Galway, however, the count results were delivered by a glam woman in a suit, in front of a blue backdrop with the county seal. It looked more than a little like the White House press room. She knew her Irish, too. Well they would, in Galway. No lost ballots there. However, as they seemed to have about fifteen people on the ballot, that count, too, would be going on long into the night.
They're proposing electronic voting in Ireland, but people don't want it. How boring to know the result immediately, without the drama of multiple counts; all-nighters; lost piles of ballots; found piles of ballots; game stuttering in Irish; interior shots of of large, drafty, chaotic locales; and the forced hoisting of a winning candidate after each dramatic round of counting. With electronic voting, would all the winners get hoisted at once? I can see some safety issues arising there.
I suppose I should mention that the end of the voting and the counting does not result in a government. It only gives us the potential players. This year's election gave the primary partner in the governing coalition, Fianna Fail, a solid lead in seats. Unfortunately, it decimated Fianna Fail's coalition partner, the PDs, returning only two of the eight to office. It appears the voters took out whatever anger they had at the existing government on the minor coalition party. That Bertie. How does he do it?
Meanwhile, the other major party in Irish politics, Fine Gael, gained seats in the election. But not enough to pose a serious challenge to the sitting government. Still, there was an outside chance that Enda Kenny and his hair could lead a Fine Gael coalition government if Bertie could not persuade any of the other parties to join him. Right. Let's see, would a small party prefer to be one of many in a wide-ranging, unwieldy, coalition of the parties the voters did not prefer, or the kingmaker in coalition with the party the voters clearly did prefer?
This was as obvious a choice to the Green party as it would be to anyone, and when Bertie called, they answered, eventually, and with a bit of hand-wringing and soul-searching, as it meant they'd have to agree to a highway through Tara (well, nearly through it) and some icky pro-business policies but, what the heck. It's better to be in power than out of power. They got two ministries. And two junior ministries. The new Green ministers were photographed riding to the Dail on their bicycles. Life is good.
Wily Bertie, however, also struck a deal with the independents, which include my favorite politician, Jackie Healey Rae, a West Kerry man complete with cap and wellingtons (though I believe he sheds the latter when on the Dail floor) given to incomprehensible pronouncements on preserving the rural way of life through things like smoking, drink-driving, and rampant development on rural beauty spots (when questioned on the feasibility of building on some of Kerry's steeper mountains, Healey Rae points to the example of Hawai'i, where they've built scores of houses over Honolulu, stacked one on the other, right up the pali. He's right. It can be done).
With the independents in his group, Bertie has neutralized both of his coalition partners. Neither can walk. Or, either of them can, but Bertie still has enough people in the coalition to remain in power, so walking only means they're out and he's still in. I suppose it's possible that the Greens and the independents could threaten to walk together and bring the government down, but it's hard to imagine an issue that would simultaneously inflame both Jackie Healey Rae and Trevor Sargent. In fact, it's a lot easier to imagine Jackie beating Trevor over the head with a shillelagh than it is to imagine the two of them walking arm in arm out the door with a pleading Bertie at their back.
So what does it all mean? In a robust economy where Irish people have gobs and gobs of money for the first time in history--money they're spending avidly on SUVs, second homes in the sun, powerboats, mansions, 250,000 euro birthday parties for their 21 year old daughters, and the like--people think the government under which this has occurred is fine, thanks very much. So Bertie may have had a few odd financial dealings. Ah, sure, haven't we all?
Ireland is prosperous, if not exactly happy, but happiness may not be far off. Young Irish people are growing up in a wealthy, confident country, not the guilt-ridden, fear-driven, theocracy under which their parents were raised. Young people from other countries--the Baltic states, the eastern european countries, China, Africa--are coming here to escape their own blighted histories and move forward in confidence. With Ireland's diaspora so recent and painful, Irish people are trying hard to welcome the newcomers with good hearts. There is some resentment, but mostly a secret delight that people now want to come here, the place from which millions once fled in misery. Life is good. Fianna Fail is good. Bring it on for another five years.