01 February 2018
L’Enfer C’est Les Autres
The problem with ‘other people’.
By Lynda Goetz
For those who read my musings each week, my failure to produce anything in last week’s issue of Shaw Sheet may possibly have been a disappointment (we are all allowed to hope and dream, after all). Returning from a week of completely ignoring the world news is, for someone who normally keeps abreast of what is going on, somewhat disorienting. I spent a week in the French ski resort of Tignes (the slightly downmarket sibling to the resort of Val d’Isere) where there was so much snow that on our first day only one short lift was open (that way no refunds on ski passes are necessary) in Tignes Val Clairet, where we were staying. The dull thud of the explosions used by the ‘pisteurs’ to set off controlled avalanches could be heard most of the day; the roads were white, enclosed by towering walls of snow, and walking through the streets was like being in some sort of Narnian maze.
The following day the sun shone, as promised, most of the lifts opened and ‘fresh tracks’ were made all over the mountain by those who had the skills and the confidence to make their way through the deeper snow ‘off-piste’. Most of those were simply in the areas between the groomed pistes, but some with higher levels of fitness and expertise climbed up and around and headed off further into the mountains away from the crowds. The appeal of this sort of skiing is varied. Some do it for the challenge, others for the wilderness and feeling of apartness from the resort, most for a combination of reasons. The danger is nearly always greater than that of sticking to the pistes – although here much of the risk is quite simply ‘other people’; ‘other people’ being those who are not family, not friends nor even acquaintances, just simply ‘the rest’. These days, it seems to me, our tolerance towards ‘the rest’ is increasingly low; our respect for them dangerously non-existent and our current society’s lack of manners a retrograde step in humanity’s ability to deal with different opinions, different cultures, different religions, indeed differences in general.
After a week spent glorying in the mountains during the day and returning in late afternoon to a winter ‘hobbitland’ of snow tunnels and icy edifices, I came home to a number of news items, which at first sight appear totally unconnected. My favourite female journalist Allison Pearson has written a brilliant article on what Real Feminism amounts to; six days earlier, Joanna Williams had written an article trying to explain to the third-wave feminists why ‘Older Feminists are not Lobotomised’; the young FT journalist Maddison Marriage wrote an exposé of The Presidents Club fundraising dinner; the Metropolitan police and senior lawyers have personally apologised to 22yr-old student Liam Allan who was falsely accused of rape and spent 2 years on bail and 3 days on trial (Rape in the Spotlight); Kent police have announced that parents could face arrest and have their homes raided if they pay for phones on which their children have sent sexually explicit images (sexting); Claire Kober announced she would be stepping down as leader of Haringey council because the ‘sexism, bullying and undemocratic behaviour and outright personal attacks on me as the most senior woman in Labour local government have left me disappointed and disillusioned’(Corbynista bullying); Eurosceptic Brexiteers and gloomy Remoaners continue to make the whole Brexit project a source of despair for all those outside Parliament who would just like our esteemed Government to ‘get on with it’; vegan activists are branding farmers ‘murderers’ and sending them death threats; one Alison Mapletopt was fined a total of £600 by Brighton and Hove Council and threatened with jail for putting a cardboard box (relating to her home-based cushion-making business) into a communal recycling bin instead of having a waste disposal contract; the interminable exposé and enquiry into BBC pay is still ongoing; two young British skiers died skiing off-piste in Argentière (Chamonix). I could go on, but all this news seems to me to highlight what so many are trying to get away from when they take themselves off on holiday.
In his play Huis Clos (usually translated into English as ‘No Exit’ or sometimes, more accurately, as ‘In Camera’), the French existentialist philosopher and playwright Jean-Paul Sartre famously put the expression ‘L’enfer c’est les autres’ (Hell is other people) into the mouth of one of his protagonists, Garcin. Although the meaning of this is often misinterpreted, it can, in our overcrowded world today, also be taken very literally. Whilst in many ways this is, of course, a very natural human reaction (most are very intolerant of those who do not belong to their own ‘tribe’), a balance needs to be struck between free speech, freedoms of expression, tolerance of others beliefs and customs and the right to conduct our lives without undue interference from authorities or intrusion by the media.
Alison Pearson asks if a primary school head in this country should really be forced to back down from her ban on the hijab being worn by primary school girls, or the chairman of governors of that same school be forced to resign as a result of online trolling and a petition apparently signed by 20,000 Muslim parents. Joanna Williams tells young third-wave feminists to show some respect to the older generation who fought for rights they now take for granted. Why on earth do these young women want to take on the role of perpetual victims? Older feminists, including women like Catherine Deneuve and Germaine Greer, have been forced to retract validly-expressed views because of the online abuse they have received. Claire Kober has stepped down because her brand of socialism is no longer in line with the views of the Momentum bullies now in charge of the Labour party; the DPP, Alison Saunders, has been so intent on increasing the rape conviction rate that she has allowed an atmosphere of ‘believe the victim at all costs’ to permeate the police force to the detriment of justice; our local councils are using our taxes to pay snoopers to go through our bins and the police are now threatening parents of teenagers (and younger) who clearly need advice not prosecution; our government (not to mention the American government) is in total disarray – whatever they may say to the contrary – and the entire country appears to go into a hysterical meltdown over a fundraising dinner where wealthy, powerful men disgraced themselves whilst stumping up large sums for charities.
Of course men should behave better; of course women in Arab countries should have more freedom; of course we should all be able to be free to express ourselves as long as that freedom does not impinge on anyone else’s rights (Freedom of Speech Shaw Sheet 2016), but increasingly groups of individuals with agendas are ‘shouting over’ everyone else who does not, for whatever reason, agree with their views. Legislation put in place to allow diversity or to promote say environmental issues, seems more and more to produce authoritarian results. Jon Holbrook, a barrister, writing for online magazine ‘Spiked’ (which has some interesting articles on free speech, or rather the lack of it) pointed out the invasion of personal privacy entailed in The Mail on Sunday reporting on Jo Marney’s private texts. The art of living with other people requires, as a fundamental, respect for their views, even if we disagree with them. Until fairly recently, public disagreements (unless of course by that we mean physical fighting) tended to be conducted in the form of debates or reasoned arguments between those who had access to some form of public platform. Now that everybody has access to a public platform we need more than ever for all individuals to learn how to use this privilege without ‘trashing’ those with opposing views, insulting them, or even worse actually attempting to silence them. This is an area where we should all want less legislative intervention and more education.
In the meantime, I shan’t be jetting off to any resorts owned by Thomson, who recently announced that they will be allowing eligible customers (whatever that means) to choose and pay for sunbeds for the entirety of their holiday in advance. Apart from the fact that the thought of risking skin cancer by roasting myself all day on a sun lounger is not my idea of a holiday (although of course I appreciate that is an entirely personal opinion), how could I possibly be ‘getting away from it all’ if I am lined up sardine-like alongside a whole load of ‘other people’? Personally, I intend to improve my fitness and off-piste technique and find a guide to take me off into the wilderness in an attempt to avoid all news and other people entirely.
