Happiness in the City.
(warning: may get excited an political towards the end) Sorry for Length.
These days I feel on top of the world, I act, I walk, I think with a clarity, a consciousness of myself that I have not often experienced: everything is under control, no uncertainties about the future seem threatening. I am happy. But I am aware that not everyone in this city is, despite it being spring, the sun shine and the unusual amount of birds chattering and singing in the parks on the way to uni, where all sorts of flowers bloom amidst the crumbling graves.
Just now, when I left my halls I overheard what probably was a bit of a confidential counselling session between a student and one of the staff. The chinese guy said: "I feel I cannot trust anybody." Moments before that, when I left my flat I ran into my flatmate who, still in her pyjamas, had gone to the toilet and went back into her room and locked the door behind her! I wondered: "you are in your own flat, this corridor, this kitchen, these toilet and these showers; all of them are also yours, and this flat AND this building both have a front door that automatically locks when it closes, why would you lock even your room door?" I pity this girl, it is the same as the one of Lily-fame: apparently she is affraid or something. Affraid of us, her flatmates and probably the rest of the world. Here she is far away from the USA, where everything is familiar. Or is that it? She has been here in London longer than any of the rest of us (she went to LSE before coming here) and she even has an English boyfriend. But somehow she locks herself up: she even told me at some point that she wouldn't cook anymore in our communal kitchen because she thought it was too filthy. For anyone that has ever lived through UCU kitchens this sounds ridiculous: every week a cleaner comes, the rubbish is taken out daily (and not by us, but by cleaning staff!), and we, the rest of the inhabitants, may not do our dishes immediately after our dinner but we certainly do not leave them to rot for weeks on end. Still, she tries to be nice and all that, but it is clearly what I would call that classic American facade. Or as my neighbour, who is also from the States, would say: she is fake. But I mainly see someone who is scared or something. I feel she would rather curl up in bed and cry rather than confront this big bad world that exists outside her door.
How the hell can I 'lok' (≈ to seduce, Dutch) somebody out of his/her shelter? These sort of feelings, I believe, are common. And what is worst: they lie at the basis of such horrible institutions as, in the USA, the 'Gated Community': a worse denial of the world I cannot conceive. Fear wants consolation, such as a only a strong figure, a Real Leader can give. And if enough people are affraid in a democracy they will elect the one who best exploits these fears. Such as George Bush in the USA, Pim Fortuyn in the NL, and -I am not ashamed to make these comparisons- Mussolini in Italy and Hitler in Germany.
People in these urban times are affraid of crime. The streets of the city - and London is a megalopolis - replaced the forest as the place where potential injury lies. Especially in the Anglo-Saxon countries, people are a fearful lot (cf. 'The Culture of Fear' by B. Glassner, which I read some years ago). One interesting thing I noticed about reporting on crimes in the UK is that, even in the so-callled quality 'broad-sheets', there is much more personal information about the victim(s) and the perpetrator: result both these people become so normal they could live around the corner! In fact: even your daughter / son / husband / wife / grandma / granspa / uncle / aunt / nephew / niece / cousin / some other distant relative could be a secret killer and/or fraud. But what I gather from such books as 'the Culture of Fear' and various other writers / columnists such as Naomi Klein, George Monbiot, and others, is that this information is usually never complete: in search of scandal, these papers want to sell. And scandal sells. they do not want to render crimes understandable, which they always are, in my opinon. Anything is understandable , but understanding ≠ condoning. There is no morality in these reports. Or rather a morality that clashes with mine and I am always right, so: meh. But this is not a conspiracy, this is simply how things work! But the result is fear.
Here is an inconsistency: when you fear crime: murder, robbery, fraud, and your response is to up the force with which you fight it. I.e. not to make an effort to understand what drives people who commit crimes, you will always fight the symptoms but not the roots of crime. And these are, again in my opinion, not in some sort of essentialised 'greed' of these 'Others', but in very real material conditions. Now you can call a marxist.
And I am afraid too: my fear is that the Netherlands will become or has already become yet another fearful society. God verhoede!
(warning: may get excited an political towards the end) Sorry for Length.
These days I feel on top of the world, I act, I walk, I think with a clarity, a consciousness of myself that I have not often experienced: everything is under control, no uncertainties about the future seem threatening. I am happy. But I am aware that not everyone in this city is, despite it being spring, the sun shine and the unusual amount of birds chattering and singing in the parks on the way to uni, where all sorts of flowers bloom amidst the crumbling graves.
Just now, when I left my halls I overheard what probably was a bit of a confidential counselling session between a student and one of the staff. The chinese guy said: "I feel I cannot trust anybody." Moments before that, when I left my flat I ran into my flatmate who, still in her pyjamas, had gone to the toilet and went back into her room and locked the door behind her! I wondered: "you are in your own flat, this corridor, this kitchen, these toilet and these showers; all of them are also yours, and this flat AND this building both have a front door that automatically locks when it closes, why would you lock even your room door?" I pity this girl, it is the same as the one of Lily-fame: apparently she is affraid or something. Affraid of us, her flatmates and probably the rest of the world. Here she is far away from the USA, where everything is familiar. Or is that it? She has been here in London longer than any of the rest of us (she went to LSE before coming here) and she even has an English boyfriend. But somehow she locks herself up: she even told me at some point that she wouldn't cook anymore in our communal kitchen because she thought it was too filthy. For anyone that has ever lived through UCU kitchens this sounds ridiculous: every week a cleaner comes, the rubbish is taken out daily (and not by us, but by cleaning staff!), and we, the rest of the inhabitants, may not do our dishes immediately after our dinner but we certainly do not leave them to rot for weeks on end. Still, she tries to be nice and all that, but it is clearly what I would call that classic American facade. Or as my neighbour, who is also from the States, would say: she is fake. But I mainly see someone who is scared or something. I feel she would rather curl up in bed and cry rather than confront this big bad world that exists outside her door.
How the hell can I 'lok' (≈ to seduce, Dutch) somebody out of his/her shelter? These sort of feelings, I believe, are common. And what is worst: they lie at the basis of such horrible institutions as, in the USA, the 'Gated Community': a worse denial of the world I cannot conceive. Fear wants consolation, such as a only a strong figure, a Real Leader can give. And if enough people are affraid in a democracy they will elect the one who best exploits these fears. Such as George Bush in the USA, Pim Fortuyn in the NL, and -I am not ashamed to make these comparisons- Mussolini in Italy and Hitler in Germany.
People in these urban times are affraid of crime. The streets of the city - and London is a megalopolis - replaced the forest as the place where potential injury lies. Especially in the Anglo-Saxon countries, people are a fearful lot (cf. 'The Culture of Fear' by B. Glassner, which I read some years ago). One interesting thing I noticed about reporting on crimes in the UK is that, even in the so-callled quality 'broad-sheets', there is much more personal information about the victim(s) and the perpetrator: result both these people become so normal they could live around the corner! In fact: even your daughter / son / husband / wife / grandma / granspa / uncle / aunt / nephew / niece / cousin / some other distant relative could be a secret killer and/or fraud. But what I gather from such books as 'the Culture of Fear' and various other writers / columnists such as Naomi Klein, George Monbiot, and others, is that this information is usually never complete: in search of scandal, these papers want to sell. And scandal sells. they do not want to render crimes understandable, which they always are, in my opinon. Anything is understandable , but understanding ≠ condoning. There is no morality in these reports. Or rather a morality that clashes with mine and I am always right, so: meh. But this is not a conspiracy, this is simply how things work! But the result is fear.
Here is an inconsistency: when you fear crime: murder, robbery, fraud, and your response is to up the force with which you fight it. I.e. not to make an effort to understand what drives people who commit crimes, you will always fight the symptoms but not the roots of crime. And these are, again in my opinion, not in some sort of essentialised 'greed' of these 'Others', but in very real material conditions. Now you can call a marxist.
And I am afraid too: my fear is that the Netherlands will become or has already become yet another fearful society. God verhoede!
posted by Isalicus at 13:07
1 Comments:
Dear Mark,
I share your concerns to a certain extent. One comment on the statement that the Anglo-Saxon countries are especially fearful, though (paragraph 4): I think not. (Btw I'm talking about the UK only, here.) I agree that often they go to ridiculous lenths in order to be correct and, more to the point, to be correct in safety measures (emergency info leaflets in trains, three fire precaution sheets in each room, warnings NOT to bring abandoned bags and trunks to Lost and Found, etc). However, in my experience (and I assume in yours, too, living in London just after last July's events) they are a pretty stoical people als puntje bij paaltje komt...
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