It is, as they say, a savage irony that in making such a fundamental contribution to opening my experience to ultimate joy, love, when you were taken away too soon on this day in 1966, leaving we five bereft of your comforting presence in our similar yet different ways, I was ill-prepared for life’s greatest tragedy, living with a broken heart.
Another freezing, solitary covid morning. It was about now, 16 years ago, that you could fight no more. A different type of morning, freezing yes, but I was with you and no pandemic. We had spoken our bedtime words as always last night, our last conversation, a conversation that spoke of your pain and no ‘sweet dreams’. Not long afterwards a phone-call got me driving to your hospital bedside in my sky-blue racing car. I rubbed your cold feet and sang quietly in your ear, our bedtime songs, songs you sang to me as your boy, to make me feel safe. I sing them now, but quietly to myself, as if. You’re safe now.
You died at 44 – it is difficult to see any fairness or justice in that. Now, 54 years later, I look around and hear people talking loudly and passionately about fairness and justice, but see little evidence for such commitment. Who are these people so fervently debating issues of fairness and justice? They are idealists, pedlars in linguistic sleight of hand such as monarchs, presidents, politicians, employers and others with influence, who pay priests, philosophers and mathematicians to concoct and supply fallacious notions of which fairness and justice are but two. Why is this so important to them? Ideals have at least two functions. Firstly, they offer certainty and a comforting capacity for control over our fears and anxieties, equipping us to feel safe and able to sleep at night, immunized from a world that is cold, brutal and unconcerned. Secondly, ideals can be associated with more insidious goings on, by enticing us, under banners proclaiming justice, freedom etc., to put aside our feelings of empathy and compassion, to authenticate and sanction terrible acts of violence against those with whom we disagree: killing people who are unquestionably wrong is easier to justify.
Experience tells me that there are in fact no certainties, no truths, just contingencies; mundane, day to day involvements that are always comparatively uncertain. Nevertheless, these ordinary little experiences, these momentary happenings can make an unpredictable, insecure living feel worthwhile. One of these is joy. Once when I was a boy, I watched Dad dance to an Artie Shaw recording of Begin the Beguine and shared his joy in music. Tragically, in his dying, he also introduced me to another, more difficult form of joy. This is a joy that comes from having engaged with, and seen off feelings of grievous loss and self-pity, without resort to idealistic comforts. I have learned to live unhappily and still feel joy. It has been a long, lonely, sleep deprived journey, since those days of his dying, that at times has tested me sorely. Would I live through it all again? – yes, I would, because it has made me, me. Crippled though I am, I am still prepared to be joyfully empathetic and compassionate, and still willing to engage deceivers. Part of that joy finds me contemptuous of ideals such as fairness, justice, equality, freedom etc., and those who profit from them.
Mam, thank you for that rare, sacred, precious gift of love you gave me. Love is giving and you gave and gave and gave so that I can love too. I have lived without you now for 15 years, but your love never dies; it lives here within me, warming me, nourishing me, driving me, guiding me, comforting me, strengthening me. It sustained you through all those woundings that lovers’ suffer, just as it sustains me. You were truly a remarkable woman.
For three years or so I have been going through what has often been, and in some respects still is, a painful and distressing reconfiguring of my habitus, in order to put my teenage traumas and 55 years of fatigue and self-sabotaging to bed. My aim is to flourish as I did when a child.
As part of this process I have needed to test my relationships past and present to see who I can trust, to see who loves me and cares for me. By opening yourself up in all your vulnerability, you expose people for what they are and find those who are worthy. One wonderful example is my father. I lost him both physically and emotionally this day in 1966 when he died – why did he leave me so broken and unprepared? Through my re-evaluation I have found him again in all his joy, love and warmth. An essential aspect of my habitus has been restored.
52 years ago today we spent our first morning without the person who kept us safe. Living had changed inexorably – Dad was dead.
What becomes of those who are broken hearted? If they can’t find joy in taking care of themselves then probably a long slow dying.
Glossary of terms.
Thact: I-orientated; homo clausus; homines aperti. Thact is a new verb that I use in an attempt to dissolve an artificial division between ‘thought’ and ‘action’ that has developed in relation to formal analyses such as those carried out by philosophers and their allies who operate with an I-oriented approach, as per Descartes, which favours development of notions such as mind as separate and above body – ‘I think therefore I am’. Norbert Elias suggested we call this image of people – ‘homo clausus’ or closed person. Sociologists would benefit from seeing themselves as always connected, ‘open people’ (Elias, 1978) or ‘homines aperti’.
Habitus: intuitive and experiogenetic. Habitus is a concept I learned from Norbert Elias who wanted to dispense with damaging notions such as personality that mislead us by giving precedence to genetic/biological influences above those of experience/learning, a way of thacting typical of homo clausus. He makes a crucial point that we are less dominated by our biology than any other life-form – we have a remarkable capacity for learning and controlling our biological predispositions. I often hear people describe their thacting as instinctive. This is, I would argue, a misnomer. In fact we are overwhelmingly creatures of intuition rather than instinct: at this moment I can only offer up my reflexes as evidence of significant instinctive thacting, which, as far as we know, require only spinal cord involvement with little involvement of our brains. However, even reflexes develop interdependently with experience as disease processes show. In other words we develop a habitus rather than are given a personality defined at conception.
Unlike so many sociologists Elias does not discount biological processes altogether. In positing habitus he wanted to emphasize developmental interdependencies between genetic and sensory/experiential processes. From this perspective our habituses never stop changing as long as we are alive. I like to think that our genes predispose us to make cerebral connections with experiences to form our habitus. This approach allows us to dissolve another artificial separation typical of homo clausus between genetics and experience, often described in terms of nature-nurture or more generally as rational-empirical. Correspondingly, our personalities are natural and rational. In contrast our habitus is neither genetic nor experiential, rational nor empirical, it is experiogenetic. Everything we are is an interdependent process of development involving genes and experience which privileges neither. Our habitus is like a compound that develops in our brain structured by a series of processes which involve interdependent correspondences between our genetic structures/predispositions and our experience/learning. So much of our experience is mediated by our contact with others, language use being a very influential component making our habitus overwhelmingly figurational. Processes of genetic and sensory experience cannot be separated as they presuppose each other – they interdepend. Everything about us is experiogenetic; intuitive rather than instinctive.
Figuration/figurational. Norbert Elias wanted to develop properly sociological language to facilitate understanding of sociological processes. Figuration is a very important example. Figuration is a process concept that as far as I can see is meant to reorient sociological perceptions and understanding by making them more connected with realities. Interdependently, in doing this we develop a more reality congruent habitus and become homines aperti rather than homo clausus. Correspondingly we are facilitated to explore connectedness and processes rather than statics. Homo clausus conceives sociological evidence as closed, discrete units such as family, class, tribe and society, which give a misguided impression that sociological evidence is somehow thing-like, static and separate from us who study it, which it never is. Homines aperti see connectedness through figurations which are transitory ‘webs if interdependence’ (Elias, 1978) that we are always caught up in. From this perspective ‘social’ is replaced by ‘figurational’.
Influence. As someone schooled in physical engineering I associate power with discrete machines, whether car engines or nuclear power stations. Physical engineers can investigate and calculate how powerful such machines are very successfully using a causal analysis of work done over a period of time: a 10 watt light bulb being half as powerful as another of 20 watts. We can use a similar approach to estimate human bodily power. However, human figurations are bound together by much more intangible yet strong forces as webs/networks of interdependencies: human figurations are not discrete, material ‘things’ physically screwed or bolted together that can be analysed causally. Correspondingly, from my perspective ‘power’ is an insufficiently reality congruent concept that reifies figurational processes allowing inadequate engagement with figurational processes. Accordingly, it needs replacing. To start with we might use ‘influence’.
Figurations are comprised of people whose bodies have physical ‘power’ which needs translating sociologically as ‘influence’. Punching someone is a very manifest, violent thact that can be analysed causally in terms of physical power: a physical engineer might look for a well-known cause of violence such as excessive alcohol use. However, this would only be a partial explanation as there are many significant sociological/figurational forces that interdepend with alcohol use that cannot be isolated in a causal chain: not all intoxicated people react violently. Habitus factors as self-control, shame, fear, self-esteem, need for vengeance, training linked with figurational pressures such as onlookers, ethnic acceptance of violence etc., may well have come together to trigger this violent thact but didn’t cause it. By assessing figurational processes using influence we get a more realistic, accurate picture of all those interdependencies involved in a violent thact. I am not saying that using ‘influence’ solves our difficulties with ‘power’. However, I do believe that ‘influence’ is a step in a more realistic direction that encourages us to abandon ‘power’ as a notion that causally over-simplifies our sociological perceptions. ‘Influence’ grounds us in complexity and interdependencies.
Theometaphysician: a priest, philosopher or pure mathematician whose job it is to establish absolute truths.
Engineering. I want to replace ‘science’ with ‘engineering’. Science is a theometaphysical, over-idealized, systemic, thing-like notion that is designed to promote a belief that mundane physical realities are governed by absolute truths. These absolute truths are in fact made by people to control those anxieties and fears that interdepend with our comparatively uncertain everyday experiences. As a more appropriate notion, ‘engineer’ rather than ‘scientist’ engages much more directly and effectively with our mundane experiences allowing us to get to grips with real problems. Engineers are grounded in comparatively uncertain mundanities rather than high flown pure mathematical fantasies. Physical scientists and pure mathematicians want to explore Mars, physical engineers want to build more efficient batteries. Social scientists want to understand inequality, domination, class etc., all things that reify figurational mundanities. Figurational engineers want to tackle abuse of influence; especially violent thacts, comparative differences in life expectation, health, wealth etc. Science is a philosophical project, a search for absolute truth guided by pure mathematical standards as Karl Popper showed in The Logic of Scientific Discovery. Engineers use mathematical tools to sort out real problems by developing technology that works within agreed tolerances, + or – a millimetre: absolute accuracy is not obtainable. I want to suggest that we sociologize science by renaming it engineering. Engineering is more verbal and hands-on, thereby more processual suggestive of what we do in tackling real material problems, rather than ideal nonsenses. Sociologists are figurational engineers.
Theometaphysician: a person whose job is to construct absolute truths using theological, metaphysical and/or mathematical techniques. Often involves all three but can rely on just one.
A-t heuristic: a derivation of Tversky & Kahneman’s well tried concept. In one instance they used it to explain how we make judgements based on previous experiences which are always biased. I want to suggest that our habitus is in part structured by ‘heuristics’ as taken for granted packages of learning that help us engage with and interpret our mundane experiences. There is a similarity between heuristic and Piaget’s concept of ‘schema’. I want to suggest that some heuristics have more numerous and significant connections are more influential and take precedence over others. These heuristics ground our feelings of fear and anxiety facilitating us to take control of our comparatively uncertain mundane experiences, especially when we encounter confusion. These are ‘truth hubs’ that comprise our ‘go to’ beliefs developed by theometaphysicians who have developed techniques of certainty from which we have derived absolute truths of which there are two: supernatural/religious – oriented to sacred texts; metaphysical/secular – oriented to logical verbal (philosophy) and logical numerical (pure mathematics) analytics.
Having stood at a crossroads for a year or so ‘through all kinds of windy weather’ I know now who my friends are. Thank you xx.
With little help from pure mathematicians, engineers have struggled to develop heuristics capable of modelling figurational processes where rates of change can be volatile. Of course one major difficulty, if I am right, is that accurate modelling of comparative uncertainties cannot be done by pure mathematicians who after all as formal logicians have habituses structured by supernatural and verbal logical a-t heuristics (s&v a-t heuristics). Accordingly, we are very likely to continue perpetually deploying traditional, I-oriented, s&v a-t heuristics designed to impose command and control systems on dynamic comparatively uncertain mundanities, and continue neglecting to engineer heuristics capable of investigating figurational processes and synthesizing models of persistent catastrophic problems such as warring. The cost of using s&v a-t heuristics is that we tend to prolong a manifestly damaging and tragic process such as warring by perceiving and treating it as if it was a ‘thing’ in its own right and beyond human control: from this perspective warring is seen as a fatalistic, even useful Hegelian dialectical inevitability rather than a figurational problem to be engineered.
To develop this point further I want to look at financial processes. By adopting a-t heuristics as our default position with pure mathematicians as guarantors, we feel safe in thacting with conviction and are prone to over-confidence and an illusion of control: we genuinely think we know what we are doing. Interdependently, when things start changing quickly or go wrong and control is lost, we are taken by surprise and even panic. A good example in financial terms concerns our use of ‘stability/instability’. Stability/instability is a dialectical tool, an a-t heuristic developed by theometaphysicians to exercise control over what is in fact a figurational process that cannot be controlled with our presently available linear heuristical technology such as statistics that is incapable of engaging with volatilities. Concomitantly, when serious financial volatility emerges we interpret what is an ordinary figurational process in catastrophic terms using concepts such as crash or crisis. If we did not use such a-t heuristics we would be less complacent and better prepared for financial volatility, knowing that there are only ever differing rates of change. From my perspective collapses in business confidence come about through gross misinterpretation of expectable fluctuations in business thactivities which at present are managed ineffectively using a-t heuristics such as stability/instability.
Nonetheless, there are financial people who are aware of these tendencies and who are working on alternative concepts which may lead to a more processual approach. Nassim Taleb (2008) has developed a philosophical idea used by David Hume to explain our inability to use facts as predictors of future events. A ‘Black Swan’ event according to Taleb, is a catastrophe that will occur whatever we do. In drawing our attention to such likely occurrences Taleb is emphasizing complexity and change and most importantly, our propensity for delusions of control. In developing a notion such as ‘Black Swan’ event, Taleb is from my point of view asking economists to reject a-t heuristics such as stability and interdependently, accept our need for processual concepts that correspond with comparatively uncertain mundanities. If this style of analysis takes off we may be able to engineer our financial problems using non-linear mathematical heuristics that will allow better engagement with dynamic figurational processes. However, formal economic analysis is at present still heavily influenced by theological and philosophical dogma, hence our continued economic and political infatuation with a-t heuristics such as stability which predispose us to treat economic problems as things rather than figurational processes. In doing so we create an artificial boundary between economic experiences and those who live them. Even though Nassim Taleb (Richard Thaler’s work on behavioural economics may also make a contribution) has been influential in arguing for change, we continue to deploy inappropriate concepts from our compendium of discourses on absolute certainty such as instability, crisis or crash as. These tools are brought to bear on comparatively uncertain mundanities by people whose habitus is structured by a-t heuristics and who deem dynamic processes to be something abnormal. We are correspondingly far too underprepared for threats and neglectful of developing engineering heuristics.