Homo Fickilus

In Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino says: ‘…it is pointless trying to define whether Zenobia is to be classified among happy cities or among the unhappy. It makes no sense to divide cities into these two species, but rather into another two: those that through the years and the changes continue to give their form to desires, and, those in which desires either erase the city or are erased by it.’ … I find it stifling living in this place, I really do. Take the other day, for instance. A neighbour stops me in the street. ‘We have a nice little COMMUNITY around here’, she says. Which was a lie for a start. ‘…and we don’t want people like you spoiling it!’ What had I done to encourage this verbal assault? Well, nothing much, as far as I’m concerned. Okay, it was a bit naughty, but not actually illegal! Anyway, my point is, why can’t people just leave other people alone, to have fun any way they want to? Or perhaps that word ‘fun’ makes you a bit nervous? So let’s say, find their own pleasures. More nervous now, huh? Okay, okay, I’ll go with happiness. But if we were being strict about it, I’d say happiness needs some underlying purpose behind it, and some long-term strategy. And joy? That, to me, suggests some long-lasting, almost spiritual place, beyond any circumstances the world might throw at us. The thing about fun and pleasure is that they’re in the moment and they don’t have to have any meaning. So why should anyone want to stop that? It’s how children see the world, and animals. The whole thing about it is that we’ve grown tired of having rules and values – especially the kinds of rules and values that other people want to bash us over the head with! A bit like my snotty neighbour. Make a rule and humans want to break it! Fickle! We should really be called Homo Fickilus. So once there was religion, trying to keep everyone in line. And then along came the Enlightenment. But of course, whilst rejecting rules from the past, it had its own rules. And then came Modernism. Same again. New rules. What was next? Post-modernism? The idea that there are no grand narratives. So you’d think that at least we’d broken free of rules. But, in a way, no. Post-modernism still took itself very seriously, with its ‘deconstruction’. Utopian stories that are really dystopian – dystopias that are longing for a utopia. Fickle, fickle. Fickle! Now where are we at? Post-post-modernism? Fickle to the power of five? I suppose we finally got wise to the idea that there’s always an inherent contradiction in whatever theory you try to promote – be it philosophical, scientific, political, or whatever. Even if I were to say, the whole point of my life is just to have fun, then this is a kind of a contradiction, because I’ve sort of given myself a point, even whilst denying that there’s really any point. A good example is anarchy. Anarchists are very well organised! So, you see the contradiction there straight away! Could there ever be an anarchist revolution though? The problem is that then they really would have to live the inherent contradiction of the need for massive amounts of organisation on the one hand, and disruption, chaos, fun, freedom and independence on the other. Could they ever do it? I don’t know. But I’m wondering what current governments should do, given that people are feeling restless about a whole bunch of stuff. What do they do about protests, say around the G20 talks, or the UN climate talks? Perhaps, instead of trying to keep protest out, they should just invite it in? Sit down with everyone and have a good sensible chat, plus plenty of great food and drink for everyone – not just for the big shots. But, us being fickle and all that, this would probably lead to protest about something else! Maybe the point of it is that there is opposition. Maybe the government should play a wiser game and continue with their policing, but do it in a playful way, so we keep the opposition going (the contradiction) but yet we all know that it’s just a game? The weird thing I’ve noticed recently – the thing that’s really puzzling – is that the more people try to have fun, the more bland the rest of the world seems to get. So, everyday clothes have become boring uniforms, and cities have become boring expanses of office blocks and houses that all look the same. But meanwhile there are festivals and carnivals, processions and parties – with people in fancy dress and wild, colourful fashions. You could ask, should architects and planners and the government get their heads together to build more exciting and fun buildings and cities – to match the way people REALLY are, when we’re enjoying ourselves? But then, in the spirit of contradiction, maybe we need all the bland and boring buildings as a background to all the exciting stuff. So maybe a very straight and formal city is the way to go, so all the colour and vibrancy and bedlam resides with the people and what we create in those formal spaces. Maybe it just works better that way. So the more depressing, ugly and boring our cities become (or the more logical, clean and organised) the more the bars, clubs, carnivals, festivals, processions and protests will shine! Which kind of takes me back to that whole thing with the neighbour – and that comment about community. Because, well, I live alone, and more and more people are doing the same. I don’t talk much to my neighbours and they don’t seem to talk much to each other. So that’s why I said there isn’t really community there at all. Community’s no longer about place, it’s about networking with friends – and all that stuff happens online. Then, occasionally, there could be a meet-up, for some event that sparks your interest. But, let’s face it, that could happen anywhere. In fact, if the venues keep changing, that probably helps to keep people’s interest. And well, if you lose interest in something – lose interest in one of these online communities – then you just drop it. Likely as not, no-one will mind. No-one will miss you much because there’s always new folk coming along, and you yourself can just go looking for the next new thing you want to do. So community’s not in a place and community’s not about longevity, commitment, loyalty or solidarity any more. I wonder though about friends and family. If we applied the same mindset to them, this might not be so good. But then, we’re forgetting contradiction! The more society becomes fractured into interest groups with people flitting in and out, the more the delusion of a settled community takes hold! And, arguably, the greater we relish the contrast with our long-term friendships and stable families. So we have fantasy villages where people can live out this myth of community – eco-villages on the one hand and gated communities on the other. Meanwhile, we who embrace the solitary life have our own new styles of living – boutique apartments and the pied-à-terre. You wouldn’t even THINK of calling your neighbour a neighbour in such a set-up! The solitary life is a very close-knit community, but we wouldn’t want to visit each other! Where does all this leave our towns and cities then? Perhaps we needn’t worry, because if these trends I’ve been describing (of interest groups springing up and occupying temporary venues, plus the gated communities and boutique apartments) – if these trends are really the future, then eventually the city will transform itself to reflect this new way of being in the world. The city is always a reflection of ourselves. I thought for a while, this would be a half measure, that the whole city needed to transform itself into one giant carnival before we could really feel that life had been re-enchanted. But maybe it’s not like that. Maybe, like anarchy, re-enchantment has to be contradictory and subversive. Either way, we have an ally in nature, where playfulness always seems to be on the agenda. When we talk about government, cities and communities, then there are always the big questions of climate change, pollution and failing eco-systems lurking in the background. Looking at all the ways people seek pleasure nowadays, it’s easy to think it’s just hedonism. But it’s more than that. People’s whole way of being in the world is shifting. It’s shifting towards being about emotion, spontaneity, joy and experience, and away from having fixed ideals, rules or philosophies. Will this help solve the big problems? I think it might, because I think the new mindset that’s emerging is just the sort of strange, contradictory and subversive mindset that might serve us well in the future. We won’t solve our problems with new laws, or new economies or technologies. People need to change first – and we are changing. If nature’s starting to act weird, then we’ll go weird in turn and win back her friendship. That’s who we are – Homo Fickilus!