Things of darkness
SEBASTIAN
Ha, ha!
What things are these, my lord Antonio?
Will money buy 'em?
ANTONIO
Very like; one of them
Is a plain fish, and, no doubt, marketable.
PROSPERO
Mark but the badges of these men, my lords,
Then say if they be true. This mis-shapen knave,
His mother was a witch, and one so strong
That could control the moon, make flows and ebbs,
And deal in her command without her power.
These three have robb'd me; and this demi-devil--
For he's a bastard one--had plotted with them
To take my life. Two of these fellows you
Must know and own; this thing of darkness!
Acknowledge mine.
CALIBAN
I shall be pinch'd to death.
- THE TEMPEST, Act V, Sc 1
It has been such a difficult time over the last few days. The bomb that detonated and killed the young police officer has made us think that this will never end. I am not a fan of the police and the inherent fascism they represent and they are, but i am also not an advocate of violence. I have never been because violence can only breed violence and i watch Martin McGuiness and the leaders who queue up behind him condemn their monstrous offspring and wonder if they ever see the connection between the world of violence that they live/lived in and the world which it spawns, continues to spawn.
Last night i watched two shows on fundamentalism back to back. One was L Thoreux’s The Most Hated Family In America and the other one was My Brother the Islamists. Both were filled with so much anger, so much pain. Coming from the same ends of the political and emotional spectrum, i saw people who were so confused, so lost, so pained that all they could do is shout, belittle and maim. I wonder what their lives must have been like, what was done to them as children, as a society, as a community that they must retaliate in this manner. And i think about my own existence, by no means overly comfortable, and wonder if i am an aberration?
Children must be brought up in love, i am not a perfect parent, but surely the bare minimum is one must love one’s child. And it is clear from what i saw, that there was so little love in their lives. I don’t know what my children are going to grow up to become, so perhaps i am in no position to judge. I know i am not. But it is difficult to not presume, to try to speculate, or understand the way people can so easily advocate killing.
I was thinking about this more last night and wondered what happened to the left. There now only seems to be right and far right. The left seems to have completely melted away like dew in the heat of the sun. That youthful hope in the 60s seems to have disappeared and evaporated, and left this calcified, cynical, materialistic, self-preserving inwardness.
Where is today’s Ghandi? Today’s Rosa Luxembourg? Has the left’s narrative so completely collapsed that it is unsalvageable?
And i wonder if the left project failed because it really wasn’t a left project at all. It was egoism magnified, or a delusion in that people did not deal with the demons within them and therefore brought them to the cause, resulting in a self-aggrandising trip which destroyed the movements from within. We see them all the time, NGOs and movements filled to the brim with maniacs who have gone into it for the ride. Was it the reflection of Caliban in the glass? Ask the Labour Party and Tony Blair. Why did Tony succeed where others failed, because the monsters recognise their own – they allowed him to succeed. He was not the real threat.
What can the alternative narrative possibly be? Education must be at the heart of it. I think that Steiner education, the very basis of Steiner education, is the fulfilment of the potential of the person, but within the context of the social. The pure Emersonian ideal that we are society and that society is us. What is good for all is good for the individual, that this is bred in gentleness and reason, that the thinking heart operates and is paramount.
The Thinking Heart. Just even saying that resets the compass a little. Marrying the Will, Thought and Feeling so that one does not happen automatically and the other is not ossified. So that we live in the present, that we are able to see things for what they really are, not overthink or overrationalise, or just simply follow orders.
I am so aware that myself, at the present, live in both polarities. I think without doing, and the doing that i do, i am just an automaton. I want a better world, but i do not know what options are available. All i CAN do is be a mother to my children, but my children live in this world, and one day, no matter how i try to protect them, the world will come knocking on our doors. So i am also a mother to this world. But how?
Violence is not the answer, and those who stand up to violence with non-violence must have the greatest faith. A faith in humanity, a faith in the light. A faith in the dark too, because only when we embrace all parts of ourselves are we then able to live in peace, both personally and politically. What is violence, but anger, and what is anger but protection, a reaction to pain. Somewhere a person was hurt so badly, that their very existence became a vessel for violence.
Will those who perpetrated it and continue to do so take responsibility and bring it to an end? Will they own their things of darkness?
Ha, ha!
What things are these, my lord Antonio?
Will money buy 'em?
ANTONIO
Very like; one of them
Is a plain fish, and, no doubt, marketable.
PROSPERO
Mark but the badges of these men, my lords,
Then say if they be true. This mis-shapen knave,
His mother was a witch, and one so strong
That could control the moon, make flows and ebbs,
And deal in her command without her power.
These three have robb'd me; and this demi-devil--
For he's a bastard one--had plotted with them
To take my life. Two of these fellows you
Must know and own; this thing of darkness!
Acknowledge mine.
CALIBAN
I shall be pinch'd to death.
- THE TEMPEST, Act V, Sc 1
It has been such a difficult time over the last few days. The bomb that detonated and killed the young police officer has made us think that this will never end. I am not a fan of the police and the inherent fascism they represent and they are, but i am also not an advocate of violence. I have never been because violence can only breed violence and i watch Martin McGuiness and the leaders who queue up behind him condemn their monstrous offspring and wonder if they ever see the connection between the world of violence that they live/lived in and the world which it spawns, continues to spawn.
Last night i watched two shows on fundamentalism back to back. One was L Thoreux’s The Most Hated Family In America and the other one was My Brother the Islamists. Both were filled with so much anger, so much pain. Coming from the same ends of the political and emotional spectrum, i saw people who were so confused, so lost, so pained that all they could do is shout, belittle and maim. I wonder what their lives must have been like, what was done to them as children, as a society, as a community that they must retaliate in this manner. And i think about my own existence, by no means overly comfortable, and wonder if i am an aberration?
Children must be brought up in love, i am not a perfect parent, but surely the bare minimum is one must love one’s child. And it is clear from what i saw, that there was so little love in their lives. I don’t know what my children are going to grow up to become, so perhaps i am in no position to judge. I know i am not. But it is difficult to not presume, to try to speculate, or understand the way people can so easily advocate killing.
I was thinking about this more last night and wondered what happened to the left. There now only seems to be right and far right. The left seems to have completely melted away like dew in the heat of the sun. That youthful hope in the 60s seems to have disappeared and evaporated, and left this calcified, cynical, materialistic, self-preserving inwardness.
Where is today’s Ghandi? Today’s Rosa Luxembourg? Has the left’s narrative so completely collapsed that it is unsalvageable?
And i wonder if the left project failed because it really wasn’t a left project at all. It was egoism magnified, or a delusion in that people did not deal with the demons within them and therefore brought them to the cause, resulting in a self-aggrandising trip which destroyed the movements from within. We see them all the time, NGOs and movements filled to the brim with maniacs who have gone into it for the ride. Was it the reflection of Caliban in the glass? Ask the Labour Party and Tony Blair. Why did Tony succeed where others failed, because the monsters recognise their own – they allowed him to succeed. He was not the real threat.
What can the alternative narrative possibly be? Education must be at the heart of it. I think that Steiner education, the very basis of Steiner education, is the fulfilment of the potential of the person, but within the context of the social. The pure Emersonian ideal that we are society and that society is us. What is good for all is good for the individual, that this is bred in gentleness and reason, that the thinking heart operates and is paramount.
The Thinking Heart. Just even saying that resets the compass a little. Marrying the Will, Thought and Feeling so that one does not happen automatically and the other is not ossified. So that we live in the present, that we are able to see things for what they really are, not overthink or overrationalise, or just simply follow orders.
I am so aware that myself, at the present, live in both polarities. I think without doing, and the doing that i do, i am just an automaton. I want a better world, but i do not know what options are available. All i CAN do is be a mother to my children, but my children live in this world, and one day, no matter how i try to protect them, the world will come knocking on our doors. So i am also a mother to this world. But how?
Violence is not the answer, and those who stand up to violence with non-violence must have the greatest faith. A faith in humanity, a faith in the light. A faith in the dark too, because only when we embrace all parts of ourselves are we then able to live in peace, both personally and politically. What is violence, but anger, and what is anger but protection, a reaction to pain. Somewhere a person was hurt so badly, that their very existence became a vessel for violence.
Will those who perpetrated it and continue to do so take responsibility and bring it to an end? Will they own their things of darkness?
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