Your Language Is Your Reality

Your language constructs your reality. Imagine we had only one word for the colours ‘blue’ and ‘green;’ i.e. we didn’t distinguish between these two concepts linguistically. We could call this colour grue, which means either blue or green. This would mean that whether we saw a green plant or a blue plant we would utter the same sentence: “There is a grue plant.” If we were to adopt this change in language, it would in effect entail a change in our perception of reality. We would no longer be able to label blue and green things as being distinct in colour. There would only be six colours in a rainbow. Our reality would be different.

On Courteousy

As I pass people in the street, in a store or some other public place, I tend to greet them with a smile. I wish I could say that this was a pure of act of beneficence, but the truth is I am always curious as to how people react to being greeted. Some people look away and are silent. Some smile and look uncomfortable. Some give you wild stares that suggest you are being mentally gunned down with a machine gun. Some give you the dirtiest of dirty looks. And, depending on which part of the world you’re in, sometimes people may greet you back with a big smile.

This social game of greet-or-puke arises out of our two logical choices in such situations – either we embrace the stranger as a fellow human being, or we reject them as foreign basterds who we share nothing in common with. We are often unsure what our duty is. For example, whenever I get my hair cut the hairdresser or barber starts talking to me as though we’re on a speed-date. Must I humour this person and provide the right answers to her questions, or is it permissible to slouch there, silently cursing the end of an era in which such professionals would work in silence?

Of course all this changes if the stranger turns out to be one you approve of. After a few minutes, you might be pleasantly surprised. “This person isn’t a very well-trained gorilla. This person likes important things.” (Important things are those that I feel are important). In this case you might be happy to discuss the things you both like and hate, reaffirming your own positions on such matters. But this seems entirely random, surely? Are there no rules on the matter? No governmental white papers, no amusing adverts, no NGO studies on the matter?

Naturally, I searched religion for an answer. “Love your neighbour” was one, but this problem concerns exactly those people who aren’t your neighbour. This concerns people you encounter, deal with, handle, or are subject to, those that come and go faster than Ted Bundy in a graveyard. I’m talking about waiters, people in the lift with you, traffic cops, shop assistants, home affairs workers, suburban paedophiles, and any other strangers you encounter during the day. Is there any rule that covers our required social interactions with these people, or is it all just subject to our random assessments at the time?

Of course, the answer is ‘no’. But wouldn’t it be easier if there were such a rule? I believe it would be, and so that’s how I came up with A.R.S.E., the Arbitrary Reaction to Strangers Exercise. What ARSE entails is devising a list of attributes, character traits and prejudices that you can keep your eye out for as you go about your day. Any arbitrary stranger you encounter who has one of these attributes you will automatically be rude to or disregard entirely as another human being. If you cannot spot anything about a person that is on your list, you treat them kindly, courteously and with dignity and respect.

The trick to ARSE is to keep the list relatively short, so as to avoid a situation where you are trying to remember your list when you could very well be giving someone dirty looks or ignoring them. My list was written over several weeks, and these are the people that I will be rude to:

1. Anyone with a visible tattoo.

2. Anyone with a lisp or who speaks very slowly.

3. Anyone with that kind of smile that says “I’m happy, but only because I’m stupid.”

4. Women.

You may copy this ARSE, or come up with your own list. The important thing is that you have a regulated system that decides how you treat people with no further justification required. Not only does this help your choices, but it also helps to explain why other people are rude to you. For example, the other day I was giving dirty looks to this woman with a lisp, when she told me to “sod off”. But I did not take it personally, because I realised that she must have a list of her own! Clearly, she intended to be rude to people who wore black, or didn’t wear glasses, or perhaps who did not wash. Either way, her list was entirely arbitrary, as is mine, and this means that we can rejoice in the fact that in these small social situations, we can take nothing personally, but also nothing for granted.

George Carlin: Have a nice Day

Forget Kafka, read Asterix

In The Twelve Tasks of Asterix, the indomitable Gaul and his fat friend Obelix are charged with the task of obtaining Permit A38 from “The place that sends you mad.” Needless to say this proves an infuriating impossibility, with each counter providing contradictory and illogical information as how the Gauls should proceed.

It comes as no surprise to me that the authors of the Asterix series are French. For one, Asterix is set in France (duh). But more importantly, having recently moved to France and experienced first-hand the bizarre worship the country has for bureaucracy and all its little demons, the French are in prime position to lament the obligatory acquisition of forms.

French bureaucracy is not the same as South African bureaucracy. The differences between the two are subtle yet significant. The best way to compare the two kinds of bureaucratic systems is to examine the instantiations of personal disappointment. With South African bureaucracy one finds oneself disappointed by an unfinished task. I.e., it admits that there exists an end to which it is the means, but the personal disappointment in this regard is that this end (be it a document or stamp to be obtained, or permission to perform a certain action) is never realised due to theft, corruption or incompetence.

The personal disappointment regarding French bureaucracy is that you begin to suspect that the end to which you are working does not exist at all. It’s not that your document, stamp or approval will not arrive, it’s that the attainment of the said document, stamp or approval is simply unrealistic or, in most cases, is not recognised as an end in and of itself.

For example, as a foreign wage-earner here in a small town that lies on Lake Geneva, I was told I could not leave France without obtaining a Carte de Sejour – a kind of residence permit. Upon further investigation, I discovered that this was not accurate, and that I could leave France, but would not be allowed back into France. In order to obtain this Carte de Sejour I would need to go to the nearest prefecture with several key documents and pass a medical exam. However, the nearest prefecture in this case is located some 5 hours away by train, and thus I would need to post the documents and wait for a reply. Which documents are needed? There is a grand total of eleven documents needed, including a translation of your birth certificate and pretty much every piece of paper that any French person gave to you in the last 10 years.

At this point the process seems relatively simple. It’s not.

Soon you discover that because it takes so long to process the document, what you need to obtain is in fact a receipt that says that you have applied for the residence permit. This receipt allows you travel and allows re-entry into France, but not on its own. Once you have obtained the receipt, you are required to visit the nearest authority to obtain a Visa de retour, which allows you to come back into France.

At this point of the process I was still fairly confident that the goal was realistic and that I would be allowed to travel. I was wrong.

Firstly, what I received in the post was not called a receipt. It thus became doubtful that it was the requisite document. However, further investigation revealed that the government had effectively changed the name of the document from a “receipt” to... well, something else. Therefore I was not in need of a receipt, but this ‘something else,’ and the ‘something else’ is what I had obtained, and so it would do after all. Hmmmm....

The manner in which one comes across this information is also symptomatic of manifested insanity. All the government officials and employees encountered displayed a bizarre reverence for the rules and regulations. There is no irony in telling you that a specific form has changed name and address and has not been seen for years. Every tick (or rather, cross) that needs to be made is not met with the understanding that it is completely mad to expect the world to run in this fashion. “The rules are there (whatever they may be, we certainly have no clue) and that’s just how it is,” I hear them say.

Next I was off to the nearest authority to get a Visa de Retour, only to be told that, despite the mountains of official government documents indicating otherwise, these authorities have absolutely nothing to do with visas or travelling, and that the whole time I should have been talking to the South African consulate. The lady who enlightens me to this valuable information appears to have a specific hatred of Anglophones (perhaps she thinks I’m British?) and offers no further assistance other than to say “Have a good day.” I kindly request that she write me a note stating that I have at least tried to obey the law. “No.” I ask for her name and the phone number of the office. “No.”

Here you might begin to see my despair, as I realise that the end goal of obtaining a Carte de Sejour, Visa de Retour, receipt, or ‘something else’ did not actually exist. I was chasing a dream, a falsehood, I was trying to make square circles.

In Asterix’s encounter with bureaucracy he completely destroys the system by introducing a new form that throws the whole thing off balance. My solution was far less satisfying, but far more simple: pretend none of it exists and continue with life trouble-free.

Ahhhh... :)

POST-EIGHTIES SHAME

The cultural nightmare that was The Eighties is still fresh in the mind of those that were there, not least of all the hideous pop phenomenon that took the form of Glam Rock. The Darkness is one example of contemporary artists who have tried to resurrect an image that has been safely buried in the Cemetery of Sickening Sights for some time. Thankfully, and understandably, it has not been welcomed back with open arms.

But it leads us to an interesting question: why has no such image, unique to the nineties and/or “noughties”, been isolated for similar abuse? It’s true that Boy Bands and “The Sexy Lip-Syncing Bimbo” have arisen to great heights since 1990, but these have had manifestations in every decade. Rave music certainly had the ridiculous whistle-blowing, cycling shorts image, but this has developed into a seemingly endless array of specialised dance music – house, deep house, trance, trip hop, acid, jungle, carny, monkey, mashed potatoes etc.

So are we to assume that the post-eighties generation has got off Scott free? No. There is one art form that, I will argue, holds as much promise for retrospective embarrassment as David Lee Roth in a jump suit.

But perhaps we should first identify the elements of Glam Rock that still make us shudder:
1. The same image. Every Glam Rock band can be identified by any combination of the following: massive, puffed out hair, eye or face make-up, skin tight leotards or jump suits, and head bands.
2. Lame music videos. Although this is strongly linked with (1), Glam Rock music videos were in a league of their own. All four members of the band are shot on stage performing a combination of ridiculous gymnastics and cringe-worthy camera antics that include constant pointing and tongue waggling. These scenes are mixed with long shots of a massive audience (which is probably cribbed from a Queen concert), and a sequence where the band jump about in a funfair or shopping mall.
3. Lame music. Although beauty is in the eye of the beholder, it would not be unfair to say that, in general, all Glam Rock music sounds the same and that, in general, it was all quite crap. Usually kicked off with an eighties relic – the keyboard synthesiser – the drum beat soon arrives with about as much character as an electronic metronome. This is followed by a predictable sequence of verse/chorus/verse/chorus/chorus with an absurdly pretentious guitar solo in between the final two choruses. The song then fades out for another 2-3 minutes and ends.

Of course this may be crude account of the genre, but let’s face it: anyone who defends the Glam Rock era either (a) still has a poster of the band Kiss on their wall or (b) was once in the band Kiss.

But let’s get straight back to the point. I argue that modern Hip Hop, in particular, Rap music, is either at a par, or perhaps even worse off, than eighties Glam Rock. I now present my argument:

1. The same image: Every Rap artist can be identified by any combination of the following: a baseball cap, a loud basketball shirt, a hoodie, an offensively large necklace, a fur coat, bullet wounds, an American or Americanised accent, and at least eight semi-naked women in the immediate area.
2. Lame music videos: Although this is strongly linked with (1), Rap music videos are in a league of their own. An artist is required to adhere to the following rules: (a) you must, at some point, hold lots of dollar bills as though they were cards in a poker game (b) it must appear that at any given point you have unlimited access to guns, Hennessey, bodyguards, and at least eight semi-naked women (c) you must, at some point, touch your genitals (d) your head must nod for the entire duration of the video unless, (e) you pause the music and begin a mini movie in which you demonstrate your unlimited access to guns, Hennessey, bodyguards, and at least eight semi-naked women.
3. Lame music: Nobody can argue that there is a wide variety of popular commercial rap music, and that is because they all follow the same formula: all music is electronic. If it is not electronic then it comprises of looped guitar riffs from the glam rock era. All songs require an inane and totally meaningless utterance every 12 seconds, e.g.: “yeah”, “uh-huh”, “what?”, “come on”, or “that’s right”. The lyrical content will never move away from these four subjects: women, guns, money, gang warfare, money, women, and money. And finally, an artist is required to constantly remind the listener that he or she is the best artist in the industry, apart from all the dead ones.

So today’s Rap music matches, if not trumps, Glam Rock in every respect. It is important to remember this, because in years to come this image too will be mocked, ridiculed and spat at just as we condemn that shameful product of the eighties. We may not realise it now, but we will soon be in that familiar position regarding musical eras that every generation sooner or later finds itself in: denial that it ever had anything to do with us.

I would begin distancing myself as soon as possible.

POPE TO LEAVE CATHOLICISM

Catholicism was dealt a ‘massive blow’ today when it was announced that Pope Benedict XVI would be leaving the religion after signing a 5-year deal with UK-based outfit the Anglicans, in a deal believed to be worth over US$100m.

At a press conference a Catholic spokesman said: “This is a massive blow to our religion. Pope Benedict was an integral part of our organisation and his leadership, enterprise, and blatant homophobia will be sorely missed. We hope he continues to flourish with his new religion in England. We are not only losing a fine asset, but also our Pope and friend.”

It is doubtful that Benedict will be allowed to keep his position as Pope in England due to the difference in hierarchical structure. Opinion suggests that he was offered the role of Archbishop of Canterbury in order to make the move more attractive, and this has sparked rumours that current Archbishop Rowan Williams will use the opportunity to leave Anglicanism to join Protestantism, the religion he supported as a boy.

Benedict is the first Catholic to move directly to Anglicanism since 1937, but will be seen to fit the mould of previous Anglican heroes, known for their style of endless droning and mindless yammering-on about blacks and gays. However there will be a keen interest placed on how Benedict copes with the fast-paced English game which differs so greatly from the slow approach that he would have grown used to in Italy.

The move will come as a relief for Anglicanism who have been looking for a bright young star to replace their Bishop who left last year to finish his career in America with Scientology. They will hope that Benedict’s narrow-mindedness and complete lack of logic will allow them to rebuild a religion that has seen an alarming drop in support and attendance. Unlike Catholicism or religions in other parts of the world such as Islam or Christian Fundamentalism, Anglicanism has not been directly responsible for human rights violations in over 30 years – far too long a wait for a religion that once boasted the largest following in the United Kingdom. Some commentators have criticised the religion for not adapting to the modern approach as exemplified by the Christian Fundamentalists and in America, who have seized control of the modern game through blatant denial of scientific fact and a new approach now known as ‘delusionalism’ in which supporters and preachers alike are found wriggling on the floor or speaking gibberish for up to five hours continuously.

An unnamed source described as ‘close’ to Benedict says the move will do much to develop Benedict as a preacher and that his career had been stifled by the ‘negative approach’ to religion that Catholicism tried to instil into Benedict by making him Pope. “Ben never wanted to be Pope,” says the source, “but the powers that be, by which I don’t mean God because he’s imaginary, saw fit to award him the position because they saw a promising leader who didn’t enjoy a deluded sense of justice or the lure of paedophilia. By making him Pope they hoped to keep him within their reach. But he was not able to fully express himself and reach his full potential [in Catholicism] and so I hope that his move to Anglicanism will prove to be the right move.”