Swallowing defeat is a shrug-and-move-on experience in the
sporting world and even in political circles. You win some, you lose some, you
try again. Amongst less competitive types, thrust reluctantly into an argument
with right on their side, it’s a bitter, crushing and imprisoning experience.
They are trapped facing an awful truth – that their belief in a just world was
unfounded.
Trust in a benign
universe is bred early into the helpless infant, totally dependent on its
parent carers. When reality falls short, the essential nugget of faith remains
that somewhere out there is an authority who will vindicate their suffering and
fix their problem. Then they grow up and discover that governments, the law –
the replacement protectors - are
fallible and in some instances actively corrupt. A scary abyss opens up, a
gateway into the bleak landscape that Kafka and George Orwell revealed with
such chilling precision.
Leaving the ‘he
said/she said’ argument to one side, the Kavanaugh confirmation left a sour
taste. The pussy-grabbing president heaped abuse on a brave and dignified woman
thrust unwillingly into the spotlight with the sole purpose of achieving his
‘win’ (and defending his own dubious record vis a vis allegations); the boozy,
misogynist frat boy culture of the colleges which spawned many of the USA
ruling classes was laid bare; and self-serving partisan politics turned every
argument on its head to attack the opposition. Deny, attack, reverse. It was an
unedifying spectacle.
But for every
action there can be a reaction. It’s known as ‘why things bite back.’ After the
Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill USA Supreme Court debacle in 1991 over a similar
argument failed to further the cause of justice, more women stood for political
positions. Not huge numbers but some. This time round, since Trump’s
appearance, the USA field is awash with female candidates. For some, defeat
sparks a fight-back which would not have happened otherwise.
For others
vindication is a long time coming or never comes at all in their lifetime.
Thirty, forty, fifty years later the dirty veritas emerges by which times
decades of damage have been done.
Novels, as ever,
have a way of ramming home unpleasant truths which I vaguely knew but never
quite digested. Manda Scott’s excellent Treachery of Spies which skilfully
pulls together a dual storyline, of French Resistance in World War 11 and
present-day, finishes (spoiler alert) with one such. The author highlights the escape of senior
war-criminal Nazis into both the US and UK security services (CIA and MI6) to
aid the fight against the Soviets. 50 million died because of the actions of
men who were allowed to lead protected lives thereafter because of crass expediency. 
Henry Porter’s
Firefly illuminated another kind of defeat – of refugees fleeing brutality and
death risking their lives to reach an exiled freedom. His ending (spoiler
alert) for the protagonist is happy-ish, but the reader is left in no doubt
that for many, many others there will be no good result. And the resentment
left by those experiences amongst oppressed peoples will seep down through
generation after generation.
How do you live with
situations that strip away all sense of personal empowerment with no hope that
good will triumph over bad? There’s a million inspirational clichés about
choosing your attitude when you can’t choose the circumstances. Easier for the
super-optimist who always assumes there’s a light at the end of their tunnel;
less so for rigorous realists.
Nowadays the
internet, for all its flaws, has the community-building ability to pull
together the likeminded into a critical mass capable of making a dent in the
seemingly immoveable. Activism is one route. Even at a personal
level, action can disrupt the lethargy of defeat. If Being with an impossible
situation results in depression then Doing can be a lifegiving distraction,
even in small ways.
‘I must lose myself in action, lest I wither in despair.’ Alfred Lord Tennyson.
Writers have a
privileged remedy in that they can be with the emotional tsunami created by the
annihilation of personal choice and do something about it by spreading the
word.
Edith Eger, a
Holocaust survivor, whom I met years ago at Esalen, a wonderfully vibrant
personality, wrote her autobiography The Choice, Embrace the Possible. She said
“It was very difficult, but I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever done,
because, you see, the opposite of depression is expression. I was able to put
it out there and cry and cry. With every page I lost 2,000lb of emotional
weight.”
And the last word goes
to Voltaire. It’s worth pondering.
‘Injustice in the end produces independence.’
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