LIVING IN THE CITY
Pascal had
said that a man would save himself a lot of inconvenience if only he could
learn to sit still in his room, scorning the outside world as much as
possible. Matthew Ryan, a leading
twentieth-century writer, had come, through bitter experience, to appreciate
the shallowness and narrowness of Pascal's oft-quoted dictum. He had indeed spent a great deal of time
sitting still in his room, but instead of saving him the suffering that would
presumably have come from venturing out of it for any length of time, this
reclusive habit had resulted in his experiencing more pain than ever he would
have got from the outside world, had he chosen to dwell there in defiance of
Pascal. But he hadn't done so, and for
the simple fact that he was a writer who needed somewhere private to work. He couldn't bring himself to write in the
reference department of the local library, despite the ample provisions for
sedentary toil, since he would have been exposed to public scrutiny and become
self-conscious. He would also have been
exposed to the coughings and shufflings,
comings and goings, questions and answers, wailings and slammings,
snivellings and sneezings,
etc., which figured so prominently in the reference room on an average busy
day, whilst from the street he would have heard children crying or dogs barking
or cars honking or workmen hammering or women shouting or any number of other
extraneous noises which invaded all departments of the library at virtually any
time of day.
No, he couldn't force himself to work in
the local library! There was far too
much noise about and, besides, he needed privacy. Serious writing regularly entailed periodic
deliberations, not to mention frequent erasions or
modifications of unsuitable material. He
would have felt embarrassed to behave in such a way in public, particularly as
he also needed to take periodic breaks from his work during which time, usually
amounting to ten minutes, he would simply be sitting there doing absolutely
nothing. What he did or didn't do in
private, on the other hand, was his own business. And so, eschewing the temptation - sometimes
very pressing - to visit the local library or, for that matter, work in the
local park when the weather was fine, he remained in his room, which became for
him a kind of study. He had no option but to remain
there.
Yet, contrary to Pascal's wisdom, he
didn't escape all that much suffering by remaining put. For it was one of the noisiest rooms
conceivable, or, to be more precise, was exposed to the noises made in other rooms
of the house, as well as to noises issuing from the surrounding external
environment, as with the library. He
kept the noise level in his own room down to a minimum, but his neighbours had,
for the most part, no pressing desire to follow suit. Rather, they indulged in it to the limit, or
so it often seemed to him. Consequently
the ordinarily difficult task of writing along serious philosophical lines was
made doubly, nay, trebly difficult by the all-too-frequent prevalence of
neighbour and environmental noises which, conspiring together, could only make
for increased suffering. God knows, one
suffered enough from one's work, without having to endure external noises as
well! But there it was; by sitting still
in his room, Matthew Ryan had discovered the relative and altogether limited
applicability of Pascal's famous dictum.
He had grown to despise it!
But here a discerning reader may well
wonder why, if he hated noise so much, our writer couldn't find somewhere
quieter to live. Well, the explanation
here is simply that he couldn't afford anywhere
quieter to live, that, for want of a sufficient income, he was obliged to
remain in the relatively inexpensive accommodation in which he was living. But why, the reader might then wonder, was he
in want of a sufficient income? Ah, the
explanation there would have to be that he was a writer whose writings were too
progressive and sophisticated to earn him a sufficient income and enable him to
move to somewhere quieter. Yes, here was
the paradoxical truth of the matter. For
instead of serving to make him rich or, at any rate, moderately well-off, his
writings only served to keep him poor, despite what he considered to be their
intrinsic intellectual value. And they
kept him in poverty because they were too elevated to appeal to the broad
masses, the bourgeoisie - to all but a comparatively small number of people who
preferred the pursuit of truth to the indulgence of vice. They kept him poor because of their
quality.
Oh, you may well wonder, but isn't it odd
that work of quality should fail to be appreciated on its true merits and
granted due recognition? Ah, you clearly
fail to appreciate the nature of contemporary capitalist society if you wonder
that! You fail to appreciate the fact
that, the commercial requirements of publishers notwithstanding, a majority of
people are simply incapable of recognizing the merits of a work of real
quality. You haven't realized that the
majority of people in countries like
But, of course, Matthew Ryan had appreciated
it and, being unable or unwilling to stoop to the popular level, had done his
best to live with the fact, even if this did mean that he was obliged to resign
himself to poverty while lesser writers grew wealthy on the stupidity and
gullibility of the masses, grew rich by producing the kinds of writings which
he, through spiritual nobility, was utterly opposed to
producing. All he could do was carry-on
with the kinds of writings which meant something to him and became him. And those writings were largely what kept him
chained to the humble lodgings in which he lived - a prisoner of
circumstances. There was no alternative
fate, since he couldn't alter his style or content, bringing them more into
line with popular taste, and thereby 'sell out', as the expression goes, to the
lowest-common-philistine-denominator, producing not literature but commercial
trash! A man is what he is, and nothing
can change him. If he is destined to be
like Schopenhauer or Nietzsche or Spengler or Hesse or Baudelaire or even Huysmans,
there is nothing he can do to alter the fact.
One doesn't choose to write for a mass readership; one is either
disposed to doing so or indisposed, as the case may be. And for anyone with any degree of
above-average intelligence and an appropriately serious temperament, there is
not the slightest chance of one's being disposed to writing for the broad
masses. There is not the slightest
chance of one's stooping to the level of adventure stories or thrillers or
ghost stories or sentimental romances or war novels or science fiction or
horror or whatever else is usually read by a majority of the reading public,
which is still a minority - even quite considerable - of the public in general. One simply can't do it. And consequently one can't expect to make all
that much money from what one does do - from
work which seems to one of real literary value.
On the contrary, one has no option but to accept the fact that only a
comparatively small minority of people are going to appreciate it, no matter
how progressive it may be. Even Lenin
and Marx didn't really write for the masses, but for those who would lead
them. That is a significant distinction!
And so Matthew Ryan had come to accept the
harsh reality into which circumstances had inexorably led him, contriving to
persevere with it as best he could. In a
sense there was no real alternative, short of suicide. But suicide wasn't something he particularly
wanted to entertain, since death, whilst it might put an end to one's personal
and professional problems, would hardly serve the world's improvement. For the world could only be improved by
people like him remaining in it, continuing to fight on behalf of quality and progress,
continuing to impose his higher thought upon it. To kill oneself would simply be to destroy
what opportunity one had, by living in the world, to work for the general
good. It would be to succumb to the evil
in life, to fall along the way. But the
most enlightened people had to survive if the world was to be improved. They had to continue the war against the
Devil, against everything low and evil, vain and predatory. That was their raison
d'être for being in the world, not simply to enjoy themselves. Only the people or, rather, a broad and
usually youthful stratum of the masses could content themselves with
self-enjoyment, with simple irresponsible hedonism - as Ryan had learnt to his
cost! How many times, he reflected, had
he struggled with his writings during the day while neighbours played rock 'n'
roll or pop music on their record-players for hours
on-end! Ah, it was terrible, the extent
of the irresponsibility and inconsideration of these half-witted people, these
mass types! Irresponsibility and
inconsideration - weren't they the most frequent evils one encountered in
lodging-house accommodation?
Yes, there could be no doubt of that fact
in Matthew Ryan's mind! He knew his
neighbours well enough, by now, to know that much! He hadn't spent years dwelling among them to
be blind or deaf to their abuses. He
knew that, left to themselves, they tended to behave just as they pleased,
without respect or consideration for anyone else. Indeed, there were times when he had felt
obliged to complain about the noise and humbly request that the volume of
radio, television, record-player, or whatever, be turned down a bit. Sometimes the neighbours responsible for the
noise responded sympathetically. Sometimes not. On one
occasion, when his next-door neighbour's radio had kept him awake all night, he
had received as response to his complaint at 4.00am a punch on the face and a
barrage of highly abusive language that continued until after 4.30. The man had evidently been drinking in the
company of some woman, presumably his latest girlfriend, and, being desirous to
impress her or at any rate not lose face, had resorted to violence and bad
language when asked to show some consideration.
Inevitably, Ryan had beat a gentlemanly if, under the circumstances,
slightly ignominious retreat to his room, since he had no desire to indulge in
physical violence with the man, who, in any case, was older and stronger. Physical violence was all very well when one
was on a par with the average muscular type, but when one was above it - ah!
there could be no question of one's doing anything but turning the other cheek
or, if one felt unduly endangered, threatening to sue the man for assault. After all, it isn't in the interests or
nature of one who was more spiritually evolved to resort to physical violence,
like a beast. The only kind of violence
such a person could or should resort to is spiritual violence, like strong
words or sharp looks, in accordance with his status as a gentleman, or someone
who, for a number of reasons, was above physical threats. Spiritual violence was a gentleman's
prerogative, in view of the fact that he shouldn't be expected to demean or
compromise himself by indulging in physical violence. Only a 'man of the people' could reasonably
be expected to resort to the latter, since he was less spiritually evolved and,
consequently, more under the influence of his senses, his emotions, his body. And this
was precisely what Ryan's nearest neighbour had resorted to on the night in
question!
However, as relations between them
gradually quietened down again, he had no reason to fear a repeat performance
of that experience in future. Though he
remained on his guard, so to speak, and refrained from acknowledging the man
whenever they crossed on the stairs or in the hallway. It wasn't as though Duggan had become an
enemy to him; just someone to be avoided and despised for his foul
behaviour. An enemy, on the other hand,
had to be someone closer to oneself, someone whom it was possible for one to hate
rather than simply despise. His next-door
neighbour was simply one of 'them', meaning an average Joe.
But Matthew Ryan had never gone out of his
way to quarrel with average people or, more precisely, his neighbours. He had simply wanted to carry on with his
work and forget about them as much as possible.
Yet much as he wished to forget about them, they didn't necessarily wish
to forget about him, but preferred to remind him, on various occasions, that he
was a stranger among them, a social outsider.
They would feign polite coughs or make vulgar wretching
sounds or purposely drop things on the floor (his ceiling) or slam doors and
cupboards. They had a number of ways of
reminding him of his social origins, of the fact that his behaviour was
inherently different from and even superior to theirs. It didn't matter how socialist or progressive
one considered oneself to be, they didn't care what one read or wrote or
thought, but based their opinion of one on one's appearance, accent, general
behaviour, and occupation. Had Marx, Engles, Lenin, or Trotsky been living in similar
circumstances, matters probably wouldn't have been any different. The neighbours would have sensed their
intellectual distinctness and accordingly taken measures to oppose them, no matter
how humbly. For the difference between
average people and those who are above average is essentially one of
intelligence, and it matters little whether or not the latter use their greater
intelligence to improve the former's lot - at least
not to the former themselves. The fact
that one's behaviour is different suffices to make them suspicious of one, to
regard one as an enemy or, at any rate, potential threat, whether for good or
ill.
Thus Matthew Ryan had not struck-up
friendly relations with any of his neighbours over the years of his confinement
to this single room. He had simply dwelt
among them. But, in dwelling among them,
he had come to see them in a much clearer light than would have been possible
had he still been living elsewhere - say, in the comparatively middle-class
provinces. And in seeing
them in such a light, he had avoided the illusions which usually befell those
who saw them less clearly, as from a rosy distance in the comparative safety of
their suburban or provincial environments.
He had seen them as they really were, and that had been enough to
convert him to socialism. Previously he
had been an anti-bourgeois intellectual.
Now he was a pro-proletarian intellectual. That was quite a distinction! He had changed from being a kind of
latter-day Baudelaire into a kind of latter-day Lenin. He wanted to transform average people, in
turn, into something higher and better than themselves - in a word, to make
them noble.
Yes, there could be no doubt in his mind
that most people had to be transformed and thereby dragged out of their
wretchedness and baseness. How long it
would take to improve the quality of the race, he didn't pretend to know. But no matter how long, the job had to be
done if life was to become better (or perhaps one should say less bad). There were basically only two types of people
in the world at present: namely, mob types and nob
types. The raison
d'être of social progress, as he saw it, was to transform all mob types into
nob types in due course, to raise the general level
of human life to a point where the highest possible type of nobility prevailed
in the world at large, and mankind thus became spiritually united in their
quest for ultimate transformation into supreme being, if not actually into the
Supreme Being itself. At present,
however, the mob type, which mostly stemmed from the proletariat, was ranged
against the nob type, which mostly stemmed from the
bourgeoisie. This latter type was
divisible between those who served themselves, as capitalist individuals, and
those who served the masses, as socialists; between the hard-core of
traditional bourgeoisie on the one hand, and the revolutionary supporters of
the proletariat on the other. There was
no such thing, as yet, as a proletarian nob. For at present the only possible kinds of
nobility (using that word in its broadest sense) were either aristocratic or
bourgeois, with the latter tending to predominate. But bourgeois nobs
can be in the proletariat's service, just as certain aristocratic ones were in
the service of the bourgeoisie during the French Revolution, and this was
certainly also true of many Bolsheviks at the time of the Russian
Revolution. Their nobility was put to
the service of the proletariat rather than predominantly reserved for themselves,
as is generally the case with nobles of a traditional cast. But being a nob in
the service of the mob doesn't mean that one intends to transform proletarians
into bourgeoisie in due course, and Ryan was under no illusions whatsoever on
this point. On the contrary, progress
towards the highest possible type of nobility presupposed the transformation of
proletarian mobs into proletarian nobs. The base clay, so to speak, of the urban
environment had to be transformed into the highest possible humanity, not taken
out of its rightful environment and reduced to a nobility compatible with the
suburbs, if not the provinces. There
could be no going back so far as evolution was concerned. Willy-nilly, a new
nobility had to be created!
But Matthew Ryan was essentially a
bourgeois or, at any rate, lower middle-class nob who, through force of circumstances, had become stranded in
the city and thereby cut off from his rightful provincial habitat. Being confined to the city, he had not
altogether surprisingly developed proletarian sympathies and become socially
progressive, become revolutionary rather than remained rebellious, as he had
been when still a suburban youth. Yet he
hadn't ceased to be intellectually middle-class through enforced confinement in
the city, as his neighbours often reminded him.
And even if they hadn't reminded him, he would have known it, known he
was fundamentally a fish-out-of-water or, rather, a deep-sea fish languishing
in the shallows, which was how he saw the artificial nature of the urban
milieu, with its scarcity of vegetation.
Yet
that is a relative matter, so let us return to the problem of our philosopher
vis-à-vis his neighbours again, rather than remain in the realm of metaphysical
speculation. Nevertheless he was aware
that his immediate neighbours were by no means untypical proletarians, being of
a sensual disposition which allowed them to take city life more or less for
granted. They were, he had often
noticed, of a different build from himself - either muscular
or fleshy rather than thin. They were what
the American psychologist W.H. Sheldon would have classified as mesomorphs or endomorphs rather than ectomorphs,
like himself.
And they had no compunction about regularly visiting the local pubs or
leaving cigarette butts lying around the house.
Neither did they live alone, without the assistance of friends or the
opposite sex. Had they done so, Ryan
reflected, life might have been a bit quieter for him. But, of course, they couldn't be expected to
do so, since they were too sensual to contemplate the prospect of remaining
celibate. They behaved in a manner which
more or less guaranteed them mental health, free from crippling
depressions. Had Ryan stumbled upon a
woman worthy of himself in the neighbourhood, life might not now be so trying
for him either (assuming he would have been capable of responding to her in a
relatively natural fashion - a somewhat debatable assumption in view of his
lopsided spirituality!). But,
unfortunately, he hadn't done so, since the only women he ever saw were proletarians,
and they could scarcely be expected to appeal to him, a man for whom cultural
and intellectual company was a must, if he was to have any company at all. An average girl, even when attractive, would
quickly have bored him, having very little in common with him. A woman had to be more than just a sex
partner; she had to genuinely share his tastes and interests. And, by god, there were very few women in his
neighbourhood who could be expected to do that!
No, an above-average man couldn't be
expected to live with a proletarian. His
father had tried and failed hopelessly, leaving him the victim of a broken
marriage and a half-witted and fundamentally philistine mother whom he had
never ceased to despise. He had no
intention of making the same mistake himself!
If he were ever to live with a woman, she would have to be someone on or
near his own wavelength whom he could respect.
But, at present, he was still hopelessly isolated and therefore
alone. The kind of woman he admired
would probably be living in the provinces, somewhere far from him. And, in all likelihood, she wouldn't be
living amongst alien or hostile types either.
On the contrary, she would be living in accordance with the dualistic
criteria of a compromise nobility, suburban and complete. How would he relate to her, after all this
time cooped-up in the city? He wondered
whether she would be as interested in Marx and Lenin as himself. Probably not, he surmised.
