Passivity

I'm nearly finished reading Richard Sennett's brilliant book "The Fall of Public Man."  I am on quest right now to understand why things are they way they are, both in general "society" and also in our little town.  It's pretty interesting, and beats watching the same commerical ten times in one evening.

I like Sennett because he doesn't just repeat the standard answers: ie. capitalism is bad, people are obsessed with material things, the political elite don't want an electoral system that actually reflects the priorities of working people. Spare me, please - it's not that simple.

Instead he looks at ideas of public and private and how our perception of what those mean has changed since the industrial revolution.  In the 17th and early 18th centuries people in public saw themselves as actors.  Showing your feelings was a well-practiced art, with specific ways of demonstrating each.  Talking to complete strangers in public was totally normal. Being social in a crowd was completely normal. Costumed public appearances were normal too.

Today people are absorped in the psychological dimensions of their families, living in neighbourhoods where people are just like them, and seeing crowds and strangers as something to be feared.  The most valued bonds are formed by sharing deep intimate thoughts. "Community" is made up of people forming these bonds. Narcissism is everywhere.

Our fundamental ideas about public and private have changed a lot, and where people used to be demonstrative in public, now they are passive, keeping their feelings on the inside and keeping their bodies still and silenced. We teach our children this all the time.

It was very common for people in the 18th century theatres to heckle, spit, boo, hiss, cry, laugh, and even sit on the stage.  They did this unabashedly.  Picture the House of Commons during Question Period - that's what it was like.

Now it's difficult to get people to respond or participate in ordinary situations.  I've seen it - audiences that won't laugh or can't decide if it's "okay" to clap, people who won't dance to music designed for dancing, people who won't introduce themselves to someone despite being in close proximity to a stranger, church congregations who won't sing above a whisper for fear of hearing their collective voice.  It's everywhere, pass the remote control. It has poltical implications - most people won't get organized enough to protest or to challenge systems which are actually doing harm to them or their compatriots.

Situations where people shun this passivity are seen as audacious and maybe slightly dangerous. Heaven forbid you might be seen enjoying yourself in public, or that you might experience something out of the ordinary in a crowd of strangers. You might actually change the system.

I think school has a large part in engraining passivity, as do television and advertising.  I think this passivity makes us insecure about ourselves and robs us of opportunities to express joy, sorrow and anger in a meaningful way in public.  We have a need to participate in something other than consumerism, whether it's collective joy, the political process, storytelling, or the social life of a town or city.

So get off the couch/internet/txt and go somewhere new today.  What you will see will change you.  And you'll be fine - slightly different, but more fully human.