Counterpoint.
The victim playing his role against the poems of Bertolt Brecht (and losing).
I am going to talk egocentrically about victims, you are going to read it. I have you beaten already. That is how the world is manipulated.
1)
Canalising a river
Grafting a fruit tree
Educating a person
Transforming a state
These are instances of fruitful criticism
And at the same time
Instances of art.
Learning has become the hallmark of the human being. That is not to deny the ability of other species to learn, but the production of trained
pigeons that perform quality control functions on Japanese production lines does seem to be, at our present state of understanding,
an evolutionary cul-de-sac for the species.
The ability to learn has become the mechanism by which humanity has come to dominate the planet.
The pressure constantly pushing us towards domination is our aggressiveness, which as a primarily social species we redirect as competitiveness.
It is barely worth mentioning that the combination of these two aspects of humanity produce a competative society where the basic
currency of status and position are informaton and the ability to process information, so often grouped erroneously together
under the banner of education.
2)
In Los Angeles, before the judge who examines people
Trying to become citizens of the United States
Came an Italian restaurant keeper. After grave preparations
Hindered, though, by his ignorance of the new language
In the test he replied to the question:
What is the 8th Amendment? falteringly:
1492. Since the law demmands that applicants know the language
He was refused. Returning
After three months spent on further studies
Yet hindered still by ignorance of the new language
He was confronted this time with the question: Who was
The victorious general in the Civil War? His answer was:
1492. (Given amiably, in a loud voice). Sent away again
And returning a third time, he answered
A third question: For how long a term are our Presidents elected?
Once more with: 1492. Now
The judge, who liked the man, realised that he could not
Learn the new language, asked him
How he earned his living and was told: by hard work. And so
At his fourth appearance the judge gave him the question:
When
Was America discovered? And on the strength of his correctly answering
1492, he was granted his citizenship.
Over the last few thousand years it is hardly surprising that a number of distinct styles of interaction have developed between individuals.
The competative pressure to be dominant within a hierarchy allied to the ability to learn and remember the implications of past actions
has allowed a highly complex set of behaviour patterns to emerge as a result of the exploration of all avenues of behaviour.
Most of the really effective attitudes were discovered during past millennia, and remain to this day. The major advantages of subservient behaviour
were well documented by Chinese writers from the dawn of their recorded civilisation four thousand years ago (or so).
The same attitudes can be found in any social, educational, political or economic institution to this day.
3)
Ranged in the well tried system of my relationships
(An elastic network) I have long avoided
New encounters. Keenly concerned not to test
My friends by imposing on them
And not to allot specific
Functions to them
I restrict myself to the possible
So long as I keep from falling
I shall not expect the impossible to be provided
So long as I do not grow weak
I shall not encounter weakness.
But the new people may
Be appreciated by others.
In an aggressive society it is inevitable that there will be victors and vanquished at every turn, and because nobody yet appears to be
universally victorious we all have to face 'defeat' in one form or another in our daily lives.
It is a reality that runs against our nature, and the process of being a victim is one of the most complex and misleading aspects of day to day life.
There are a number of ways in which victor and victim seek to conceal the nature of their respective positions.
The rules of these distortions are complex, and if they are recognised at all are called 'etiquette' or one of the other euphemistic
terms for controlled self-interest.
4)
I am an old woman
When Germany had awoken
Pension rates were cut. My children
Gave me the pennies they could spare. But
I could hardly buy anything now. So at first
I went less often to the shops where I'd gone daily.
But one day I thought it over, and then
Daily once more I went to the bakers, the greengrocers
As an old customer
With care I picked my provisions
Took no more than I used to, but no less either
Put rolls beside the loaf and leeks beside the cabbage and only
When they added up the bill did I sigh
With my stiff fingers dig into my little purse
And shaking my head confessed that I didn't have enough
To pay for those few things, and shaking my head I
Left the shop, observed by all the customers.
I said to myself:
If all of us who have nothing
No longer turn up where food is laid out
They may think we don't need anything
But if we come and are unable to buy
They'll know how it is.
The victor finds himself caught between a rock and a hard place in winning. He is pushed by the need to succeed, but having done so he finds himself
isolated from his society by that very success.
Literature and history abound with people bemoaning the loneliness of leadership. There is a social pressure therefore, exerted from within
the individual, to reduce the apparent magnitude of any victory, while remining confident of the security of the victorious position.
It is easy and beneficial for the victor to be magnanimous about the vanquished, as long as they are thoroughly vanquished.
5)
On my wall hangs a Japanese carving
The mask of an evil demon, decorated with gold lacquer
Sympathetically I observe
The swollen veins of the forehead, indicating
What a strain it is to be evil.
The victim finds himself facing the prospect of defeat, and will accept any olive branch offered, and use any sleight of hand available
to reduce the apparent relevance of defeat.
The anticipated magnanimity of the victor is one of the spoils due to the victim.
6)
When the mighty bandits came
I opened the doorway wide
And I heard them call my name
And I stepped outside
No demand had yet been stated
When I fetched the keys
So no crimes were perpetrated
Just discoveries.
Thus we are left with a highly sophisticated system of interactions where the role of the victim and victor are not easily distinguished.
It is in the interests of both parties to minimise the apparent distinction, and a degree of confusion between the roles is inevitable.
At times it is only the protagonists themselves who can be sure which of them occupies which position at the end of an encounter,
and they will rarely be prepared to reveal that to an observer.
Society has progressed to the state where the victor rarely wins openly, and the victim even more rarely stands up to proclaim his position honestly.
7)
The peasant's concern is with his field
He looks after his cattle, pays his taxes
Produces children, to save on labourers, and
Depends on the price of milk.
The townspeople speak of love for the soil
Of healthy peasant stock and
Call peasants the backbone of the nation.
The townspeople speak of love for the soil
Of healthy peasant stock and
Call peasants the backbone of the nation.
The peasant's concern is with his field
He looks after his cattle, pays his taxes
Produces children, to save on labourers, and
Depends on the price of milk.
Even in simple confrontations such as elections, the victim is unlikely to avoid a speach of mitigation, and the victor will invariably offer some conciliatory
statement. It is dressed as etiquette but actually serves each parties self interest. It is possible only because a vote gives an unequivocal
measure of success. There is no uncertainty in numbers, only in statistics.
8)
When the regime commanded that books with harmful knowledge
Should be publicly burned and on all sides
Oxen were forced to drag cartloads of books
To the bonfires, a banished
Writer, one of the best, scanning the list of the
Burned, was shocked to find that his
Books had been passed over. He rushed to his desk
On wings of wrath, and wrote a letter to those in power
Burn me! he wrote with flying pen, burn me! Haven't my books
Always reported the truth? And here you are
Treating me like a liar! I command you:
Burn me!
There are two major groups of victims, or more accurately, two major ways in which an individual takes on the role of victim.
The first of those situations is brought about by circumstances beyond the control of the individual concerned.
Nobody chooses to starve, drown or be killed in any other natural and relatively unpredicatable disaster.
Equally nobody chooses to be beheaded by a despotic ruler exercising authority.
That is however a careless abuse of position by the ruler, leading in the logical extreme to a shortage of victims to lord over,
a carelessness that is occurring less and less in modern times as its drawbacks are learnt.
Recent reversionsto this form of behaviour, such as that in Uganda and more recently Cambodia, have persisted for a relatively short period.
9)
Is oppression as old as the moss around ponds?
The moss around ponds is not avoidable.
Perhaps everything I see is natural, and I am sick and want to
remove what cannot be removed?
I have read songs of the Egyptians, of their men who built
The pyramids. They complained of their loads and asked when
oppression would cease. That's four thousand years ago.
Oppression, it would seem, is like the moss and unavoidable.
This could be called the real victim, oppression by circumstances beyond human control.
There is a clear and openly expressed oppressive force, there is no guilt or responsibility laid at the feet of the victim, and in the modern world
relief is supplied freely and more or less without obligation.
If there is any 'victim-choice' expressed it is likely to be the choice of not being the victim of apparently impossible circumstances.
10)
Last Moday she got up about eleven
They never thought she'd make it on her own
She took her fever as a sign from heaven
For months she'd been no more than skin and bone.
For two whole days she'd vomitted saliva
And looked as white as snow when she got up
Weeks back the priest had aclled to annoint and shrive her
Coffee, it seemed, was all she cared to sup.
Once more, though, she'd evaded death's caresses
The final rites had been mistimed a bit
She loved the walnut chest that held her dresses
And could not bring herself to part with it.
Old furniture is often worm infested
But still it's part of you. And so to speak
She would have missed it. Well, may God protect it.
She made twelve pots of blackberry jam last week.
What's more, she's now made sure her teeth are working.
You eat much better if your teeth are right.
You wear them in the morning when out walking
And keep them in old coffee cups at night.
Her children have remembered her existence
She's heard from them, and God will guard them. Yes
She'll last the winter out with God's assistance
Nor is there much wrong with her old black dress.
The commoner form of modern victim is a very different role. In some ways even the use of the word victim is a misnomer, but the humans ability
to create new language lags behind his ability to create new forms of interaction. For the moment we will all have to make do with
a misleading word. The modern victim has explored the opportunities ofthis role fully, and uses it as another weapon in the social arsenal.
It is a choice we all make at some point. It could be argued that it is the foundation on which the professional entertainer builds a career.
By taking on clear roles a 'jester' within a group a comic builds social acceptance within that group by taking on a subordinate position.
The funniest and most loved comedians are those we laugh at, not with. The skilled wit and dextrous turn of phrase are usually acts
of social aggression and invite isolation rather than acceptance. I have watched
an eight year old fit himself into an accepted position in a group through this sort of jesting, and have no doubt it happens at an earlier age
, as soon as group interaction starts.
It is a very skilled use of the role of victim, and the benefits must be large and immediate for itsw use to be learned so rapidly.
11)
I told him to move out
He'd been living in this room for seven weeks
And he wouldn't move out.
He laughed and though
I didn't mean it.
When he came back the same night
His bags were downstairs. That
Shook him.
The least skilled of the people who choose to be victims are those that allow that choice to be seen.
They oppress themselves with their insecurity. It is an attempt to gain a firm social position by inviting sympathy.
It is a role that is often successful in the short term, but in the longer term people see through the act, and cease to fill the needs of that individual,
or at least cease to be prepared to be exploited so blatantly.
In the end, like a violent dictatorship, the role contains the essence of its own destruction.
The immediate sympathy produced is short lived and destroys any chance of a stable social position, requiring a constant supply of
new individuals to provide the social support wanted.
12)
Killing oneself
Is a slight affair
You can chat about it with the washerwoman.
Elucidate the pros and cons with a friend.
A certain sense of tragedy, however attractive
Is to be avoided.
Though there is no need to make a dogma about that.
But there is more to be said, I think
For the usual slight deception:
You're fed up with changing your linen or, better still
Your wife has been unfaithful
(This is a draw with people who get surprised by such things
And is not too high-flown.)
Anyway
It should not seem
As if one had put
Too high a value on oneself.
The most skilled of these role choices should not really be termed a victim position. The choice is made to be the apparent victim of a situation,
but this choice gives enormous control over the situation, and is really a dominant victorious position.
It is one of the manifestations of the confusion that exists in the complexity of modern interactions.
If the role is played skillfully it comes as close to being a no-lose position as is yet possible.
If I choose to be the victim, and you allow it, you have put me in the position of victor.
Heads I win, tails you lose.
The skill involved is in manipulating confrontations onto ground where you are prepared to accept either available outcome, the choice of
battleground no longer simply improves the chance of success, it now allows automatic success if the game is played with care.
The disadvantage of the choice of the role of victim is that it requires constant attention to prevent a choice becoming an inevitability.
13)
My one requirement: that you stay with me.
I want to hear you, grumble as you may.
If you were deaf I'd need what you might say
If you were dumb I'd need what you might see.
If you were blind, I'd want you in my sight
For you're the sentry posted to my side:
We're hardly half way through our lengthy ride
Remember we're surrounded yet by night.
Your 'let me lick my wounds' is no excuse now.
Your 'anywhere' (not here) is no defense
There'll be relief for you, but no release now.
You know whoever's needed can't go free
And you are needed urgently by me
I speak of me when us would make more sense.
Some of the simplest of victim choices are seen in our behaviour making purchases.
Money has become an abstract concept in the process of exchange, and has taken on emotional importance over and above its simple role as
however many cabbage-equivalents it may be. It is hardly surprising that in the negotiations over exchanging it, the most recent
ways of behaving are brought to bear.
14)
Sit down!
Are you seated?
You can lean right back
You are to sit comfortably and at ease.
You may smoke.
It's important that you should hear me quite distinctly.
Can you hear me distinctly?
I have something to tell you which you will find of interest.
The door-to-door salesman will take up a subordinate position at the door, will attempt to get into the house in some cases to take on the role of
subordinate guest or supplicant. Stories of wives encircled by flocks of crying terminally ill children have abounded.
Lately this has been too blatant, and victim status is manoevred more gently. It is an attempt to assure the householder of his victorious position
and then capitalize on the inevitable magnanimity, preferably expressed in money rather than BUPA tokens.
15)
You are a flathead.
Can you really hear me?
I do hope there's no question of you not hearing me loud and clear?
Well:
I repeat: you are a flathead.
A flathead.
F as in freddie, L as in Louis, A as in Annie, T as in Tommy.
Head as in head.
Flathead.
Among sales assistants in shops, the motto has always been 'the customer is always right', a clear adoption of an inferior position, when anybody who
has worked in a shop will tell you, a better comment would be 'the customer is always stupid', yet it works.
The success of the former reinforcing the truth of the latter.
16)
Please do not interrupt me.
Don't interrupt me!
Youare a flathead.
Don't say anything. No excuses!
You are a flathead.
Period.
In supermarkets the customer is manipulated into a feeling of security and dominance by the lack of any personal encounter with staff.
We all assume our own superiority over our environment if that is not questioned. The legendary surliness of supermarket staff
must in part be due to the damage their presence does to our self image.
Checkout staff are seated well below the customer as unthreateningly as possible, with the almost inevitable result that we overspend.
At which point the value of the victim position as a defence becomes clear. Aggression at overspending is rarely directed at the checkout
assistant, who would otherwise be the most obvious target.
17)
I'm not the only one who says so.
Your respected mother has been saying it all along.
You are a flathead.
Just ask your relations
If you're not a F.
Of course no one tells you
Because you'd get vindictive, like any flathead.
But
Everyone round you has known for years you're an F.
In bargaining, there is always a reluctance in the first instance to set a price. If the first statement is too assertive it becomes difficult to play
the hard done by role as the negotiation progresses.
18)
It's characteristic that you should deny it
That's just the point; It's characteristically F to deny it.
Oh, it's terribly hard to get a flathead to get a flathead to admit he's an F.
It's really exhausting.
look, sooner or later it's got to be said
That you're an F.
It isn't entirely uninteresting to know what you are.
After all, it's a drawback not knowing what everyone knows.
Oh, you think you see things just like the other chap
But he's a flathead too.
Please don't comfort yourself that there are other Fs.
You are an F.
In coming away from an encounter, the vendor is trying to convince the purchasor that they have been the victor, so that the process is
likely to be repeated and to forestall any later complaint or change of mind. The vendors choice of the role of victim is a defensive one
that disarms the customer. The purchsor is attempting to take the role of victim in order to prevent this imposition of social impotence.
19)
It's not too terrible
It won't stop you living to eighty.
In business it's a positive advantage.
And as for politics!
Invaluable!
As an F you have nothing to worry about
And you are an .
(That's pleasant isn't it?)
You still don't get it?
Well, who else do you want to tell you?
Brecht too says you're an F.
Come on Brecht, give him your professional opinion.
The man's an F.
Well, then.
(This record needs to be played more than once.)
Society is constantly producing ever more successful policies for behaviour, which are slowly catching up with the advice of philosophers
and religeous theorists. The process has to be a slow evolution of a consensus in patterns of behaviour. There is not much point in chosing
to be a victim if you are beheaded in the process. Religeous theorists know well the perils of behaviour in advance of their societies norms.
If you are playing a sophisticated game, you have to be sure you are playing it in sophisticated company.
20)
When the man from Macedaemon
Had cut through the knot
With his sword, they called him
Of an evening in Gordium, 'the slave of
His fame'.
For their knot was
One of the rare wonders of the world
Masterpiece of a man whose brain
(The most intricate in the world) had been able to leave
No memorial behind except these
Twenty cords, intricately twisted together so that they should
One day be undone by the deftest
Hands in the world - the deftest apart from his
Who tied the knot. Oh, the man
Whose hand tied the know was not
Without plans to undo it, but alas
The span of his life was only long enough
For one thing, the tying.
A second sufficed
To cut it.
Of him who cut it
Many said this was really
The luckiest stroke of his life
The cheapest, and did the least damage.
That unknown man was under no obligation
To answer with his name
For his work, which was akin
To everything godlike
But the chump who destroyed it
Was obliged as though bt a higher command
To proclaim his name and show himself to be a continent.
If that's what they said in Gordium, I say
That not everything which is difficult is useful
And an answer less often suffices to rid the world of a question
Than a deed.
Having talked egocentrically, you have read it. I have beaten you.
Now you have to turn me into a victim. That is either my fate of my choice. Society operates on aggressive priciples.
21)
The soldier keeps this in mind
And tries to take it to heart:
When the difficulty
Of the mountains is once behind
That's when you'll see
The difficulty of the plains will start.
References:
All poetry quoted from 'Poems 1913 - 1956', Bertolt Brecht. (Methuen).
1. from 'On the critical attitude'; Four Theatre Poems.
2. 'The democratic judge'; American Poems 1941 - 1947.
3. 'Ranged in the well tried system'; Later Svendborg Poems and Satires 1936 - 1938.
4. 'The Shopper'; The First Years of Exile 1934 - 1936.
5. 'The Mask of Evil'; American Poems 1941 - 1947.
6. 'When the Mighty Bandits Came'; The First Years of Exile 1934 - 1936.
7. 'The Peasants Concern is with his Field'; Poems of the Crisis Years 1929 - 1933.
8. 'The Burning of the Books' ; German Satires.
9. from 'The Worlds One Hope'; The Darkest Times 1938 - 1941.
10. 'Ballad of the Old Woman'; The Later Devotions and the First City Poems 1920 - 1925.
11. number 8 of 'Poems belonging to a Reader for Those who live in Cities'.
12. 'Epistle on Suicide'; Five Epistles.
13. 'Sonnet No.19'; The Darkest Times 1938 - 1941.
14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19. No.7 of 'Poems belonging to a Reader for Those who live in Cities'.
20. 'The Gordian Knot'; The Impact of the Cities 1925 - 1928.
21. from 'Standing order for the soldier M.S.'; Five songs of the soldier of the revolution.