Teacups All The Way Down

It has been a long time since I’ve felt the need to write something on my blog. For the majority of this year, it has been where I’ve vented my fury about something someone somewhere is doing to make, in my view, the world a worse place to exist. At a time when I cannot find in myself an awful lot to like, I somehow find it harder still to find good in the world around me. From the large scale of national politics and the Brexit farrago, to the tiny scale of university society politics or even falling outs within friends, everything seems a mass of ever brewing storms in progressively more pointless teacups.

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

Hanlon’s Razor

Macropolitics and micropolitics govern everything we do in humanity — your success as a human largely depends upon your ability to navigate this. Without wanting to sound pitiful, I am exceptionally bad at it. In trying to believe the best in all people at all times, I can often not quite bring myself to attribute seemingly malicious acts to ill-wish, incompetence, nor even self-centeredness; instead I try to assign it to a differing view of how to make the world better for all who exist, and that I am at fault. At least, this used to be how I worked, and it forms part of the metric for what defines a good person.

When in February EUSA released their new template constitution with all changes thereby implied, I assumed there was a reason, and held on to it being possible to campaign for the amendment to the more (from our perspective as Dance, Music and Theatre societies) abhorrent changes. As a society president, I saw it as my duty to do the best for my society. I believed and still believe that how I handled it was at least a series of forms of legitimate protest. When all this failed, I bent to the whim, and decided to implement the changes, making changes where I saw necessary and with an uncomfortable feeling of venom coursing through every fibre of my being with unadulterated fury. With a heart full of anger, I updated my constitution which I had made it my presidential mission to make so good it wouldn’t need significantly updating for the five years to come. This was the raging storm in my personal teacup; the distraction I needed from how bad I was feeling about my academic progress was also the focus of every feeling of EUSA being run by people who were somehow ‘other’.

It has been said that for evil men to accomplish their purpose it is only necessary that good men should do nothing.

Reverend Charles F. Aked (disputed)

I have found the breaking point of my ability to care.

I reasoned with, shouted at and lectured the oncoming tsunami in the societies teacup, and as a last resort wrote a constitutional protest. This was the last resort, the “they’ll probably never see this, and now we’re out of ideas, but it might make me feel better to write it” pass. Now even that has been taken away from us, as they did notice, and cared just enough to deem it inappropriate. To call it censorship is to probably to exaggerate the point, but for an organisation which likes to shout its views at anyone within reach whether they like it or not, it seems at least somewhat hypocritical to silence what was already a very quiet and directed protest.

I was going to write out my “note for the future” here in defiance, but honestly, what would be the point? I respect my successors enough to believe that they absolutely want what is best for the group, even if I don’t agree in the method. I have been proven wrong in the past. At the end of the day, it’s just my legacy being gradually erased; replaced with new ideas and a much greater sense of community than I think I could’ve ever imagined. So long as two concerts a year get put on, and everyone enjoys themselves, do we need all of the academic, political, rigmarole?

Don’t accept the premise of idiots.

Louis Rossman on YouTube

I still can’t work out who stands to gain, or how any of this makes our meta-teacup more hospitable. We don’t gain from being forced to stand firm in the oncoming tidal wave of ultimately inconsequential madness while we try to do what we’re actually there to do: make music for our own and others’ enjoyment. Nobody at EUSA benefits from our misery, unless the entire situation is actually incompetence on somebody’s part or the result of a truly twisted agenda. The attribution to malice is so much easier to justify now, when agreements mean nothing and the wave of student engagement in democracy not seen in recent years is ignored with sterling indifference.

There’s still a place for correctness and clarity. Having a one-size-fits-all-and-covers-all-the-bases solution means that it doesn’t really fit anyone, and conflicts with those who had already put thought in to make it consistent. But really, why should we care? It’s only a legal document, which “nobody really cares about”. If you can’t decide on something good or bad, at least make sure it’s correct. Maybe that’s the pedant’s motto; the ultimate fight against the premise of idiots.

Doing nothing sounds like a wonderful idea at this point. Apathy comes in the end from endlessly shouting into the wind in our own little teacups, never to be heard by those actually in a position to change that about which you are shouting. Are we running out of good people because nobody can be heard above the noise? It’s just teacups all the way down.