Giambattista
Vico, The New Science
One of the many problems facing humanity today is the
prevailing belief in a single, objective reality. That is to say, the belief
that one's own ideas and ideals are the only possible reality, and anyone
deviating from this subjective ground state is a threat to civilised society.
To witness this behaviour in action, simply go to the internet, anywhere there
is a comments section, and start reading. Yet like Polyphemus, the Cyclops in
Homer's Odyssey, if one views the world only through a single eye, it is all
too easy for some other bugger to put it out with a well aimed stick. Monomania
will only lead to darkness in the end.
Our monomania is largely the hangover from centuries of State
imposed monotheism. Constantine converted the Roman Empire to Christianity in
the 4th century in order to do away with elected successors and replace them
with his own hereditary heirs. At one point, six men had claimed the right to
be crowned Emperor, leading to years of civil war. Constantine emerged as the
eventual victor and he set about replacing the various factions aligned around
the various gods and religions with a single, all seeing, all powerful, God.
One all powerful, all seeing God equals one all powerful, all seeing Emperor with
one line of equally omnipotent successors. Constantine himself only converted
to Christianity on his deathbed.
The Roman Empire split in two, then fell, but monotheism
prevailed. The western half of the Empire became the Roman Catholic Church, the
world's first international bank. As well as lending money to half of European
royalty, Rome exported the idea that one God equals one Ruler, a model imposed
throughout the Middle Ages to horrific effect, especially if you were Jewish,
or a woman. In the 20th century, God is replaced by the State itself, so that
even atheist Marxists can get in on the act, but this rarely works out as well.
God is external, remote, unknowable. Tell someone God is perfect and there is
little they can do to confirm or deny it. Tell someone that the State is
perfect and all they really have to do is stick their head out of the window
for a look see.
From the equality, One God = One Ruler, all else follows.
One God equals one ruler and once line of succession, equals one nation, one
religion, one race, one gender, one sexuality, one culture, one personality,
one trade or profession, one place where you will be born and die. You shall be
one thing, and one thing alone. Any deviation from the norm will be severely
punished. This form of monomania comes from the belief in a static universe
that is immutable and perfect for all time. It is the natural order of things. It
is the way things have always been. Thanks to Hubble and Einstein, we ought to
know better by now.
The idea that one should be one thing, and one thing alone,
is pervasive. Monomania is really an
exercise in dualism and false dichotomy. There is me and mine, and there is
everyone else. Everyone else is wrong and must be made to see the error of
their ways, or be removed (see years 1914 - 2003 inclusive).
The extension to this is the delusion that "I"
represents the archetype example of its demographic group. Again, refer to the
internet. The one that bears their nations flag as an avatar is usually the
least community minded of all. They promote patriotism, denouncing socialism in
the process, failing to appreciate that the one is just a more diffuse form of
the other (How can you have a country without first having a community? You
commit socialism every time you step out the door.). They say things like,
"I'm proud to be British." when what they really mean is, "I'm
proud to be me." They equate the quality of being themselves with the
quality of being British, disallowing anyone that doesn't think and act the
same, disqualifying the rest of Britain in the process. They should revert to using
a selfie as an avatar like everyone else. It would be a more honest expression
of national identity.
Those on the left are arguably worse. They say things like,
"What we've got to realise is that we're all one." Through the filter
of monomania, this roughly translates as, "Why can't everyone just be
reasonable, like me?" They treat things like unity and equality as
absolutes, rather than approximations towards which we crawl, incrementally,
with many setbacks along the way. I love liberally minded people (I am one),
but too often we complain about the way things should be, rather confronting
the way things actually are. It is a yarn spun by politician and preacher
alike, about how wonderful Utopia will be when we finally get there with a
little self-sacrifice; meantime, Utopia still lies somewhere over the horizon
and the ship is springing leaks all over the gaff.
I suggest a modification to this monomania. An inversion, if
you like, away from a single, objective reality, towards embracing one's own
subjective reality, but seen as one bubble in an infinite foam of possible ideas,
ideals, and interests. There are times when it is useful to have a single,
objective reality. The fast lane of the motorway, for instance. Objectivity is
essential for carrying out scientific research, but even Special Relativity
tells us that there are many inertial frames of reference, but that no one
frame of reference is more objective than any other. Most of the time, what a person
does or does not believe is irrelevant. Everyone operates on varying levels of
reality as measured against some agreed social norm, but the measure of where
that average is raises over time. It was once acceptable to leave the bodies of
executed criminals to rot on public display, for instance. Our idea of what
represents acceptable society, or what constitutes acceptable reality, improves
with each passing age.
The internet and social media have altered the world out of
all recognition. Where once emigrating families would hold mock wakes before
departure, because they knew they would never again see those they were leaving
behind, today we can chat with people on the other side of the world as a
matter of course via Skype. The smart phone in our hand has allowed us to
broadcast our thoughts the instant that they occur, whether or not anyone is awake
to hear them at the time. The dramatic reduction in the amount of time that a
modern human needs to spend securing enough calories to survive means the
replacement of such binary choices as friend or foe, food or mate, with more
arbitrary decision trees like cats or dogs, City or United, Blur or Oasis, left
or right, Leave or Remain, but with the same injection of fear as friend or
foe. Which is precisely why you get the internet. A billion limbic systems
bashing against each other, each with its own idea of reality and each hostile
to any deviation from its self-reflecting state of equilibrium.
Racially we can look at ourselves only one of two ways.
Either we are all one race, in that any human can mate with any other human of
the opposite sex and produce offspring that is itself capable of producing
offspring. Either that, or we take the neurological view that the human brain has
become so sophisticated and discerning, immersed in a society now offering so
much choice and diversity, that we have each, essentially, become our own unique
race. And as technology evolves, and the boundaries widen of what society can
provide, and deems acceptable, the process of speciation will only accelerate.
You can demonstrate this to yourself by thinking of a close friend.
What's their favourite food? Favourite restaurant? Favourite film? Favourite
book? TV show? Artist? Sport? Team? Designer? Label? Car? Colour? Pet? Peeve?
It doesn't take many data points to start to show considerable divergence
between the choices of close friends, family members, even twins.
The behaviour witnessed hour by hour on the internet is
evidence of a prevailing belief that everyone should be one thing and the same.
Except that where once everyone was expected to believe in the one, true
Christian God, now we are all expected to think that 9/11 was an inside job, or
coconut milk is the universal panacea of immortal life, or that this week's
female celebrity hate figure is a bitch, cunt, whore for [insert spurious, inadequate,
self-pitying reason here].
Some gay people view bisexuals in much the same way as some
heterosexuals see the gay community, further evidence of our latent monomania. This
is one of the reasons why I think that if we are going to define someone's
sexual status, we also need to define their social status. For instance,
someone can be heterosexual, but homosocial, in that they spend the majority of
their time in groups of their own gender, only seeking out members of the
opposite sex for sexual gratification. Sexuality is like skin tone. Monomaniacs
over the centuries have tried to reduce humanity to a series of binary moral
judgements like, gay and straight, black and white, wrong and right, rather
than the 8 billion shades of grey that we truly are. No one is one thing all
the time (I am left-handed, but play guitar and use a mouse right-handed).
Everyone has off days, and even the most cautious of person will occasionally
do something that is unexpected, outside of their comfort zone, even dangerous.
To be human is be in a constant state of flux.
We are analogue creatures living in a digital world and we
need to learn how to digitise. We've tried the "we're all one"
approach time and time again and all it really leads to is Belsen, Siberia, or
Guantanamo Bay. The ultimate failure of all monomaniacal ideologies is the
failure to realise that there is no one Venn diagram that encompasses all of
humanity. We live in a universe that expands and creates. The yearning to
fragment and diversify is encoded in our DNA. Constantine embraced Christianity
to do away with sectarianism in the Empire, but within a few centuries the
sects of Zeus, Mithras, and Apollo had been replaced with the Franciscan, Jesuit,
and Benedictine orders of monks. Then, first Martin Luther broke with Rome,
then Henry VIII, and sectarianism reasserted itself in Europe with a vengeance.
Monomania seeks only to enforce convergence upon a divergent species. It is
always doomed to fail.
Individuality is an indication of intellect. They are also
proportional. Where one rises, the other is sure to follow. A monomaniacal
order allows for little or no social mobility. Apart from anything else, if one
outsources the decision making process to an external like God, Immigrants, or the State, then the power to positively
affect one's direction in life is severely impaired. The individual becomes
tethered to one station in life. Only by accepting responsibility for one's actions
can an honest assessment of one's strengths and shortcomings be performed. Only
then can we be sure of our true course. Only then can we break free of our
moorings and explore.
It is also incredibly freeing. I am an atheist. Once, I
would have described myself as a militant atheist, but not since I started to
enjoy floating in my own little bubble of reality. All that I can now say for
certain is that God does not exist in my universe, as I have no need of any
being more supreme than myself. If I were to find out that there were such
things as gods, my only real question would be, "Where do I apply?"
However, I can offer no opinion on who does or does not exist in your reality. I
have no empirical experience of being you. I am happy to discuss and compare
our varying perspectives, but I have no wish to convert you.
Moreover, if our beliefs are so at odds that we can really
find no common ground, well, we live in an infinity of cyberspace, where we
need never lay sight on each other unless we really want to. There is more than
enough room to accommodate the realities of all the world's Jews, Christians,
Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Beliebers, Trekies, Mets Fans, Geordies,
Dungeon Masters, Chefs, Vegans, Transsexuals, Pansexuals, Bikers, Ballet
Dancers, Belly Dancers, Writers, Actors, Gamers, and a billion other
demographics besides. Yes, there are real world problems like climate change to
be dealt with, but this is exactly the kind of thing that monomania
perpetuates. In the monomaniac's world, there are only two opposing views and
they should each be given equal time. In the pan-dimensional order of things,
there are 8 billion opposing sides and most of them are firmly for believing in
anthropomorphic climate change.
Paganism has returned to the world. Actually, it never
really went away, but it's been keeping a low profile for the last thousand
years or so, what with all the persecution, ducking stools, and pyres of
burning bodies. Today we have the potential to build a world that is a broad,
continuous spectrum of happy mediums. There will still be those at the margins
that we will have to take care of for their own sakes, or for the sake of
others, but this is so much easier to achieve when you view people as a standard
distribution of possible personality types, rather than as a flatline.
Obsession and monomania can be a good thing when it's something
that one is passionate about for the thing itself. Without obsessives we
wouldn't have medicine, technology, transport, or most of the rest of the
modern world. Me, I'm in to books: buying books, and reading books, and
thinking about books, and talking about books, and rereading books, and writing
about books. I like society. Society is a fine thing, and I am happy to
contribute to its continued existence. However, what I really want for us to do
is to figure this shit out, so that I might finally get around to reading The
Count of Monte Cristo. At the moment it seems that my only hope is to follow it
on Twitter.
Having opened with Polyphemus, I can only conclude, once
again, with words taken from the Cyclops chapter of James Joyce's Ulysses:
But it's no use,
says he. Force, hatred, history, all that. That's not life for men and women,
insult and hatred. And everybody knows that it's the very opposite of that that
is really life.
