Stormy Seas

The peril of the high seas – like the occasional intemperance of the weather – cannot be overlooked. Nor can it determine the ultimate course of action in our daily lives. In short, in pursuit of our goal, we’re bound to confront the dilemma whatever it may be.

Adjusting to this personal scheme of behaviour – in spite of the bold narrative of the metaphor – is strangely not unlike what are perceived to be the more generous and perhaps unforgiving illustrations of public conduct engaged by representatives of countries on opposite sides of the globe (separated by the vast expanse of ocean and inexpressible turbulence). The seeming disparity is the same reason we shouldn’t expect more of our politicians than we do of ourselves – nor similarly (though perhaps less flatteringly) should we expect any less. This speaks to the possibility of both elevated and demeaning comportment whatever the vernacular; and, it emphasizes the necessity of proper bearing no matter the context. Being removed by fugacious distinctions is no basis for misconduct.

How then do we approach the stormy seas? Here, I am afraid, the peril of war (for example) assumes a distorted and sometimes confusing significance – not because the threat is any more real or far-reaching than any other snag in our lives but because politicians so often predict their own survival by the success of their bravado. An objective bred of braggadocio is a fateful and remorseless hint of the conclusion.

This in turn insinuates the need to address the character of those with whom one interacts. Once again the guiding principle is that we mustn’t expect more or less of them than we do of ourselves. Nor does it amount to achievement to camouflage the confrontation for selfish purposes.

I confess that my rendition of human conduct – whether on global or personal levels – is over-ruled by the theme of accommodation. Arguably this brevity is fuelled by a lifetime of manageable difficulty; that is, never having had to confront dilemma as an instance of “do or die”. On the other hand, I maintain as well that “the Universe is ultimately personal” by which I reason that behaviour of any scope is bound by an identical prescription – namely, the spiritual ethic to “do unto others as we do unto ourselves”. Naturally the balance of the situation is governed by the parallel weight of each side. And the metaphor of children in a playground on a see-saw or teeter-totter is not entirely irrelevant or indignant (shades of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies and Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels).

Golding, who was a philosophy teacher before becoming a Royal Navy lieutenant, experienced war firsthand and commanded a landing craft in the Normandy landings during D-Day in 1944. After the war ended and Golding returned to England, the world was dominated by the Cold War and the threat of nuclear annihilation, which led Golding to examine the nature of humanity and that went on to inspire Lord of the Flies.

The novel was rejected by many publishers before being accepted by Faber & Faber. An initial rejection labelled the book as “absurd… Rubbish & dull”. The draft of the book was titled Strangers from Within, which was considered “too abstract and too explicit”. Eventually Golding chose Lord of the Flies as the title. The title is a literal translation of Beelzebub, a biblical demon considered the god of pride and warfare.

The doubtful utility of war can never be overcome. It is however expedient to recall that the authority for war isn’t simply the “approval of Congress” or the approbation of any other parliamentary or authoritarian regulator; instead it is the will of the people – the very ones whose lives are at risk. It is a useful summary to note that popular dissent or consent will write the ticket in the end.

Accordingly we cannot underestimate the value of our personal input in unfolding drama of any extent. It is – disappointingly – a fiction (the “declaration of war”) to which humanity has not in two thousand years adapted in spite of the enviable talent of having flown to the moon and back. Bearing in mind the strength of the initial premise – basically, that we’re all the same and we’re all in this together – it is astonishing that privilege and greed have managed to subdue the advancement of any intellectual refinement. Nor am I prepared to relinquish my affection for accommodation by contrasting it with centuries of the misery of war. Granted the exigencies of cooperation can tax the realm of the enterprise; but, nothing in my opinion merits the deliberate ruin of death and destruction. So often we forget the plain truth and reality that soldiers of any breed are but boys on the identical playing field, boys who haven’t anything but the mystification of differences and the diminution of controversy to propel their fortitude. The problem is the rulers not the ruled. And, in spite of the arguments to the contrary, I will not accept that humans haven’t the capacity to help one another survive on this shimmering plateau in a black universe.