This started as a side note in my post yesterday about The Crimes of Grindelwald. You probably don’t have to read it for this one to make sense since it’s mostly a review of the film, but it’s here in case you want to.
Oh, the human psyche. I do this Thing in classes when I’m teaching creative writing where I stand at the front and tell the students, “Okay, now I want you to be happy.” A couple of obliging students will attempt a smile, but mostly they just sit there being like, uh whut? Or even, um, no?
So I get them to stand up. Feet hip-width apart, I tell them. Loosen your knees. Shoulder back, butt under, swing your arms to release tension. Pivot around a bit. Chin down, neck straight – remember that string to the roof the comes up from your spine, your neck, out the top of your head. Okay, nice and relaxed with good, open posture? Now turn to your neighbour. Eye contact. Make intense, awkward eye contact. More intense! More awkward!
By this time, at least half the room is giggling, even the boys. For those who aren’t yet, I continue. Stretch your lips out wide. That’s, it good. Now turn the corners up a little. Let your eyes crinkle closed a little bit. Show your teeth. That’s it, great!
90% of the class is now falling over themselves in delight.
Okay class, sit down please.
They sit, a little confused about what just happened. I pause, let them settle, wait till I have their attention.
That’s the difference between showing and telling, I say. When I told you to be happy, a few obliging souls tried, but mostly it didn’t work, and sometimes it was outright rejected. I bumped you from my narrative because I was telling you how to feel. But when I led you through the physical steps involved in being happy (and sometimes there is more than I’ve written here, it depends on the mood of the class), ninety percent of you were with me. I showed you “being happy”, and you made that final leap yourself.
This is the link to my discussion yesterday about not disliking Theseus (in Fantastic Beast #2)just because I was told to. Sure, okay, Newt dislikes him, and tells us Theseus has done some horrible things to him. But this is not how Theseus presents, so it’s really hard to buy into this narrative.
Here’s where we get super serious, though. Because this isn’t just a Thing for stories, for TV shows and movies and books. This is a Thing in real life. And usually it’s a perfectly fine thing – we don’t often want to judge someone based on what others have told us about them. I find this particularly important in teaching, where students often come with labels attached that are grounded in other teacher’s opinions (and personalities, often as not) rather than in any objective sense. Students who were brats with other teachers might turn out to just need a little bit of love, or encouragement, or maybe just something about my goofy personality/teaching style works for them.
However.
This doesn’t erase the experiences of those other teachers. My contrary experience does not alter their past lived reality. We shouldn’t judge people based on their reputations – but we also shouldn’t brush off other people’s experiences with them.
Yes, I’m talking about abuse, and about how so often, the narrative is “Well, he was never like that to me.” It makes total sense why survivors must fight to be believed: they’re telling us what to think, how to feel, and it’s going contrary to the narrative of our experience. They’re asking us to believe their telling over our lived experience with showing. It’s hard, and it feels disingenuous somehow, inauthentic.
But it’s vital. If survivors are never believed, they will never be able to access help, or treatment, or support. Perpetrators will never be held to account for what they have done. And the message we put out as a society is that as long as your public show is fine, it doesn’t matter what anyone else tells.
This is great for narrative fiction, where success depends on the engagement of the character. But just as violence and gross urban damage is a great solution in an action movie, but a terrible solution in real life, so too can be our reliance on ‘showing’ in preference to believing the lived experiences of others.
I have no specific conclusion here, no ‘call to action’ as such, other than this: Learn to question your own narrative. Look for the stories you tell about yourself, about the people around you that you know well, about the strangers around you that you cross paths with fleetingly. Your life is defined by the way you tell your story, and you will tell your story to yourself consciously or no, so you might as well take charge of it. You might as well be cognisant of the language you’re using, the roles you’re casting yourself in, the roles you cast upon others. Learn to recognise what you’re doing and how you’re saying it, and look actively for the ways that your narrative differs from others – and learn to question why.
And accept that everyone has their own narrative, and that just because theirs contradicts yours, it doesn’t mean either of you are wrong.
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