The 8th Sin

[dotinthesky]

I was buying my lunch today when I saw the images of chaos in Russia on the cafeteria's television. Cameras capturing naked children covered in blood, people passed out on the floor, shooting and anguish. A camera was shoved into the face of a little boy who, after three days without food or water, couldn't even talk. This was brought to me as I stood with my tray of Diet Coke, a plate full of rice and meat, heading for my cosy table underneath the Institute of Education's warm lights. You can imagine how sick I felt.

Then it's the weekend but I'm too tired because I've been filing all day and learning all this information relating to registering new students, and somehow trying to push out of my mind the barbarism taking place thousands of miles away. I also forgot one of my best friends' birthday. I'm powerless to change the errors of others aswell as my own. I don't know where that leaves me but it's not a good place for starting the weekend. I guess I'll just have to get used to a life of platitudes (my own at least).

I was listening to the radio the other day and there were a few speakers discussing what could be the 8th sin in the world. They ranged from materialism to apathy but what really caught my attention was what a former nun, Karen Armstrong, said. For her, the 8th sin in the world was *missing word*. See, now I can't remember the word but it meant the feeling of fake cheeriness and fake hope, that one should always look on the bright side of a disaster (sorry suddenflight for saying earlier that Armstrong named "ignorance" as the 8th sin. I now remember that it was the philosopher Alain de Botton who nominated that one.)

Armstrong's point was that we live in a society where we look at tragedies like the ones in Russia and Iraq, and we tell ourselves, falsely so, that it will all get better - and thus we shift any need for action from our shoulders and place it in some imaginary sphere. We hope that the authorities will catch the guilty, that justice will be metted, that civilized society will be restored. We choose to believe this bullshit so that we can go about our lives more easily. We deny ourselves any type of mourning - by denying the horror or by taking happy pills. And we deny ourselves the correct choices: if a president or prime minister can't reflect the pain that we feel, then why should we keep them in office? That is why it's so important for them that we not feel that pain, that we don't see those people as anything more than "collateral damage".

I know I'm guilty of this 8th sin. In my worst phase, when I was in my second year of university and I was meditating and willing love on the world through my thoughts, I told some very upset friends of mine to look on the bright side of their very grim lives. Things did improve for them, but got worse in other ways. Karen Armstrong's point was that we don't let ourselves feel the pain from these bad times, from these bad choices that are visited upon us or that we create. Just as quickly as those barbaric images in Russia were dumped on us, they were supplanted by the latest sports news. I can't think of anything more schizophrenic and harmful. We are left all alone to deal with those images, their conotations - we don't know where to take them because we don't have anywhere to go anymore. If the religions stopped arguing about stupid fucking useless stuff like "is the priest gay?" and actually went back to their business of spirituality, then maybe we could go to them. But you know as well as I do that we can't. So, instead, we just stare at those lovely ads of leather sofas and smooth cars; we hope we can buy all those shiny things and be happier one day. We are shoved this "How to be Successful and Learn Spirituality From Your Pop Idol Career" while brushing under the carpet all those nasty little middle-eastern men and women who don't use as much deodorant as we do - thus they stink and are very bad.

By the way, I know it's absolutely fucking wrong what those terrorists did in Russia. I have no sympathy. My point is that we should all be doing something about this shit, all the time. And we should demand of George Bush and Blair to stop the genocide in Sudan just as effectively as they invaded Irag (maybe we can fool them into believing there are weapons of mass destruction in Sudan if we meditate enough.) And we should also be outraged by what happens in our own countries.

It's not about giving money to charity, or signing manifestos; it's about complete alertness all the time, having a good hard look at the crap we fill our lives with and making some drastic, but good, changes. If I can do it, so can you.

Comments

[suddenflight.livejournal.com]

Just as quickly as those barbaric images in Russia were dumped on us, they were supplanted by the latest sports news. I can't think of anything more schizophrenic and harmful.

Alan and I often joke about that when we do actually see the news (99% of the time we don't watch television). Not only does the subject matter change drastically but the facial expressions too. "Look at me. I have my sad face on because I'm about to tell you that hundreds of people have been killed in a terrorist attack. Isn't this awful and terrible and... oh, wait, here's my happy face! Yay for Kelly Holmes!"

While I do agree that people should become more aware and make changes in the way they look at the world and how they spend their time and money, etc, I also think it would be really unhealthy to sit around obsessing over all of the evil in the world. If every one of us donated a few hours a week to cultivating awareness in our communities and changing our damaging habits, I think the world would be a very different place.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

That's what I meant: that we need to take those feelings of loss and outrage and put them to good use; put them into a service that reflects our feelings of unhappiness and helps us overcome it.

I think so many people are unhappy because they never deal with these emotions - they push them aside and make space for things that are utterly unimportant. I don' t mean to say that they should wallow in despair, but that they shouldn't be afraid to feel those things and act upon them.

[myendeavorca.livejournal.com]

Or maybe we could fool them into believing there is a billion dollars worth of oil in Sudan?

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

I'm sure they already have an idea of where most of the world's oil fields are situated. Weapons, on the other hand, are things that can be transported around and hidden...

[jellyfish93.livejournal.com]

You expressed this so wonderfully. I'm adding it to my memories, to be looked at as often as I need inspiration and a kick in the pants...

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

thank you! I thought I might have lost the track there... I tried to express what I'd like to feel all the time. I know it's difficult, but perhaps with some mindfulness I can change that over time. :)

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

I think there are changes we can make in our lives that work as small ripples against these politicians. Becoming aware of the corporations that support them, for example, and boycotting them. Disseminating information through mediums like this one or through talking to friends. etc. I've also been thinking of looking into joining more active organizations, applying my paper-shuffling skills to them and perhaps gaining more understanding of how succesful they can/cannot be in fighting the apathy of the elites.

[lala-jones.livejournal.com]

it's a question of pragmatics, i think, both in terms of actual time, scheduling (in order to survive, we're compelled to farm out our minds and bodies for at least 40 hours of the week, plus the time it takes to feed and rest us for that purpose, not to mention get us there...); there's the question of psychological pragmatism, too, the psychic economies of motivation/self-interest, guilt/rationalization ... in these senses, sentimentality, simulacra, MTV news are all many of us can afford. as evil as we are in our complacency, there are structural limitations, borne of political and economic interest, that define the room most of us (working stiffs that is) have to move. students, career activists, academics, that's another story, just as full of opportunists and careerists as mainstream politics, i think...

we have to blunt despair, veil anguish, because otherwise it would be impossible to continue feeding and working and finding a reason to continue doing so; it kicks from the insides of our guts at three in the morning, on the train in the mornings, while we read the paper, and in dreams.

as you say, the mainstream media, driven as it is by competition, only offers us shock news, tepid editorials -- they can't afford to do it differently either. the mainstream news magazine shows, talking head panels, etc., lose viewers once they engage in overly subtle or politically "biased" analysis.

the viewers/consumers who do take the time to further contextualize war-porn look to those media that confirm existing biases. not only is there no public space for discussion, there's no common understanding or grounds for dialogue.

again, if there were such a public ground, who would have (real or psychic) time to do it?

and what kind of drastic changes should we make? how many millions protested the iraq war? what actions open to the average citizen (using that term loosely, since few of us in the west act on the responsibilities of that role) are actually effective? i don't know, at all...

(by the way, here's the link to that symposium i mentioned before, re: rwanda + the media: http://www.carleton.ca/mediagenocide/ )