In the Real World

by Nōnen Títi

  That’s a scary thought. Why do people follow the herd so easily, whether for compliance or for riot? Why do they go to war, the soldiers, if they know they’re going to die? Are people born with a mob mentality or a soldier personality? Is that why they all want uniforms? It has to be genetic if it’s always been like that. I wait until the bell goes and his class leaves for recess. “Can I ask you something?”

  Mr Fokker puts down his pen.

  “Why is it that sheep follow the leader even if he walks off a cliff? Why did all those Jewish people in Europe that you told us about answer to the call to assemble and more or less willingly walked into the gas chambers? At least Anne Frank got a few more years out of it and she could have survived, right?”

  He nods.

  “So I’ve been told to do as the lion does; he knows when to back off. It might not be brave but it is clever; you don’t resist those in power. But those people weren’t exactly clever, were they?”

  “In some cases, Mariette, you need to weigh up the chances, know the situation and know who you’re dealing with. The general belief was that as long as they obeyed the orders it wouldn’t be so bad. That’s what the people told each other when the order came, so they went, members of my own family included. But it really was that bad. Once captured, it might be better to comply if it can save your life. A lion, like any cat, will submit to a superior. Before that it’s usually better not to trust the promises and to stay out of sight.”

  “And I guess that doesn’t only apply to the war, right?”

  “Right, but a lion isn’t a sheep. A lion makes the choice to either risk his life or to submit; he doesn’t run after the leader and fall off a cliff.”

  “Sometimes I think it’d be easier to be a sheep, so you don’t have to make that choice all the time.”

  “Why do you think Hitler was able to take the lead in his country so easily?” he asks.

  “Because he was a psychopath and the sheep didn’t want to get killed.”

  “What makes you think he was a psychopath?”

  “Because he had no feelings for people and no remorse for what he did.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “That’s what people say.”

  “Why do you think they’d believe such a thing?”

  “I don’t know – maybe because they need a reason.”

  “Right. By implying that he was a psychopath and blaming his parents, saying it’s because his father hit him, we’ve found a reason for what happened. But most children in those days were spanked regularly and none of them became psychopaths. Besides, Hitler was a precious child and it’s more likely that his parents pampered him.

  “But it makes no difference. The objective of this reasoning is twofold: One is to teach a moral lesson using today’s values about corporal punishment, the other is to support the belief that it won’t ever happen again and to acquit everyone who stood by and did nothing. Hitler didn’t take power using soldiers to oust the president or threaten the people, he simply managed to convince both the politicians and the masses to give him that power because the people believed in him. He was a natural leader and he won the democratic vote.

  “You see, Mariette, there is no system that helps a dictator rise better than a failing democracy in which the mob thinks it already has a voice and therefore does nothing, and those who should stand up, the politicians, can’t see it coming because they’ve been voted in for their popularity instead of their capability. They invariably lack what Hitler had: the big-picture view, the vision, the intelligence and the conviction that what he believed was right. On top of that he was charismatic and maybe obsessed, but he was not a psychopath. Leadership, despite the current trend of believing otherwise and despite the slogan above the school entrance, is inborn in personality and cannot be learned. Good leaders move the masses, either for good or for evil, and the flock follows even if he sends them off a cliff.”

  The bell announces the end of recess and he hands me a small exercise book on which he’s written a title: Attention: Little Lamb, the Meadow.

  “Just to prevent you wasting your weekend printing stickers, I’d like a response first thing Monday morning,” he says.

  I go straight to English. I walk into the room planning to tell Kathleen what happened, but Mr Shriver stops me.

  “I am seriously disappointed in you. After being so insightful and mature last term, it appears that you’ve regressed to behaving like a five-year-old.” He’s scolding me in front of the whole class. “I understand your anger, but that does not give you the right to insult people and use bad language. What you did last night was not an emotional reaction; it was a deliberate insult and calculated for effect. As long as you choose to use that kind of behaviour I shall consider your motivations to be rebellious without a proper cause. If you’re really convinced for the right reasons, you don’t need that language.”

  I try to avoid looking at the others as I walk to my seat; they’re all staring at me. Why can’t all teachers be stupid morons? Unwilling to cooperate, I take out Mr Fokker’s writing book.

  Funny that he addressed it to Little Lamb. The first page starts with dictionary definitions in the manner I wrote to him and is titled: According to Mr Shriver’s Dictionary. He writes that he only copied the relevant words, so I can find the synonyms myself if I want.

  advocate

  (vb. from Lt. advocare = to summon), to plead in favour of

  devil

  (noun from Gk. diabolos = slanderer, from diaballein = to throw across, to slander)

  fornication

  human sexual intercourse between a person and someone other than his or her spouse

  paedophilia

  sexual perversion in which children are the preferred sexual object

  affront

  treating with deliberate rudeness or contemptuous indifference to courtesy

  provoke

  to deliberately act in a way to anger someone, to incite

  aggressive

  a disposition to dominate, often in disregard of others’ rights or in determined and energetic pursuit of one’s ends (No excuse!)

  arrogant

  a claiming for oneself of more consideration or importance than is warranted (!)

  to summon

  to demand the presence of, esp. as exercised by authority (me)

  confront

  to meet face to face or to present someone with something in order to accuse or criticize (like this book)

  chastise

  to inflict a penalty on and may apply to either the infliction of corporal punishment or to verbal censure and denunciation (look those up)

  sheep

  a timid, defenceless creature or a timid, docile person, esp. one easily influenced or led (Little Lamb?)

  sheepish

  resembling a sheep in meekness, stupidity or timidity or embarrassed by consciousness of a fault (!!!)

  I’ve never been told off and called to order on paper before, though he might as well have stood in the room. It leaves me sufficiently embarrassed but also curiously excited. How will I ever respond to this?

  I break my head over it all through English and go back to history aware that my face probably shows I’ve read it, so I try to concentrate on the lecture about the most recent political changes and wars. It’s depressing, if nothing else. Why call it history and why discuss it if nothing ever changes anyway? What’s the use of voting or fighting for rights that nobody ever meant seriously in the first place? War, after all, is very profitable for governments and peace isn’t healthy for the gene pool. So why pretend to want peace? Because that’s how they win their votes. They hand out badges or medals for obedience and people shut up, in the real world no less than at school. They probably laughed at us for having that demonstration.

  During lunch I go back to the English classroom to use Mr Shriver’s dictionary again, this time to combine the best possible definitions with a Little Lamb sequel, in which Little Lamb di
sputes playing devil’s advocate and defends his favouring Old Woolly over the dogs because of deference – I’d never heard of that word before, but it sounds kind of neat – and that he considers the dogs sheepish, and I finish with: He will abide by his rule even if Old Woolly will chastise him and he promises to mind his bleating from now on, or at least he’ll try. I’m ever so embarrassed when I put it on his desk at the start of civics.

  Of course, civics under Mr Fokker turns into another essay-writing session and that’s aside from the one he assigned us on Wednesday. I don’t mind essays; they come easily. I have more trouble stopping than starting. They might not be perfectly grammatical and all that, but they sure help me spit out all my anger and besides, Mr Fokker isn’t an English teacher, he said so himself.

  He offers us two questions to choose from: Is majority vote fair? and Is conscription democratic if it is voted on by referendum or decided on by an elected government?

  I think they’re close enough to discuss both in one essay and I add what Mick said this morning.

  Before we leave the room together to go to the assembly, he hands me a book. “Tell Little Lamb that her apology is accepted for now, but to start studying something proper if she wants an answer to the question of war and humanity she posed to me last term,” he says.

  The book in my hand is called The Republic.

  Now that it’s finally time for the assembly I was looking forward to this morning, I don’t feel excited. The mountain of bags in front of the gym entrance is already higher than the door. We have to squeeze by to avoid risking an avalanche falling on top of us and it’s definitely a fire hazard. Once again we have to listen to a speech about wearing slogans and what have you. I don’t even listen anymore. The students do what we agreed on: Nobody talks or boos; nobody even whispers. It’s eerily still. When the anthem starts playing they glance around, but they remain sitting and silent apart from a stifled giggle here and there. The music stops once the teachers realize they’ll be singing alone.

  “What’s this about?” Mr Fokker asks.

  “Rule number seven. ‘Students are to remain seated and quiet throughout’.”

  He walks off to speak to Mr Shriver, who’s standing by the principal. The assembly ends abruptly and early.

  JEROME

  I knock on Mariette’s door after dinner and explain that I promised to spend the weekend in the city with Dad and Nikos and so I won’t be able to come to the Sunday meeting. I don’t tell her that I prefer going to lit group as well.

  After Uncle Gerard drops me off at the house, I tell Nikos and Dad what’s going on at school. “We didn’t mean to have another protest but then they changed the rules, just like Grandpa Will predicted.” I show them the article.

  “You had better warn Mariette to be very careful,” Nikos says.

  “I’m trying, but she’s hard to stop.”

  “Most passionate people are. The problem is that passion is very flammable and when the opinions of more than one passionate person clash, more often than not the sparks will cause a fire that, once burning, is very hard to contain.”

  The image makes me laugh. “I can’t see PM as a passionate person. He totally follows the books and no deviation is possible or he gets nervous.”

  “Nerves, yes, a clear sign that it upsets him if the rules aren’t obeyed. Those feelings are the seed of passion, but in his case they’re hidden behind the social mask he’s forced to wear as an adult. Mariette has the advantage of in some respects still being a child. She can get away with acting freely on her instincts, which is exactly what she’s doing, and not accidentally either. But instincts have to be controlled or people won’t be able to live together. That’s the function of the social roles, the masks we wear.”

  “But PM uses his position, his mask, to impose rules that aren’t fair.”

  “Not fair in whose opinion? ‘Fair’ is a subjective term, no matter how many people use it as a synonym for ‘objective’. It isn’t an object you can describe and draw the form of and thus enable everybody to see the same image. So saying rules are fair, as a given, is misusing the word. Just like you can’t say the room is ‘five long’; you have to specify if it’s five centimetres, five meters or five kilometres long, so Mariette and your principal each have a different opinion about the meaning of ‘fair’. They each believe they’re right and they are both very passionate about that belief. But there’s a difference, like you said; your principal is in a position of power, so ultimately it’s his opinion that matters and if Mariette doesn’t abide by that, she ends up in trouble. That’s the reality of it.”

  “But it isn’t just Mariette. A lot of people think they’re not fair. I don’t think it was fair to just change the rules. The school’s slogan says it promotes values and choices, and according to the old prospectus we had a legitimate voice, but where’s all that if his opinion is the only one that counts?”

  “Those are words, Jerome. Those are words used to sell the school because they’re fashionable at the moment. Your only choice as a student is to abide by the rules of the school. The values they promote are the values of the system, not the individual. A ‘legitimate’ voice is a fancy word democratic people like to use, but ‘legitimate’ means being in accordance with the law or established legal forms; in this case, the laws of the school. Leadership skills mean that you learn to impose those rules on others and teach them to pass it on, and excellence is rewarded with badges and good grades. Words like those are soap-bubble words – words that, once you prick through the surface tension, end up being no more than air; words that can be blown every which way, just like you’re saying in this article.”

  “Then is there any use in teaching kids subjects like civics if everything in the real world is the exact opposite? At least if you know you’re being oppressed you know where you stand, but this is a deception. Is civilization even possible if it’s all based on a myth?”

  “Civilization is only possible if it’s based on myths. Myths and beliefs give people hope. People can’t live without hope. Even today, every person living in Beirut has some kind of hope for a better future, whether it’s based in religion, or on scientific or social premises. People without hope commit suicide.”

  I glance at Dad and Nikos nods at him.

  “People need to believe in something, in their own worth to start with, and that worth needs to be sanctioned by the existing social and cultural views. The problem is that individuality is inborn and can’t be changed, but social and cultural beliefs change all the time.

  “Just imagine your school situation on a larger scale. Lots of people have different wishes and views on right and wrong behaviour, and each of them believes that every person should behave and think the same way they do. Individual differences are ignored and people with similar interests form groups. But if two different groups have different ideas and try to enforce them, they end up in a power struggle.

  “Social rules and consequences of deviation exist to keep everybody from killing each other over their beliefs. To enforce that you need control, thus the police or an army, but that has a downside. If multiple groups have armies you get war or anarchy, and if only one power has the army you get a police state. In both situations people are scared. They fear for their lives because life is unpredictable and, like animals in a herd, they have to be on the lookout for a predator.

  “Now, there’s only one alternative to those two extremes and that is to live with a myth. Most people today still believe that they have to answer to some higher power when they die. Others rely on the potential of human intelligence to understand and control the laws they ascribe to nature. Others believe in our moral worth and believe we create it through upbringing and education. In all cases a person is expected to control his behaviour and follow expectations of what is normal – they are to conform to the norms of the group. That’s what keeps them behaving civilized towards each other. This belief, this myth, has evolved to keep us from always being prey
, and that is what we call civilization. Those myths are based on religion, or on science, or involve words like ‘justice’, ‘democracy’, ‘freedom’ and ‘equality’ – soap-bubble words, yes, but powerful enough to keep the masses obedient, because these myths have been ingrained into their minds since they were children.”

  “But isn’t it the differences between those myths that starts wars?” I ask him. “What’s the use of creating myths to feel safe if they start another sort of fear?”

  “Because people don’t acknowledge their own myths as being such; they believe that theirs is the only truth, a true reality. We believe we’ve evolved to a higher standard than most animals, that we aren’t just predators and prey anymore. We also believe we’ve overcome the simplicity of our ancestors – we call their beliefs mythology and pride ourselves on having science. But rationality and civilization are the mythology of today.

  “And while our social rules try to create conformity based on the myth that all people are equal, competition is instinctive. Animals don’t compete with their prey, they compete with their own sort to get to that prey, and compete with their own gender for the right to procreate. It’s the same with us; people tend to fight with those who are most like them, because a society can only succeed if it has a diverse population where everybody fulfils a different function.

  “Now, remember the suburbs? Well, Mariette was right: Schools are an equally artificial environment because they force into peer groups the people whom nature expects to compete with each other and then tell them to get along; groups of identical age, gender, ethnic and social background and often even ability or behaviour – in other words, everything that forces competition without tolerance for differences. Then people judge each other based on each person’s ability to adapt to the group. The strength of the group depends on the obedience of its members. You could say they’re social soldiers, trained to act as one. It becomes very easy to oust or bully someone; you get situations where second graders look down on first graders because they’re a few months younger. Members aren’t seen as individuals; like I said, you talk about first graders as a group, just like you talk about Muslims or black people.”