February 17th, 2006
So, um, how does one show character?
I mean real character, not just some dramatised sound-byte that ends once the camera is off.
You know, it's easy to be a one-dimensional catch-phrase in life. And if you catch the spirit of the times, you can even become hugely (though temporarily) famous. I mean, it's not quite true that everyone has his/her 15 minutes of fame, but if you are in the right place at the right time, you can have yours. Sometimes it's 30 minutes, and you are set for life ... provided you don't mind spending the next 2/3rds of your life as a pathetic has-been trying to relive the brief flash-in-the-pan glory of your narrow shallow youth, spent like gunpowder. But I'm getting off the mark here.
I was talking about showing character. And I suppose we show character (if indeed we have any) when we can least afford to. It is so easy to stand on the top of the hill and be generous in minor ways, but if you want to see what makes a person tick, watch them when they are down ... when they are losing the race ... when they've come up short after trying their best. Then the time for them to show character has come.
By the way, if we're not a boon to society when we are at the top of our game, then we show even less character than those who only turn nasty when the chips are down.
And I'm not so sure that there really is anything called "character" anyhow. You know the lyrics to "Under Pressure"? They do NOT say, "This is our last chance/This is our last chance". No sirree, Bob. They say, "This is our last dance/This is our last dance". It over, dude. We lose.
About the only thing I can think is that the more a person is concerned with how he/she looks to others (including immediate friends and family—the tribe) the more likely it is for that person to put on a good show of character. But it is all an act. There is no such thing as altruism, just protection of oneself, one's children, and the extended family of one's tribe. All else is pretense.
And the real jerks of the world don't even bother with the pretense, since they see no value in the fringe benefits of having a culture where you have some protections set up and some attempts, however half-assed and wrong-reasoned, at building safety for some. Of course, even the pretense is still along the lines of, "those who have, get" but at least there is some kind of attempt. Lose that pretense ... lose the ability to see the value in ignoring our complete lack of character and altruism ... and we're back to pure barbarians.
You see, the only thing that separates us from the completely unprinciped animal barbarian hordes is that we pretend, from time to time, to have some character. And everything we think of as culture and society is squeezed into that envelope of falsehood.
All we are worth is the lie we believe about our value.
It's meta-worth.
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