Thought Experimentation Numero Tres: I am a monster. We all are.

Morality of Morals

Oh goodness. My last thought experiment. My final thoughts on the matters and concepts of Parasites. What have I learned? This is the question that flits across all our brains, because it is the question we are most commonly asked at the conclusion of a class, a story, the end of a day. Ever since I was in preschool, my parents would ask me at the end of each day to tell them one thing that I had learned over those past eight hours. Why this obsession with myself having learned something? Not just something either, as if it could be anything at all, but something that can be described in a concise sentence using words, such as “I learned that yellow and blue make green.” I feel Parasites led me deeper than this. Yes, I could say I learned to write using more “I statements” from my first thought experiment, or that I learned about my opinions concerning death from my second thought experiment. But did I need the class to learn these things? I say no. I used the class to become aware of these things is how I would put it. I think this idea of having to learn something goes along with the idea of having to find meaning in the classes I take, as if they mean nothing if I cannot work out a concise synopsis of what I have studied. Why does a meaning make something ok? Justify the stories we have read? Justify the authors of these stories? Can a meaning really make something good or bad? Why must we classify everything in this black and white way, as being good or bad, meaningful or meaningless? These are the questions that spark the beginning of this experimentation of thought.

I feel as a class we have been labeling so much as being good or bad, particularly with books like “Filth” by Irving Welsh and movies such as “Shivers.” Everyone spoke on how uncomfortable “Filth” made them and how “disgusting and disturbing” the main character Bruce Robertson is. He is labeled as a bad man with no redeeming qualities. The book automatically seemed to generate the response “What is the meaning behind this?” Yet why do we expect a moral in literature? Why is it that the redeeming feature in literature? Someone said: "I kind of like the way people read when they're looking for a moral...the one lesson that will bring the whole story together." This is true, as a child I recall all my Arthur books and Bernstein Bear’s having very clear lessons that were completely black and white. It is no large wonder that we continue to look for this structure in books and stories now. Yet as I grow older, morals have become more complex and less black and white. There are more factors and exceptions, more causes and effects. I have to compensate for the negative aspects of life too now. I need to mix the black and white. As I have gotten older, I have reached the grey area, where problems can no longer be solved by the Bernstein Bear’s advice.

We begin life as dichotomous thinkers, but we must change this style of thought as we mature. Many do not. Many fight this change. Many still see arguments as us versus them, bad versus good, etc. We need to break these binaries because they hold us back. In a fellow student’s blog, he pointed out that “When binaries are broken, when people bring up the middle ground, when an alternative way of looking at a thing is suggested, there is this tendency to stop.” I think this plays greatly into the discomfort of “Filth.” We are presented with a human who is a monster to us, yet he is human. We want to give him the title of monster or animal because that dehumanizes him, but we cannot step away from the fact (yes, the FACT) that Bruce Robertson is a human being, the same species as the rest of us. I think many did stop reading, because they were not comfortable with seeing the grey area human beings actually live in. My fellow blogger continued on: “Here is the left and the right; here are the monsters, how separate are they really? These Jesus-lovers and blasphemers are both preachers, both monsters…”

Filth is not that far from non-fiction, and perhaps that is why we do not want to see a moral. We do not want to apply it to real life. We want to keep it in the pages. Keep the grey area in the pages. So we demonize Bruce Robertson. Yet personally I enjoyed “Filth” and actually got the most out of it than any other assigned Parasites reading. Because I CAN relate to Bruce, I see the parts of him that are within me. I saw it from the beginning. I have expressed my problem with self-compassion and self-love, so it is personally easier for me to see the dark side of myself and my darker inner workings, the workings that are within us all. In the first chapter of the book Bruce speaks of the games we play with each other. “The games are always, repeat, always being played…most times it’s expedient not to acknowledge their existence. But they’re always there.” I do play these games, they make up much of my life whether I always realize it or not. I act differently with different people, give different identities of who Alaina Brown is. Bruce is staring at a flower woman’s ‘tits’ at one point and realizes that “she catches me staring, so I give a neighborly wave, and hold up the can of windscreen defroster in one hand and the scraper in the other and let my shoulders rise.” We all create an image of ourselves appropriate to the situation. I bullshit papers so that professors think I am as passionate about every world issue as they are, I bullshit job interviews to be who they want to see. It is all a game of dress up, a game of pretend. It is the game of life.

In games, a useful strategy is to find your enemies weaknesses and use them to your own advantage. Bruce makes a point of remembering everyone’s Achilles heel, for everyone does have those weak points, those buttons to be pressed. “Something that crushes their self image to a pulp. Yes it’s all stored for future reference.” I know that to make my mother cry I simply need to blame her for something that has to with my health. I know if I raise my voice at all to her and use statements that declare “it’s your fault….you did this” she will fall to pieces and apologize for everything, even if she has done nothing. I know that if I bring up my boyfriend’s problems with emotions I will win any argument and strip him of his manhood in a way. I know that if I guilt trip him using my eating disorder he will feel horribly, for example if I am to say “I WAS going to eat a snack for once but then you called and made me stressed…” I know he will feel a wave of shame. I know that one of my friends will trip into a spiral of self-hate if I bring up her ‘secret’ (but not at all) smoking habit or any sort of bikini bodies. I not only know these things, but I use them for my own intentions. I never thought I would inherit my mother’s inclinations to guilt trip, but I have, and it has gone deeper than that. I remember these Achilles heels of my loved ones so that I can win arguments, seem more intelligent, or simply feel better when I am angry or depressed. “We’re enjoying the twisted but undeniable sexuality which is part and parcel of the complete dominance over another human being.” I think many of us find an odd joy in bringing others down when we are, or to gain something for ourselves. Not thirty seconds ago I received a call rejecting me for a job I thought I had in the bag, a job I thought I had put on the perfect identity for. I am so upset that all I can think about is this fantasy of whoever got the position tripping down some stairs or for her to be so awful that the store owners will be at their wit’s end. I have spent five minutes mocking those who interviewed. I want them to be brought to my level of desolation. “There are only a finite number of bad things that can happen in the world at any given time. So if they’re happening to someone else they aren’t happening to me.” This is a selfish way to look at things, but it is what I do and I do not doubt it is a common thread among humans. Can we really label me a monster, as being despicable, as being selfish, for this?

I think we can learn from Bruce, from his self directed interests. He tries to give in to his wants. He doesn’t want to finish a porno at one point; he wants pie and whisky instead. So he does it. At one point he takes “Bruce Robertson time,” which is something I personally need but do not give myself, minus the bacon rolls Bruce takes with his. He goes a little extreme with his self-centered values, such as when Toal briefs him on a murder case and all Bruce thinks is “typical Toal, concerned with the state of mind of the cunt that got murdered.” He then cares more about biting into his sausage roll and how Toal has ruined his day, not by bringing him into his office to talk about this horrific murder case, but because now he does not have condiments for his roll. Bruce also declares that there is “no way would I put my neck on the line for any spastic in this place, although obviously I keep them from thinking otherwise.” He is protecting his self interests, which is an important lesson, but one which we do not really learn. From childhood we are taught the lessons of being generous, sharing, and of being selfless. We are taught these in very clear and direct ways. Yet we are not so obviously taught the importance of self-interest and self-love. We are selfish creatures because we, by nature, are wired to look out for our own well being for survival. Fighting this nature leads to negative consequences. I fought against doing anything for myself, and as a result I have issues with identity, self-love, anxiety, depression, and an eating disorder to top it all off. My brain went haywire when I stopped doing anything for myself; it is actually self-destructive. So although Bruce is self-destructive in the behaviors he chooses to indulge in, the fact that he accepts his self centeredness could actually be seen as very healthy. At times Bruce says a “satisfying glow comes over me.” This is the feeling I long for, search for, and hunt for. He is not fighting his nature, while I am.

We unfairly demonize Bruce for giving in to his nature. We call him a monster or an animal because “he is so despicable.” In class we tear him apart, until someone brought how "we can demonize people, but it doesn't mean they are necessarily bad." What about how white power groups demonize blacks and other similar examples? We do not see this as being just or fair, yet we do it to so many members of our own society, no matter how ‘open minded’ we are (or say we are). I see murderers or individuals such as Bruce being called monsters or animals, because this not only demonizes them but dehumanizes them. They are human beings, yet they are given a title that declares them to be something else entirely, a completely different species unlike us “upstanding citizens of humanity.” This ties into a lot of the controversy that director Jean Painleve provoked with his documentaries, as described in the book “Science is Fiction.” Many felt uncomfortable with his narrations of these ‘creatures.’ Painleve says that “science cannot be disassociated with human values,” yet we separate it so much as being humans vs. everything else. When people act in a way we dislike, we say they are monsters, or animals. Yet we are animals. We are all monsters.

In the film “The Love Life of the Octopus” we do not want to anthropomorphize the octopuses mating because it is so intense, like rape, and therefore ‘animalistic’ to us. It is not even called sex or making love in the animal world. It is mating. Humans are not like this, we protest. We are civilized and selfless, only monsters or animals ‘mate’ in this way. So we feel discomfort in watching the octopuses’ love life, because it sheds light on our own similarities. The similarities that are not so civilized and pretty. It is no wonder the preferred nature films are those in the style of Walt Disney, where animals are shown to be cute and cuddly, living sparkly little lives in gorgeous settings. These aspects of animals are compared to humans, because then we can see ourselves as being adorable and leading sparkly little lives ourselves. We ignore our nature and accept only the parts which we choose to see. How we help those in need, how we can speak words to each other, how we have families etc. Yet the beast is within us all. Painleve once produced a film “Blood of the Beasts,” which shows the workings of a slaughterhouse, which reveals a hideous realization. We kill as animals do. Seeing humans ripping apart cow hides, tearing out the guts, siphoning the blood of their kills reminds us of our true nature. Our nature of being monsters, of being animals. A more modern example is the documentary ‘Food Incorporated,” which many express a great distaste for. Ignorance is bliss to us. We cannot handle the truth.

At one time before the feature presentation began, they would show a documentary. But “eventually it became fashionable to arrive late and skip the documentary altogether.” Documentaries are still not as popular as other films, and the ones that are popular tend to show aspects of life we as individuals cannot blame ourselves for, such as the health of the nation or Jesus camps. Do we not want to see our true selves? Are we hiding under the mud that is humanity just as sea creatures do when light comes to close to exposing them? Perhaps we long for the morals that popular films provide us, in a nice tidy box where we do not have to think about it or seek it out. It is presented to us at the end of the movie. “It exhausts the mind when we want to be entertained.” In “Science is Fiction” Painleve describes the dilemma of filming underwater animals while not shedding too much light upon them, because that affects their behavior and they hide. Like the aquatic creatures shunning excessive light, we too shun too much life shed on our lives. On who we really are and our true nature. Painleve confuses us “by making the strange seem familiar, it comically confounds our desire to clearly delineate ‘us’ and ‘them.’”

I know I constantly want to fight my nature. I want to fight these selfish feelings I have described, I want to be what is advertised to us as ‘good.’ If it is in my nature, though, can it really be seen as bad or good? It all comes back to this obsession with binaries and dichotomies. My nature is just that, nature. It encompasses both good and bad. It is the greyest of grey areas. So can I really change that? No, I do not think I can. I can wish to be someone different, but all these traits of my nature that are ‘bad’ will not go away. They cannot. Even Bruce, who is the most accepting of his monster inside, has moments where he wish that monster was gone. After Shirley gets a pap smear and is afraid there is something wrong she goes to Bruce’s pseudo-aid, and he thinks “just looking at her there, at her distress, just for a second, we wish we were stronger. I wish I was somebody else, the person she’s mistaking me for, the person whom she wants to mistake me for. The person who gives a fuck.” Even if we wish to change though, can we really? Can we teach a lion to be vegetarian and not hunt, can octopuses learn to mate for life instead of just for reproduction? No. We learn our nature as children, and it cannot be changed from there. Bruce learns his nature in part from his father, as the all-knowing tapeworm within discloses. “You started to become aware of the words he used that would make your mother cry. You studied him.” There is a saying that inspired the movie “7 Up” which goes “give me a child at seven and I will show you the man.” The idea behind this is that there are certain fixed qualities of our nature from the age of seven and up. Qualities we cannot change and they are not good or bad, they are just grey.

So I am lead back into the idea of morals of meaning, and if a meaning or moral automatically makes something ‘good.’ What meaning do we find in Painleve’s films? What meaning do we find in “Filth?” Maybe there is none. Maybe meaning is just an idea we use to filter out media such as this. It is another defense mechanism we use to keep ourselves from seeing our true nature, the less sparkly parts of humanity and life. It is the rock and mud we use to hide from the light. These stories could be showing us just how messed up everything is. Maybe there are no lessons. Maybe there are no morals. Maybe we create the concept of morals to get something out of shitty situations where nothing else comes out. It is true that I have analyzed “Filth” and Painleve, from which one could say I found meaning, but I think I just summarized what they do between the lines. The hidden words showing our hidden nature. I realized things about myself, some I wish I could change and some I am surprisingly ok with.

I sometimes wish I did not mock people so frequently, bullshit so much, think dark thoughts. Sometimes I wish I did not have the urge to "just go down the candy aisle and open all the jelly beans and watch them stream out" or steal things from the grocery store just to see if I would get caught. Yet I am now ok with these thoughts because they keep me grounded in my reality. They remind me of the fact that there are these less attractive features in us all, and that we need these traits to survive. We need to make others feel inadequate so we appear more adequate and therefore more confident and capable of finding a mate. We need to feed off others despair to realize our own good fortune. If there was no despair in the world, we would not realize the good parts of our lives. So we feed off this host. Bruce is a parasite. He acts as though he does not need anyone but he needs to feed off others, he needs these games for life. We all do. We are all parasites. We are all animals. We are all monsters. Evil and good is within us all. There is no dichotomy. It is all grey area.