Rigueur de la pensée

Lorsqu’une personne ne comprend pas ce que l’on dit ou ce que l’on écrit, il est toujours possible que l’on se soit mal exprimé. Cela peut arriver à tout le monde. Quand cette personne comprend le contraire de ce que l’on voulait dire, ça devient plus grave.

On a toujours su que les personnes d’intelligence limitée ont tendance à se focaliser sur deux ou trois termes dans une phrase sans chercher à absorber le vrai sens de la phrase. 

Cas extrême datant de quelques décennies : j’ai envie d’acheter une radio d’assez bonne qualité (un « transistor » comme on disait à l’époque) mais avec une poignée, de façon à pourvoir la porter aisément d’une pièce à l’autre. Je demande au vendeur*, visiblement un Arabe : « Y a-t-il un mode d’emploi pour régler les fréquences ? »

« Non, pas de mode d’emploi. »

« Ça, c’est idiot. » Le vendeur devient écarlate et démarre au quart de tour : « Comment, vous me traitez d’idiot ? » S’ensuit une tirade assaisonnée d’insultes. Dois-je préciser que je suis allé acheté ma radio ailleurs ? 

Dans les écoles, la dictée n’est pas la seule victime des iconoclastes anti-français et anti-culture : l’explication de texte représente une autre victime. Entraîner les enfants à comprendre exactement ce qui est dit ou écrit, est devenu ringard.

Résultat ? Même les gens d’intelligence normale ne comprennent plus vraiment ce que l’on dit, et répondent en tangente dans une direction souvent inattendue. 

On pourra déverser des milliards dans ce que l’on appelle bien à tort l’Éducation Nationale, si l’on n’entraîne pas les enfants à une certaine rigueur de la pensée, on saignera les contribuables pour ne créer que du vide. 

Vendeur*. 

Pour les soixante-huitards et leurs descendants, il n’y a plus de vendeurs, seulement des commerciaux.  

Book review : Radcliffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness.

Whatever criticism may be levelled at the times we live in, they will soon be seen as the “good old times”. Financial crisis, natural disasters, global warming and the Islamic invasion will see to that. 

In The Well of Loneliness, the good old times are those of 1920s. It must also be said that the main character is wealthy, a detail which helps making all times seem good, regardless of the period.

 

The fact that the novel takes place in the 1920s is important in order to understand (up to a point) the mentalities of the period, whether in France or England. In France, Colette publishes Chéri and Le Blé en Herbe. She shows up at dinner parties dressed as a man, and often accompanied by a female lover who looks so much like her that they could pass as sisters. Lesbianism is “in” among the wealthy, less so with popular classes. It was probably encouraged by the fact that 1.2 million young Frenchmen had died in WW1, and more than 4 million had returned home wounded and incapacitated (out of a population of 39 million). Even though human losses had been equally horrendous in Britain (900,000 casualties), the “What would people say ?” mentality still reigned supreme. Being or not being invited for tea or luncheon by Lady so and so or Lord such and such seemed to be the most important measure of one’s worth in that arrogant little world. 

The main character is called Stephen, but she’s a girl ; her parents had wanted a boy. Stephen plays along cheerfully : she rides, hunts and fences like a boy. 

When Stephen turns eighteen, a nice young man, a Canadian staying in England, falls in love with her, but although she is very fond of him, she refuses to marry him, and he goes back to British Columbia. 

For almost half the novel, Stephen is like a sexless being, attracted to neither males nor females. Her first love will be for a young American woman, but it never goes beyond a few kisses. 

During the war, Stephen joins the Red Cross as an ambulance driver and is even wounded in the process : a piece of shrapnel slashes her cheek and leaves an ugly scar. She falls in love with her co-driver : Mary, a charming, uncomplicated, cheerful girl who likes birds and flowers. Mary will be the first and only true love in Stephen’s life. After the war, the two women stay in Paris where they don’t feel as severely judged and condemned as they would be in England. 

Stephen’s dream was to go back to Gordon Hall, the family seat. Mary also dreams of a Gordon she’s never seen. However, Anna, Stephen’s mother, will have none of it. Stephen must remain an exile. Paris is nice, but it’s not home. 

Unbeknownst to the girls, the pre-war Canadian suitor has also been staying in Paris after the war. What happens next is for readers to discover.

The tyranny of respectability (or what is seen as such) imposed on Stephan is absolutely stifling. As you sink deeper and deeper into the novel, you feel almost choked by the gratuitous wickedness of the establishment. A second level of tragedy lies in the fact that Stephen herself unconsciously approves of respectability. Fighting against herself destroys her and plunges her in that “well of loneliness”.

Radcliffe Hall’s style is wonderful : it flows like a symphony by Mozart or Haydn. As we read, and regardless of who we are, male or female, young or old, we become Stephen. We live through her. We see the world through her eyes, we hear it, smell it, touch it. It’s a constant, delicate and potent delight… but it leaves us completely shattered and forces us to look deeply into the well of our own loneliness.

Bullying

A disturbing report on the news : verbal and physical abuse aimed at old people, invalids and learning drivers is on the increase. 

Even if we can go to the Moon or solve the Fermat theorem, we are animals. As such, our ancestors, as do all predators, zeroed in on the weak, the young and the infirm. We no longer have to rely on the weak and the old for our next meal, but the instinct has not died out. It will never change, yet it could be improved by education.

Bullies start at the kindergarten and flourish in primary and secondary schools. Later, women who end up beaten to death become some of their ultimate victims. 

If teachers want to report bullying, they can only turn to the headmaster or headmistress. And then, what ? Heads of school will then tell you that expelling pupils (they never say “bullies”) or sending them to special institutions is bad for the reputation of the school. This cowardly approach means, in plain language, that the reputation they are so concerned about is, in fact, their own. They and their staff are supposed to hold the fort while young lives are being destroyed, but never mind that : it’s not so important as the sacrosanct veneer called “the reputation of the school”. 

Head teachers are not entirely wrong, of course : they are being judged and evaluated by powerful bureaucrats who are quite remote from the blackboard jungle, and are even less concerned about the general welfare of the silent majority of children, i.e. those who wouldn’t mind being able to learn something, for a change.

This vast conspiracy of silence creates a subculture of violence, knifings and control freaks. Shouldn’t it be time to attack the roots of the problem instead of letting it fester and expand ?