Social interaction is not a skill. Even the least socially capable human beings handle themselves well with animals. In truth anyone who can manage a dog can manage any social necessity. We imagine that there must be something more to social interaction—some difference that raises human sociality as far above animal sociality as human beings themselves are above animals. But there is no such difference. Body language and tone of voice speak louder than any words said. We know there is something more to be had from the company of human beings than can be had from the company of animals; but when we try to reach for it, we grasp nothing. Still we are not wrong; there is such a difference; but it lies beyond social interaction, not in it. The mechanism of sociality is not how we connect, but how we avoid and regulate connection. In all human beings there is something so tender, so piteous, so kind, so sympathetic and so generous that it would sooner have us, like the heraldic pelican, wound ourselves to issue blood and give it, than see another go thirsty—something more than vulnerable, self-vulning. To survive we must armor and bar this something; so we place it in the same protected center of our instincts where the animal keeps its throat and belly. It will not be exposed to you until you have proved trustworthy, well-intentioned, and undemanding. That you are human does not give you the right to expect others to undress for you, even if you undress for them; to expect this deeper unveiling, even if you go about so deeply unveiled, is deeper folly.
6 comments:
I know exactly what you mean. I think you may be kinder than most people, though.
Some of the component reflections that make up this essay beg, I think, for the authority of a first person ascription. It is up to you which, but I say you ought to try authoring one or another of these thoughts, changing a "you" to an "I", or "we". See how it sounds--and if the logic and burden of the whole (persuasive as it is) holds.
Generally I use "we" where others might write "people" or "human beings" or "mankind"—since I am one of us—and "you" where others might use the third person—if I am actually addressing the reader. I don't really see where "I" would fit in this essay. I have no such expectations as I have ascribed to "you". This essay is a product of observation, not experience.
It seems to me, as a reader, this essay is a product of poetic imagination, which would exclude BOTH observation and experience as anything but partial source material. That is why I look for the author to take something upon himself. The statement about "all human beings" that ends in a comparison with a "heraldic pelican", seems outright fantastic as a general assertion, though I agree with it totally. But this could not possibly have been derived from mere observation--unless of course you are reporting on specific other people you know, which would then become personal experience. Perhaps I just look for a narrator, a risk of confession, dialogue that puts these thoughts in crisis. The thinking and the vocabulary at work in all your writing cries out for more than tentatively stated reflections, which are unfortunately framed as universal truths. Your equivocating style is drastically downplaying your obscurity. And as you know, I am in favor of hard-driving obscurity! It is what "people" really understand.
I concede regarding observation and experience.
I regard the presence of the narrator as being conventional to the concept of the essay--I don't feel the need to explicitly say "I think" when the fact that I am writing an essay implicitly surrounds it all with that context.
"Hard-driving obscurity"--this is a motto I like.
It's the difference in tone between "I think," and "I think that . . ." For example:
"I think that social interaction is not a skill." There is the beginning of an essay, in which the "I think" is unnecessary. As you say, it is implicit that the author thinks that such is the case.
Or, "I think, social interaction is not a skill."
This is action, present tense, the narrator is on his feet, with that thought, and no doubt he is engaged in some social situation, that has caused him to react with this consideration. It could be dire, it could be funny. ("There is something so tender, so piteous, so kind, so sympathetic and so generous," in us all.) Various scenes flourish in the mind of the reader, and in the imagination of the author.
I think most of the thoughts you present are of this action type, in process, obviously not conclusions, and therefore I keep expecting you to create a narrative with them, instead of falling into an "essay". I repeat, it is the tone of voice, the difference between "I think," and "I think that . . . "
Post a Comment