Most of the midday shoppers ignored the man who stood in the square amidst the market stalls. He straddled a gruesome puddle, shielding a bloated condom that languished in its depths from feet that drudged through their day.

“Does this belong to anybody?” he reiterated, terror beginning to wend its way through his agerasian features as he struggled with the idea that such a precious cargo could simply have been abandoned.

“Does what belong to anybody mate?” asked one of the stall holders, the smirk he reserved for local crazies turning one corner of his grizzled mouth. “What you found?”

“A condom, lying in this puddle,” he replied hurriedly. “It appears to be full.”

“Are you asking if anyone owns a used fucking johnny mate?” blurted the stall holder.

“Indeed I am,” said the man. “Well, I assume it’s been used, unless it’s filled with shampoo or some such, which I feel is unlikely. And my name is Bernard, not ‘mate’,” he added, charitably.

The stall holder coughed out a laugh. “That’s gotta be the best I’ve heard yet mate,” he chuckled. “Why the fuck would anyone want to lay claim to a used johnny?”

“Why, more to the point, would someone leave it here?” Bernard responded. “They can’t have just tossed it aside.”

“Ha, no, I don’t think there was any tossing there mate,” laughed the stall holder. “Not unless he’s a right sad weirdo bastard. Actually,” he added, “you sure it ain’t yours?”

“Of course not!” thundered Bernard. “Do I look so irresponsible?”

A few shoppers had stopped to listen, and at this they took in Bernard’s appearance in detail. If they’d have conferred they would have agreed that, no, he didn’t look irresponsible, whatever that might look like. But neither did he look like someone who would be concerned with the ownership of a used condom.

His hair and whiskers were well groomed, his three piece tweed suit and knee length raincoat in good condition, and the briefcase and umbrella he carried appeared expensive. The overall effect was of a well bred and comfortable older gentleman.

The stall holder wasn’t a man who reacted well to being shouted at, even though – or perhaps because – he had significant experience of being addressed in just that manner.

“No, you don’t look irresponsible mate,” he replied in kind. “But you do seem fucking crazy. You’re talking about a used fucking johnny mate, it don’t belong to no-one you pratt.”

“Is there somebody else I could talk to?” sighed Bernard, turning from the stall holder to address his small but growing audience. “If things continue in this manner we’ll never get to the bottom of this, and I must be at an appointment in -” he checked his watch – “an hour and twenty six minutes.”

Some of the shoppers giggled and tittered to themselves and carried on their way, but others sensed an amusing diversion in the offing and decided to stay for the duration. They glanced amongst themselves to determine whether or not anyone was prepared to step up to the mark, and were unsurprised to find everybody as reticent as themselves.

The stall holder, ignored, returned to selling bad produce at worse prices, muttering his frustration with life to the only person who would listen. It wouldn’t be long before he found himself roundly ignored and avoided on the street, and his children stopped expecting him to call.

Finding no reply to his entreaty from those in his immediate presence, Bernard, retaining his position astride the dirty pool of water, looked around for someone who might be more amenable. Yet nobody stood out from the crowd; they were all as to be expected.

“Excuse me!” he roared, hoping to reach out beyond his vantage point. “Does anybody claim ownership of this soiled prophylactic?”

All around, heads turned. The question on almost everyone’s lips was: a profee- what? But, in the absence of an obvious physical altercation, fire or free gift, they scuttled back to the safety of their day.

Bernard was becoming visibly agitated by now. He didn’t sweat, nor did he turn red. His clothing did not begin to look dishevelled, nor his posture crumple. His eyes didn’t flash, nor his nostrils flare. But the air about him crackled, distorting his image in an almost unremarkable yet definite way.

A man in a neat but worn brown knee length coat sauntered up to Bernard, hands in waist pockets.

“I’m the manager of the market,” he said with practiced authority. “Are you wishing to make a complaint?”

Bernard looked the manager up and down quickly. “No, not at all, I have no complaint to make. If I were to complain I’m not sure to whom I would do so, but I am sure it would be a higher authority than yourself, relating as it would to the lack of importance attached to this item, and its ownership, by members of the immediate public.”

The steadily growing crowd had a feeling it may have been insulted, but as some of them had been unable to keep up with the sentence, others were unsure, and yet more didn’t want to interrupt the flow of whatever was happening, nobody said a word.

“What item is that?” asked the manager mischievously, one eyebrow raised. He batted away the arm of the lately involved stall holder, who had sidled up beside him and was about to point out the condom.

“The used prophylactic in this puddle,” replied Bernard calmly. “It, along with the precious cargo I believe it holds, has been forgotten by its owner and we have a duty to do all we can to ensure its safe return. Can I assume that, given your position, you have dealt with cases of lost property before?”

The manager paused, confused as he was by the incongruity of the man’s demeanour and the words that reached his ears. He could not be sure if Bernard was mad, if he was mocking him and the authority he knew he did not really possess, or if this was some form of that performance art he had heard so little about. In the end he decided it was not something he was prepared to deal with.

“If you’d like to wait here – sir, “ he added, for safety’s sake, “I’ll be back presently.” He turned on his heel, stumbled, and walked off.

The crowd refocused its attention on Bernard, waiting for his next move. He kept his position yet said nothing more, convinced as he was by now that it wasn’t worth the breath. Checking his watch, he satisfied himself that attendance at his appointment wasn’t immediately threatened – well ahead of time as he always was, just in case this sort of situation arose – and settled in to waiting.

********************

Checking his watch for the fifth time since the manager had departed, Bernard raised his head in unison with those around him as a cry erupted from the other end of the market. It was followed by a crash and loudly spluttered expletives. Fear jumped across Bernard’s face, but his audience reacted with barely muted glee. What a day! First this crazy gent and now… It didn’t matter what else, it was enough that it was.

Those with an eye for Bernard saw him look around frantically, searching the surrounding area, his feet still clamped to the spot. Evidently not locating what he sought, he began to alternate his gaze, now looking down to the condom in the puddle, now up in the direction of the commotion that almost everyone else was intent on.

As a wooden framed sofa rose above the tops of the market stalls, curved an arc through the air, and came back down ten or twenty metres from where it issued with a fabulous smash, some actually heard themselves gasp. The flight of the sofa was followed by a cacophony of objects shooting up into the air in all directions. Pots and pans, hats and gloves, mops and buckets, couplet after clichéd couplet of objects tested gravity before returning to earth, defeated. They bounced off heads and awnings, some finding themselves checked in their progress, hooked over lamp posts or wrapped around signs.

The market was now full of people with their faces turned upwards as they sought to avoid the path of wares temporarily freed from their stalls. Bernard, however, stared straight ahead, waiting for whatever was causing such wanton untidiness to reveal itself. The small crowd around him had also turned their gaze to where a path was being forged between the market stalls. The feet of some even caught up with the brains they were connected to, moving the bodies above them out of the way of what was surely some sort of giant animal on the rampage.

Bernard took up a defensive stance, resolution and determination flitting about him. The onlookers watched as his umbrella and briefcase became a sword and shield, his clothing a suit of armour, and his head a burnished medieval helmet. Yet once they had blinked and shook their minds, he appeared once again as the same dapper older gentleman.

Without knowing why but with unassailable intention, ten of them, men and women of various ages and abilities, arranged themselves behind him so he was flanked on either side. They dropped what they were carrying, clenched their fists and tensed their muscles, ready.

The first Bernard saw of his opponent was a blur behind the two nearest stalls, which quickly left the ground and headed off in opposite directions, their flight distracting his unwitting compatriots. When they brought their eyes back to dead ahead, the cause of the ruckus stared back at them.

She was, they estimated, in her late sixties, an archetypal grandmother of five feet one inch. Beige raincoat, a cake-like hat resting firmly on her head, handbag lopped over her forearm, and very sensible shoes. She showed no signs of the exertion that must have accompanied her spectacular ingress.

“Hello Bernard,” she chirruped, smiling the smile of compounded motherhood. “You don’t learn, do you? If it weren’t for you lot, I’d never find half of them.” She grinned hungrily down at the puddle between Bernard’s feet.

Bernard retained his steely composure as an ounce of self reproach skated through his eyes. “Effie,” he nodded. “You may be right, but if we didn’t look out for them, there’s no knowing what might happen.”

“Ooh, yes,” replied Effie with a smile and a wonder that shone through her eyes. “I never get bored with considering the possibilities. This world could be so much more interesting, if you boys weren’t such a bunch of fuddy duddies! But let’s not go through that again, we’ll just confuse this lot and they haven’t got the strength for it.”

Bernard grunted, hardening his posture. His posse did the same. At the centre of their minds a small voice whispered, “erm, excuse me, but I have a feeling I face a distinct possibility of physical harm, and, whilst there may be situations in which I would choose such a path, I don’t believe my consent was sought in this instance,” more or less articulately as their vocabulary dictated. It was, however, consummately muffled by various hormones and instinctive urges which declared with satisfaction, “bring it on”.

Effie’s twinkling eyes explored the situation for a moment, then she began to trace a wide circle around her adversaries with small, rapid steps. As she did so she passed a circumference of onlookers, all of whom would have described themselves as roundly baffled, many later consulting a dictionary and agreeing that, yes, they had chosen correctly. Their sense of confusion was heightened by the fact that as she approached them they shrank back. They weren’t afraid, or buffeted by some sort of invisible force – their bodies simply took themselves away from her, just in case.

As she performed her funny little march, Effie’s speed increased. The clothing of the crowd flapped in her breeze, and the slighter members felt unsteady on their feet. Round she went, her pace now well above anything one would expect of a lady of her years, but still she displayed no evidence of effort. Those who were able to make out her face noted on it a congenial smile and a pair of determined eyes that sparkled as she sped by.

Bernard stood his ground fiercely, but his tiny army showed signs of instability. They were clearly having to work to stay in position, teetering and tottering as if the ground beneath them rocked. Whilst their bodies were no longer under their control, their faces expressed the confusion that overwhelmed their usually lethargic minds. As one of them fell, the other nine forced their eyes in his direction, the fear within them reaching out to pick him up.

When Effie passed the point at which she became a beige blur, the crowd found itself rooted to the spot. They swayed there, buffeted by Effie’s wind, but not one of them could will a blink or a word.

She shot past them now, emitting a low hum that filled their ears. Some of them thought they could heard her singing softly to herself, but on reflection placed the voice inside their head, the echo of a wrinkled, smiling face leaning over a crib. The onlookers began to sob as they were overwhelmed by feelings they couldn’t remember having but found they knew intimately. Lumps rose in throats as an expansive fear grasped their insides. Vertigo flooded their nerve endings and they did all they could to wrench their heads downwards to check if the world was still beneath their feet.

When a silence billowed out from the centre of the market in a shockless wave, they came back to themselves and the overwhelming shame of adulthood. Some bawled, others fainted. Yet more looked for an excuse to do violence to someone, anyone, just to make it stop.

Once they had located a modicum of composure, they saw before them a motionless vortex, a frozen tornado that rose to puncture the greying clouds. Their clothes no longer billowed and bounced, their hair lay limply in its usual places. Despite the mess scattered around them as a result of Effie’s entrance, the market had never seemed so peaceful, silent as its denizens were, save for the odd hiccup and snotty nose.

A gentle cawing drew eyes upwards to a crow gliding towards the twisted tower. Breaths were held as it drifted closer, minds ran to and fro in excitement. But at the moment the bird was about to pierce the wall of iridescence, they saw it flying in the opposite direction, back over their heads. They did not see it bank or turn, neither did it execute a freestyle swimmer’s forward roll. It did not blip out of sight and reappear as if a piece of software had been rewritten mid-run. It was simply no longer moving in the direction it had been.

An understated teenager – halted by events in her progress from college to cafe, where she would later pore futilely over the Times cryptic crossword with her lecturer – boldly sidled up to the shimmering shaft. She reached out a hand, index finger extended, to touch its glossy surface, and found herself facing a myriad of gawping faces. She turned around slowly and proceeded to wonder with open mouth and watery eyes how she could have missed the petrified whirlwind inches from her face.

The crowd discerned – although they didn’t realise it – a slight rumble, followed by a whoosh and a number of muted cries of surprise, from within the airy edifice. Those that looked up saw nothing at first, then some dark specks flomped through the clouds. As they grew, the specks took on the form of people, and those that had spotted them began shouting and pointing so that more looked upwards. Nobody, however, moved. Even as it became conspicuously clear that Bernard’s small group of supporters was hurtling towards them they stayed where they were, hopeful, perhaps, for a glimpse of a face in the act of plummeting.

But just before they reached the crowd, the fallers saw the soft landing they had hoped for part, leaving only pavement to greet them. Those that were still aware of their predicament – several had drifted off into one memory or another, tea with an aunt or a particularly gratifying sexual encounter, as their character and experience dictated – braced themselves for impact. Only one remembered that this was a bad idea, and tried very hard to relax.

All were quite surprised when their next intuition was of lying on the ground, unharmed, considering shoes. A hush gasped through the crowd. As one, even those on the ground, they looked back at the uncanny column.

Inside, Effie stood facing Bernard. “I don’t know why you try using them,” she twittered. “You know how easily I can puppet their funny little bodies.”

“Naive optimism, Effie,” replied Bernard. “I live with the hope that your authority will one day be a forgotten anomaly, a blip in the history of the universe. Your power will wane Effie, and when it does…”

“Oh, can it Bernard,” she snapped. “You know that’s a load of crap. As long as we’re the ones pushing people out into the world, we’ll be in charge. No matter how far those bloody feminists go!”

“You and your ‘sisters’ are so greedy and selfish you can’t even see what they’re trying to achieve, can you?” scorned Bernard. “They’re forging a role for themselves as makers of the world, not controllers of it. They recognise that we’re all in this together, that we need to cooper…”

“Bollocks Bernard!” screamed Effie. “Complete and utter bollocks! You wouldn’t be saying that if it was you lot with the power – you never have done. We realised the truth, grabbed it by the short and curlies, and now you’re running shit scared. I know what you are, so don’t give me any of your crap.”

Now they were away from the crowd, Effie and Bernard allowed their anger and strength to show. Their faces reddened, their chests rose and fell, and each grew by at least a couple of inches in all directions. At Effie’s last curse, Bernard had opened his mouth to reply, but acknowledged the futility of it and instead fell to glowering at her.

The fact was, he knew he was outmatched. He had faced Effie twice before, and on both occasions the altercation had added at least a hundred years to him. He had hoped that this time a younger, less experienced adversary would come his way, or – stupidly, he knew – none at all. But here he was. He prepared himself.

“I know what you’re thinking Bernard,” squinted Effie with a falsetoothy grin. “I’m afraid it’s not going to be that simple this time.”

“What do you mean, simple?” he cried. “You outdid me both times – and look at me, I’m an old man!”

“Yes, but I also allowed you to you walk away,” she gritted out. “Now I’ve had enough of you. In any case, I’ve got a corn that ain’t half giving me some gip, and my waters are playing up. You picked the wrong day Bernard.”

“But, I didn’t pick anything! I was just on my way to a meeting and…” Bernard trailed off as he heard himself whining, his true age overpowering his better judgement. He knew that even though he hadn’t been on the lookout today, it had been his choice to enter the war in the first place. Everything had been laid out for him clearly and he’d made his decision. He just never thought his end would come at the hands of a little old lady. His underestimation mocked him with a flourish.

Waking from his hesitation, he found Effie’s wisened face an inch from his own. She filled his world. He barely had time to reflect on their comparative heights before he found himself pinned to the glimmering gloss, arms and legs splayed, eyes shut open, his mind trapped in the wonder of how it was going to end.

Keeping her eyes on Bernard, Effie waddled over to the puddle, drinking in the effulgence of the turgid condom. With one hand, the other arm still hooking her handbag, she hitched her skirt and squatted daintily. Bernard shuddered as the backs of her thighs greeted her heels and her undercarriage met the puddle with a tinkling splash.

Effie’s eyes glazed over. Bernard was several feet above her, but he could see her face well enough for a shiver of disgust and awe to meander through his petrified mind.

The air around him began to stagnate with an ancient, reeking filth that stung his eyes and made his teeth itch. Beneath the pounding of his brain he could hear Effie, mumbling dark and unknown words. Something unseen wreathed about him. Every part of his body was telling him he had to leave, needed to go, should run, must hide, but he couldn’t even try to move.

With a breath appropriating whoomph, the grimy air was sucked down, disappearing beneath Effie’s raincoat. Bernard heaved as a heavy, wet schlump reached his ears. He saw Effie rise on strong thighs and look up at him. Her grinning, satisfied face seemed to be only centimetres from his own.

“See you later Bernard,” she laughed. “I’ll be off now. Do be sure to say hello to Timothy for me.”

Bernard, now alone, stared down at the puddle. From his height he saw the condom only as a dirty blot, but its image grew in his mind. He tried not to imagine the form his executioner might take, but couldn’t fight the images of Effie’s children that tramped violently around his memory. He didn’t know what his death would be like but he knew it wouldn’t be pleasant. As if death ever would be, on this side at least. Bernard gripped life with as much tenacity as anybody, and knew he would continue to do so until the last moments, however much pain that was going to bring him in this now very short life.

His stomach convulsed as a geyser of pulpy white flesh burst from the puddle. The dirty veined segments of a giant worm pulsed wetly as they sped past him, feeding his horror. He strained to look down and saw its length gushing from the ground. Up above him it had almost reached the layer of grimy cloud.

Then calm; all he could hear was water and vernix sloshing off the thing before him and hitting the ground in soggy thumps. The worm began to coil itself down into a brawny strobilus, the hunger of a newborn focusing its raging pain on the nearest source of sustenance.

Bernard soiled himself. Most terrifying was the silence of the beast. If it had roared or cried or screamed it would have placed it firmly in the world, an animal ripped into by fear and anger that knew nothing but its own emptiness and desire for satiety. But its voiceless intrusion into the world spoke to Bernard inaccurately of confidence and intention.

The last of its length corkscrewed down and Bernard was faced with the eyeless wrath of this lost creature, a small ribbon of pinkish rubber hanging from one corner of its toothless mouth. The gaping hole served as eyes, nose, ears and tongue as it located Bernard’s energy. It hesitated, drew back, then in a second sucked him up and down inside itself with a muscular squelch.

Quite unsatisfied, the worm pondered its meagre meal. The sensation as Bernard began to leach through it hooked on to its fledgling consciousness, gathering its focus. This is me, it felt. More. With an empty roar it opened its single orifice to the sky and curled itself down tightly, then plummeted up and out into the world.

The crowd in the square hesitated, then wondered. Each looked across the empty clearing into the eyes of the person opposite them and asked mutely, what? They looked around, noting the riotous array of market wares that lay amongst them, trying to remember what they were waiting for. A few reached down nonchalantly to pick up a wet tea towel, cracked pack of blank DVDs or floor flecked joint of meat, stowing it in bag or pocket. Then they went about their days, some passing a perplexed, chinstroking market manager as they went.

Copyright Dan Sumners 2011

The story is an account of being cast away in the Pacific Ocean, relayed by Indian youth Pi Patel to employees of the company whose ocean liner it was that sank, leaving Pi orphaned and living in a lifeboat for seven months with only a Bengal tiger for company. Or so Pi would have us believe.

After listening to his tale, the men express incredulity at its fantastic nature; “we don’t believe your story,” they say, “we would like to know what really happened”. Pi suggests he knows what they want: “You want a story that won’t surprise you. That will confirm what you already know.”

So he tells them another which, whilst more horrific than the first, is pedestrian. It offers an explanation of Pi’s ordeal they can accept, and which helps them understand the more grandiose account.

But when he is finished Pi reminds the men that they cannot prove either story is true, that they must take his word for it. They agree. He then asks, “since it makes no factual difference to you and you can’t prove the question either way, which story do you prefer? Which is the better story?”. When they reply that the first story is better, Pi replies, “Thank you. And so it goes with God.”

The novel’s ‘argument for the existence of god’, if indeed it is one, is contained in this simple exchange. The context for it is the religious life Pi had chosen to lead prior to being shipwrecked.

Much to the dismay of his father, who seems himself “as part of the New India – rich, modern and secular”, Pi embraces religion with a fervour that upsets even its local leaders. As he grows, he learns about the three belief systems available to him locally – Christianity, Hinduism and Islam – and becomes a follower of all three. His motivation, as he explains when confronted, is summed up in the words of Ghandi: “All religions are true,” he quotes. “I just want to love God.”

Pi is therefore, if anything, a believer. He explains that, if Jesus doubted, then we are also permitted to do so, but “we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation”. It is for this reason that “it is not atheists who get stuck in [his] craw, but agnostics”.

I find this somewhat back-to-front; to my mind it is the agnostic who continues to travel, looking for an answer, whereas the believer, having declared the question closed, not only makes no progress, but does not desire it.

Pi’s mistake is to attribute to the agnostic a conclusion he has himself reached; that “you can’t prove the question either way”. He therefore incorrectly assumes the agnostic ‘choose[s] doubt as a philosophy of life’, whereas in fact the agnostic does not have a ‘philosophy’ of life. Rather, they have an approach to life that does not include believing that for which they have no sure evidence.

Pi, like many believers, finds that he cannot live with an unanswered question. His language reveals that he fears he will stagnate, will become ‘immobile’. The same goes for the atheist; they feel the need to make a decision about the most unfathomable of queries.

The agnostic, however, feels no such need. The agnostic sees no imperative to make a choice – they can accept that the question cannot yet be answered. They do not choose doubt, they consider it the only rational course of action. Rather than needing a story to provide them with the strength to move through the world, they seek the best story of all: knowledge.

Pi reveals further evidence of his misunderstanding of agnosticism when he says he can imagine the death bed conversion of the atheist, interpreting the light they see as evidence of god. The agnostic, however, “if he stays true to his reasonable self, if he stays beholden to dry, yeastless factuality, might try to explain the warm light bathing him by saying, ‘Possibly a f-f-failing oxygenation of the b-b-brain,’ and, to the very end, lack imagination and miss the better story”.

Here, he conflates ‘reason’ with ‘reasonableness’. That is, even if an agnostic held their reason to be the fount of all knowledge – and they are in no way beholden to do so by their approach to life – it does not mean they are in any way reasonable. Indeed, in a world dominated by religious believers and atheists, the agnostic appears – and is often charged with being – distinctly unreasonable. Nothing draws exasperation so much as someone who says, calmly, ‘in the case of such an important matter, I simply do not understand how you can make up your mind when the evidence is not conclusive’.

However, in his interchange with the men from the shipping company, Pi betrays the truth; it is not actually agnosticism that frustrates him, as he claims, but atheism, which he purports to prefer.

It is important to remember that the men explicitly profess disbelief, not scepticism. Pi asks them, “if you stumble at believability, what are you living for?” They reply by saying that they are “just being reasonable”, to which Pi responds that if one is “excessively reasonable… you risk throwing the universe out with the bathwater”. This is a clear reference to his earlier comments, purportedly about agnosticism, and another follows swiftly, when he says, “you want dry, yeastless factuality”.

It is the atheist that clings blindly to the evidence of their senses, to the facts at hand, to ‘reasonableness’, not the agnostic. These men refuse to believe the fantastic because it does not fit with their view of the world. An agnostic, however, would rather decline to believe either story. Or even, perhaps, accept that both are, at least in some way, true. That is, the agnostic employs reason to conclude that neither story can be proved at this point in time.

Why is the agnostic so often charged with that which should rather be levelled at the atheist? Perhaps, as is the case with Pi, because the believer sees in the atheist a like mind, someone who needs to believe as much as they do. This is, to the religious believer, a reasonable position, unlike the withholding of judgement which exasperates them so.

This exasperation is something Pi identifies in others but not himself when he criticises people who “take it upon themselves to defend God” with indignation and anger. He says they have failed to realise that “it is on the inside God must be defended, not on the outside”. But their anger and his frustration with agnostics – remember, they ‘stick in his craw’, they annoy him – come from the same place as that anger and indignation; the need to believe.

The argument for the existence of god contained in Life of Pi is successful only in the least interesting of ways, because the  scope of that existence is limited to the mind of the believer. When Pi asks the men which of the two he has told them is the ‘better story’ and says, when they reply that the more fantastical is better, “so it goes with God”, he makes it clear that the only argument he has for god is that he prefers it. He chooses a world with god in it over one without. He does not accuse the agnostic of being wrong, but simply of missing the ‘better story’.

Not only is this not proof of the existence of god as it would usually be understood – as proving that god exists whether or not anyone believes in it – it is inelegant, a mere stating of the position. ‘God exists because I choose to believe it,’ is without finesse, a mere declaration of faith which is, therefore, unassailable.

What is proved elegantly, however, is how god could easily be a fiction conjured by a mind in extremis as a method of survival. In the same way Pi constructs a fantastical journey for himself rather than face the true horror of what has happened to him, human beings, confronted by a savage existence, coupled with the misfortune of possessing a consciousness able to reflect upon it, create for themselves a refuge, an all powerful father figure that loves and protects them.

Or perhaps I’m just being too reasonable.

At a conference on “welfare to work”, I attended a seminar delivered by The Wise Group about their Routes Out of Prison project. They recruit ex-prisoners to be life coaches who work with current inmates before their release. The aim is to help them prepare an action plan for housing, debt, benefits, addiction, training, education and work experience.

The chief executive, Laurie Russell, told us they employ ex-prisoners because they are able to engage with current prisoners in a way that people who haven’t experienced life on the inside can’t. In a very real way, they “talk the talk”, and are living examples that the project works.

Their success rate is 20%, which doesn’t sound very high, but when you compare it to a re-offending rate among ex-prisoners of 70%, it fares well.

The figure that caught the attention of delegates, however, was the cost. The Wise Project costs £2,000 per prisoner, while somebody who is reconvicted costs the state around £80,000.

Russell was accompanied by one of the project’s life coaches. He asked us to imagine a scenario in which we found we were suffering from an illness, and the doctor offered us two solutions: one costs £80,000 and has a success rate of 30%, the other £2,000 with a success rate of 20%. Surely a no-brainer.

But his thought experiment left out an even cheaper option: avoid becoming ill in the first place. It occurred to me that the life coaches don’t only have experience of being in prison, they also know how they ended up there in the first place. So why, I asked, isn’t The Wise Group being funded to work with people who are at risk of offending?

It seems to me that in the same way it’s sensible to eat well and exercise if you don’t want to become ill, we should be investing now in solutions to social problems that will create a stronger society in the future. Of course, there is great work going on up and down the country, but at the same time, for example, the National Council for Voluntary Youth Services (NCVYS) has found that three-quarters of voluntary youth organisations have seen their income drop in the last year.

These are organisations that enable younger people to use their spare time productively, developing new skills and broadening their experience. Surely this is the sector we should be investing in as a country at a time of rising unemployment?

The problem is, governments are simply unable to think long-term, as their sights are clearly set on the next election. But if they really wish to make our society a better place, as they purport to do, they have to think in terms of 50 years rather than five.

The voluntary and community sector is currently engaged in an internal debate, coupled with the inevitable hand-wringing, about where we go next. Funding is falling rapidly, the private sector is expanding its involvement in our traditional territory, and the future is unclear. So I have a suggestion.

It’s time we worked out how to have this conversation with government. We need to galvanise the support of communities and each other, speak with one voice and deliver a clear message: it’s time to stop tinkering. Organisations of all sizes now know it makes sense to put in place a strategic plan for at least five years, and large corporate organisations often look ahead 50 or 100 years. How, then, do we accept our country being run with no plan at all?

Some will respond that every political party publishes a manifesto before a general election. Apart from the fact they are often ignored once a party forms a government, they are not very detailed as plans go, and hardly strategic. In any case, they only last as long as the government does.

What we require is a vision of the society we want and a credible plan to take us there. It must be informed by us all, shaped by experts, based on sound evidence and, wherever possible, tested before it is fully implemented. The role of our elected representatives should be to ensure the machinery of government at all levels sticks to the plan, bringing it to our attention when something isn’t working or the path is strayed from.

Of course, this is not something many politicians want to hear, so we need to work hard to ensure they cannot ignore the message. Not only will it pay off in the long term, but in the short term it might remind people why not-for-profit organisations arose in the first place: to make all our lives better.

I want to open with, ‘I woke up,’ but what do the words ‘woke up’ mean when the utterer who utters them was, at the time, deprived of all information from or about the world? No touch, taste, smell, sight or sound. And no sense even of their own body – no bubbling stomach, flickering heart or grumbling liver.

All I can say is, ‘I know I woke up,’ but as my fingers bring the statement into our shared world the idea fades away as something of nothing. While it stays with me it is indisputable, unquestionable, a fact, simply. Nothing is truer for me than that, at that moment, I woke up. But when I wrench it out into space, when it basks in the light of here, when I offer it to you, it crumbles. Then, now, I understand it as nothing, worthless. Nothing has passed between us.

You may believe me, of course, and I may even hope that you do, but then you may believe many things. It has no bearing on the fact that you will know nothing, will have learnt nothing, understand nothing. And I will be left with doubt and uncertainty for however long it takes my meditations to readmit the unassailability of the knowledge that I did, indeed, wake up.

The accident, however, is verifiable. Apparently it even featured in the event-starved local newspaper, but I must be clear that I only have that on hearsay – I have not seen the edition myself. I’m sure there’s a website you can visit.

In any case, it’s not a particularly interesting story. I was crossing the road, recently purchased slowly cooling baguette in hand, when a car hit me. Its metal met with my flesh and bone at speed. That’s it. There are many gaps to be filled out, and I’m sure you’re already working at that, so I’ll leave you to it. Anything I say on the matter is questionable anyway, as I was too busy being physically assaulted by the barbarism of modernity to gather any reliable information.

The memory of this fleeting intimacy closely followed ‘I am awake’ upon my waking, turning my thoughts to my body. I began to search for pain, and when I found none I was at first pleased. But there is a difference between not feeling pain and not feeling, of which I became rapidly aware. Panic; ‘I am paralysed’. Maybe I was. But, following and rising with panic, recognition of the lack of sound. ‘I am deaf’. Then, ‘I can’t even feel my face. Can my face be paralysed too? But I’m still alive.’ Quickly, ‘Am I dead?’ Then a chuckle. ‘Can you not even hear yourself from the inside when you’re deaf?’ Pause for sensation. ‘Where’s my tongue?’

My thoughts, or thinking, or think – words are so much more confusing now – shifted when I realised that the orangey-black-pinkness of light I usually found within my eyelids was absent. ‘Am I blind too?’ See. As I put this down, the various explanations and possibilities and potentialities and maybes and perhapses pass before and through me like so many fixed grinning garish pole dancing wooden horses. But I was awake! How can I ask you not to take that fact from me when it is my own need for explication and –oration that effects that theft?

I was awake. I was awake, and I could not hear see smell taste or feel. My body existed only as a memory, albeit fantastically crushed. I was pure thought, I thought, and smiled. How can I possibly explain what it’s like to smile without a face?

I’m stuck again. What will I be able to say regarding the between of there and the moment at which I ‘re-entered “the world”’? Surely it will be nothing more than a list of thoughts. I shrink from that as I shrunk to it.

I must avoid references to time, because they would be lies. I think I still experienced linearly, an unfolding of thoughts from one to the next to another to this after that, although at times – now, that is, when ‘time’ has returned in all its prisonistical glory – I cannot be sure everything didn’t happen at the same time, or not at all.

So. All I can do is release my grip on my desire for poetical prose and state it as a surgeon might. I know what it is to be everything and nothing at the same time. To be trapped inside a marble with the weight of the cacophonous world pressing your walls around you. And yet to engulf the world, swallowing up histories and systems and attempts and the insectnificant worlds that wander around on two or four or more leggies. Legs, no?

But it is so dissatisfying; un-? I don’t want to blurt. Which is something else it felt like there, in the-bodyless-place. Blurty. I blurted. I’ve been watching myself since ‘the world came back’ (sung), and I don’t think it was the blurting that was unusual – I blurt all the time. But when there’s only you and the blurting, when there’s no possibility of not blurting, you experience your blurting very differently. Like, a waterfall and an open door. Tumble through [reference]. Then, I experienced myself as a blurter, a blurter for all (time). Now, I don’t see how I cannot blurt, but lament it.

When the world came back, later (now it’s okay), everything worked. Despite bruises, fractures, swelling, I worked. There had been no invasive surgery to release my brain from a haematoma – a teleaural word. Splints and casts and pins and things. But, movement and feeling and odours and bangings. Disgusted morning mouth. An intact spinal cord; per-twang.

To return, as I did and do, I was wrong to say this story is a description. It needed to begin with a description – did I? have I? – but it comes back, as all things do, to the world, to this world, to our sharing. Everything that is shared, I realise, is, as such, of relation to our sharing. But as the keys are stroked substance falls in as something faded and fading yet risen and rising throughout and within me. Nothing has truth; I am speaking with myself as I write this for you, my love.

At first, once I had knitted, I found it difficult to leave the bed. I was taken from it – physiotherapy – and replaced. But as the days passed this place forced itself upon me with an unalarming regularity. I donned a habit, and rejoining you all began to feel reasonable again. Cloaked in conspiracy I pass through it with you once more, pretending not to notice as I weave that the spaces between are more numerous than not. I slide through the world on a sheen of comfortable unbelief, chuckling, plucking out my steps as I choose. As I write.

Only, when I shake back the hood, the weight settles on me again. This world will not go away, so it must. Be. It says. A meal laden with memory and discovering, opening and the closed, wraps me up in itself, in the it-ness of it. No doubt or uncertainty – flesh and sweet and crunch and oaky. Later, alone, accompanied in the dark, surrounded in a reverie, I contemplate that meal and its (m)e)nvirons, and there is but. Words cease to be senseful and ‘I’ drops out of consideration, the first predicate (that then is not).

Rambling? I did warn you. I can assure you that it makes as much sense as our language allows. If you do not understand, that is hardly my fault. Stop reading.

Although, I am concerned that my closest will be, if they comprehend, concerned for themselves. Of course, they may be concerned for me, but I am not concerned, as my behaviour, other than this, is, I can assure you, impeccable (and to you, isn’t it? These are just words), as people go. But I will tell them (you) that you are still very much for me, that I still love and fear and want and relax, even as everything shimmers with a pleasing whiff of unreality. If anything, and there must be, I embrace you more fervently now that we are clasped by possibility, in its true sense. But I do not dangle or hang all on you or me or us or it.

So do not be sad when I say I am resting comfortably in the knowledge of my solitude, for even then we are still together. Do not be afraid when my muttered musings seek a space between our thoughts and you cannot follow me, for we must be together as I wend. And do not be alarmed when I blurt, because then I am more me than I have ever been in this place.

Copyright Dan Sumners 2011

The National Anthem, the first episode of Charlie Brooker’s three part series Black Mirror, has had a generally positive reception. It has been described as “well thought out and superbly written”, “as warped, twisted and brilliant as we’d all hoped it would be“ and “a darkly comic tale”.

It is indeed a well acted, slick production that caused me at turns to laugh, squirm and, indeed, recoil in horror at the mental image that was forced upon me. However, as a piece of social commentary it is based on a narrow view of people as little more than cattle, and as storytelling its flaw is to abandon its coherence in favour of a predetermined conclusion designed to shock.

The story begins with a video ransom note from the kidnapper of Princess Susannah, a young, social media savvy royal for the 21^st Century who is adored by the public. The demand in return for her life is simple: the prime minister must have sexual intercourse with a pig, live on television.

At first, the government attempts to smother the story, but by the time the video is removed from YouTube it has been downloaded and shared by thousands. Whilst the prime minister and his aides are discussing how to react, the story trends on Twitter.

Eventually the UK media, which at first complies with a government issued gagging order, can keep its silence no longer; the story has already broken in the rest of the world. With the official word out, nobody is talking about anything else.

To his relief, the public seems supportive of the prime minister’s reticence – a close aide tells him the “bottom line” is there will be no blood on his hands if the kidnapper follows through on his threat. It seems the policy of not bowing to the demands of a kidnapper will win out.

This is at root an excellently crafted story. It highlights how the balance of power has shifted with the rapid and unchecked dissemination of information via electronic social networks, contrasting this contemporary digital phenomenon with the visceral fear of public sexual humiliation that is a deep seated element of humanity.

However, things begin to go wrong with the tale when a new video is sent to the media, purportedly showing the kidnapper severing one of the princess’ fingers.

Unbeknownst to him, the prime minister’s key aide enlisted the help of a porn star and a digital artist in the hope of tricking the kidnapper if necessary. Once again, a mobile ‘phone and online social networks scupper the plan and its existence is soon well known. The apparent mutilation of the princess is the kidnapper’s warning about following the conditions that were laid out.

The mood changes once the footage is seen across the nation, and it becomes clear that the prime minister is going to have to sacrifice his dignity to save a young woman. Even the Queen is reported to have said she knows he “will do everything in his power” to ensure Susannah’s safe return.

The idea the public would band together to urge such an act is itself questionable, but in what follows Brooker wallows in his negative and cynical opinion of us. That is not to say it wasn’t already apparent: there’s the journalist who gleans information from a young political aide by sending him naked pictures of herself, a prime minister who only cares about his approval ratings, the wife who thinks solely of her own embarrassment, and the ruthless aides who are prepared to do anything to save their political masters and ensure their own careers.

And, of course, there’s the general public. Whilst some early vox pops express disgust at the demand that has been made, there is online glee at the idea the prime minister may have to “fuck a pig”. Tweets and comments suggest many can only consider the prospect in the abstract, unable to take account of the human emotions involved.

To this end, we are treated to clichéd shots of the prime minister’s wife, alone and crying as she reads what people are saying about her and her husband. In Brooker’s world, even she cannot draw her eyes from the screen.

So up to this point his picture is generally believable, but during the climax of the story he takes his – self declared – misanthropy to new heights. Despite an announcement urging citizens not to watch what is about to come, followed by several seconds of an ear piercing tone, the people, gathered in pubs and workplaces, eagerly consume the humiliation of their leader. Shots of deserted London streets suggest all eyes are on a screen somewhere, transfixed by this latest of novelties.

Yes, we are shown expressions of disgust on the faces of some, yet they keep watching. For how long is revealed by one hospital worker, who suggests they should turn the television off because “it’s been on for an hour” (one stipulation of the demand was that the act had to be seen through to its “natural end”).

This is, simply, ridiculous. The majority of people would not watch such a thing for anything like that length of time, and I don’t think Brooker believes they would either. Many wouldn’t countenance it at all, others would last only minutes. If it were true that most of us could stomach such a spectacle, then this fictional account would not be described, as it has been, as dark and unsettling.

Further, it is suggested, and is central to the ‘twist’, that the entirety of the security services is also switched on to the sight. It turns out the released princess was caught on CCTV half an hour before the act was scheduled to take place, yet nobody saw her. In order to make his point, Brooker asks us to believe that at a time of national panic all vigilance might cease.

This lazy writing simply doesn’t ring true. It’s also disappointing, because Brooker could have made his point without such a sledgehammer approach. We would have ‘got it’ anyway, because we are just not as stupid as he seems to think we are (the point is even explicitly made by a political aide, in case we missed it).

Some might argue it is I that have missed the point, that The National Anthem is a fictional parable, a warning about what might be. But this is not how he sets up the story. It is clearly social commentary and set in a very real United Kingdom.

Furthermore, a cautionary tale has to be rooted in what is, and what Brooker presents us with is not an account of people as they are, but as he ultimately sees them: disgusting, lazy and naive. All nuance is then lost in pursuit of shocking television, an example of the gratuity he so often disdains.

Our society is made up of innumerable communities, groups, networks, loose gatherings and, most importantly, individuals. Once in a herd it is true we can act like animals with a less developed self consciousness, but such a mentality never extends to the whole. To suggest nobody would be on the streets in protest, that nobody would refuse to watch such a gruesome spectacle, that there wouldn’t be heated argument across the country, does us a great disservice.

It’s interesting to note that the only person not shown in a negative light is the princess. One privileged by nothing more than the fact of birth, she appears as a shining symbol of tradition amidst the technology of a thoroughly modern world. A beautiful victim of a deranged mind, it is the support of her adoring subjects that is meant to ensure her safety (but which, along with the fact they are ultimately ignorant and unthinking, is in fact used to force the hand, and pelvis, of the prime minister).

Brooker, it seems, may be more susceptible to the reactionary arguments of the elite than he realises. Does he fear, like opponents of the printing press, that technological progress is in essence a danger that will cede power to the baying mob? Does he yearn for a return to the paternalism of a monarchic state, to the simplicity of the ruler/ruled relationship, in an effort to assuage his own existential anxiety?

Brooker has said the title of the series, Black Mirror, refers to a computer, television or other screen in its dormant state. Before I saw The National Anthem I imagined it might also serve as a reference to the series itself, which might seek to show us the darker side of our nature. Now, I think it makes more sense as a reference to us, the people. Unable to accept the darkness he finds within himself, and which is the cause of his misanthropy,  Brooker projects it onto us, then recoils from what he sees.

When the Prime Minister, David Cameron, unveiled the Public Services White Paper in July, he said it was about “ending the old big-government, top-down way of running public services, releasing the grip of state control and putting power in people’s hands”. He promised “more freedom, more choice and more local control”.

One of the key elements of the plan is allowing private companies and not-for-profit groups to bid to run health services, schools, libraries and more. This will be facilitated through mechanisms such as the ‘right to challenge’ and ‘the right to buy’, introduced in the Localism Act.

I want to put the topic of commissioning and whether or not there is a ‘level playing field’ to one side and instead shine a light on the concept of ‘choice’ in public services and the role of the not-for-profit sector in making it a reality.

Before the formation of the welfare state in the 1940s, voluntary groups and associations, with some statutory support, did what they could to meet the needs of society. However, in ‘The voluntary tradition: philanthropy and self-help in Britain 1500-1945′, Dr Justin Davis Smith recounts how the voluntary sector at the end of the 19th century found itself simply unable to meet the scale of need in, for example, social housing, despite the efforts of the Peabody Trust and others. When the calls for increased state action began, the voices of many of the leaders of the voluntary movement were the loudest.

Just a century later, it is questionable whether enough has changed in society to make a reversal of this development either warranted or sensible. It is true that fewer people live in poverty, but there is still a need for social housing, health services and education that all can access.

What is different today is the extent to which market theory dominates, with all three main political parties believing that, in most cases, competition will lead to better outcomes. Whatever the product, they say, maximising choice will drive quality up and cost down.

Whilst this may make sense in terms of consumables – although I’ve never understood why we need so many varieties of bathroom tissue or breakfast cereal – I am not sure it does in terms of things like health and education. Politicians of all stripes have said that every parent deserves the choice to send their child to a good school, but I have yet to meet anyone who would choose to send theirs to a bad one. Similarly, if you are ill you do not want the choice to be treated at a good hospital, you just want the best treatment available.

The response to this is that only competition leads to innovation and rising standards, because organisations competing in the same arena for profit will try to best their competitors. But, other than the fact that doctors, scientists and engineers who are paid by the sate seem quite innovative to me, there is no guarantee that this will happen. For example, The National Council for Voluntary Organisations’ 2010 Civil Society Almanac shows that in England in 2008, 87 per cent of voluntary sector adult care homes and agencies in England met the National Minimum Standards, compared to 84 per cent in the public sector and 82 per cent in the private sector.

Whilst there’s not much difference between those figures, it still puts paid to the myth that competition for profit drives up standards. The fact is, the charitable sector has time and again proved that it is able to efficiently deliver high quality services.

But what we are witnessing is not-for-profit organisations being urged to become more like businesses. The growth in ‘social enterprises’ is a particular example of this, with some seeming to believe simply involving them is a recipe for success.

This completely ignores the fact that such organisations have existed for decades. What people don’t understand is that there is no legal entity called a ‘social enterprise’; it is simply a catch-all term for organisations that trade and then invest their profits, allegedly, to the benefit of the community. Indeed, in September last year the Third Sector Research Centre found that the term was used to refer to a wide range of organisations, from businesses with a social aim to charities that trade.

In addition, when you look at the business models of some of these organisations, it’s hard to tell the difference between how they and traditional, state funded not-for-profits operate. I recently attended a presentation by a ‘business’ that brought together further education colleges, companies and unemployed people in order to provide the latter with the skills to do the jobs the companies needed doing. The representatives were effusive about their ‘business model’ and enterprising nature. When I asked what this model was, and how much the private sector paid for the service, I was told that all their income came from the colleges – in other words, the state.

The fact is, the market will not work in certain areas because it is impossible to turn a profit on those services. There is simply the appearance of a market, but behind it is public money.

The reason the state and voluntary groups deliver these services is exactly because they are not profitable, so if the state doesn’t, and stops funding voluntary groups, then who will pay? The commercial sector will provide those services that can be made profitable and not those that aren’t, the ones usually accessed by the most marginalised in society. And where it does provide services they will cut overheads as much as possible, so private care homes will turn a profit but use volunteers to ensure the residents receive a proper level of care.

The voluntary sector may say that it is only going to provide services that it can transform for the better or that cover its core costs, but what will it do when it finds people in need? Leave them as they are, or to the vagaries of the market? If that were so, the voluntary sector wouldn’t have arisen in the first place. Where need exists, someone will try and meet it. So we can make all the pronouncements we want, but on the ground people will continue to do as they always have done.

Even before Descartes doubted the veracity of his senses and stated his famous formulation, ‘I think therefore I am’, philosophers have debated the logic of scepticism about the nature of the world. Sceptics themselves maintain that one cannot be sure that anything exists outside of one’s mind. Pragmatists have argued there is no good reason to doubt one’s senses. Deists may hold that a creator would not deceive. Idealists believe there is nothing but mind. Within these schools of thought there are variations – some subtle and others less so – and of course there are more besides.

Whichever way one chooses to respond to it, the fact remains that there is a gap between what I want to say I know and the evidence I have for it. My knowledge of an objective world could only ever be based on representations – sight, sound, smell, touch and taste – and as long as I remain locked in this subjective world I cannot be completely sure that they provide me with a true picture of the world as it is in itself. However improbable one might consider it to be, it is not impossible that I am mistaken.

In everyday life, though, I act as if these representations do indeed provide me with such knowledge. This is due to the fact that the same world continually presents itself to me, which  is why some argue I have no good reason to believe the picture may be a false one. Indeed, even if I were to choose to hold such a belief, my experience of the world would not change, so why make such a choice? The reasonable thing to do, the argument goes, is place trust in that which I have no good reason to doubt.

Philosophy, however, seeks to explore the assumptions upon which everyday life rests. Where science seeks to explain the world, the philosophy of science questions the way in which it seeks to do so. Politics is the process by which groups of people make decisions, but political philosophy explores the efficacy and desirability of various potential processes. Religious leaders promote moral codes, and ethical philosophers debate their bases.

It is therefore legitimate for philosophers to work with a stronger conception of knowledge – such, as, after Descartes’ thought experiment, that it is inconceivable that I could be mistaken – and continue to question the veracity of information provided by the senses even when, in practical terms, it may seem nonsensical to do so. However, once the existence of the gap has been demonstrated, it does not make sense to dwell on that single point. Either the discussion must end, or continue on a tangent.

2

One of the big problems of philosophy of mind is how I come to believe that other minds – or ‘people’ – exist. This is difficult enough to explain if I assume the existence of an external world, but if I accept the possibility that I may be mistaken on that count I have even less to go on. In the former case, the problem is whether or not I can be sure that the behaviour of another human being is evidence that they have a subjective existence in the way that I do. In the latter, I can’t even be sure that what I perceive is anything more than the representation of a human being and its behaviour, behind which there may not be a corresponding physical entity. I must therefore begin elsewhere, and my understanding and application of the term ‘person’ seems a valid starting point.

Generally, I use it as another word for ‘human being’. Indeed, the Oxford Dictionary’s first entry under ‘person’ is “an individual human being”[1]. That can’t be the full answer though, because I can imagine meeting, for example, a being from another planet that, although it looked nothing like a human, I would be happy to refer to as a ‘person’ if it met some set of criteria.

So, the next question is, can I list those criteria or say what constitutes a correct or incorrect attribution of ‘personhood’ – “the quality or condition of being an individual person”[2] – to a particular being? If I did meet an extraterrestrial, could I settle a disagreement with another human about whether or not it was a person? Could I explain to the extraterrestrial why a human being is a person but a dog isn’t?

Some have attempted to define ‘person’, suggesting, for example, that it should only be applied to beings that exercise a certain amount of control over their actions[3]. This can have the unpalatable effect, however, of excluding such human beings as addicts, children and those with certain mental illnesses or brain damage from the category ‘person’. It will take a stronger philosopher than me to tell the parent of a child with significant brain damage that their child isn’t a person.

Indeed, it seems the term is not easily, or perhaps at all, reducible to a set of qualities or attributes. Whatever list of elements one put forward, someone else could make a good case for adding or removing something.

3

So if I don’t refer to a set of defined criteria when I wish to apply the term ‘person’, how do I decide to use it? I note that on occasion I refer to an animal other than a human as acting ‘like a person’ and a human being as acting ‘like an animal’.

Perhaps the answer, then, lies in behaviour, meaning I attribute ‘personhood’ only to beings that act in certain ways. However, I can imagine a case in which a robot resembling a human being was provided with enough information to enable it to make appropriate responses to my utterances or behaviour so that I would believe it was a human being[4].  Once the truth had been revealed about this automaton, however, I would be less happy, if at all, to call it a person.

So there must be something more than just behaviour to ‘personhood’, but behaviour is all I have to go on – behaviour which leads me to infer that the existence of the being exhibiting it is qualitatively similar to mine.

However, I do not interact with or think of other people as if they might have a life like mine, as I should be bound to by inference. I consider them to have a life like mine. I believe that they experience emotions, desires, pains – indeed, beliefs – in the same way that I do.

On an everyday conception of the world, this is perhaps uninteresting. But the fact is, returning to the subjective nature of my experience, I can indeed only infer that another being experiences the world as I do. Why, then, am I adamant that they do, even in a philosophical context when I am working with the stronger conception of knowledge?

For example, scientists will not deny that even a theory for which there is much evidence, and none against, and on which they build their picture of the world, might one day be shown to be flawed. But when it comes to other people having a life like mine, I simply abhor the suggestion that I might be mistaken.

The answer, I suggest, may lie in the emotional nature of my reaction. Perhaps, at an unconscious level, I am aware of the chasm that exists between what I believe I know about the world outside myself, including the existence of other subjects, and what I actually know about it. That I know, in the final analysis, I am little better than alone. Not only in terms of other people, but the entire material world.

In order for me to continue living in any productive way, however, this cannot be allowed. Such a profound metaphysical vertigo would engulf me, making it impossible to live successfully, perhaps leading to anomie or some other pathology, such as the postulated ‘solipsism syndrome’. To avoid such consequences, I must somehow prove to myself that I do indeed exist as a physical being, along with other subjects and everything I perceive.

How might I do this? Is there an experiment I could conduct? But this goes to the heart of the problem of the subjective nature of my existence. Any experiment would itself be a representation. There is nothing I can do within the world of representation that could prove or disprove its truth or falsity.

Therefore, I can see no way to proceed other than by searching my experience for something I consider to be concrete – a hook on which to hang the world – that will enable me to conduct a sleight of hand. First, I search for something that resembles my experience. But I cannot directly perceive another subject, will not find one in the world of my experience, so I move on to the next best thing.

I perceive myself first as existing (me) and second as existing as a human being (my body), so it is only a short step to attributing subjectivity to the other human beings that I perceive. But as I have no knowledge of another human being’s existence as a subject, only as a representation, I must ‘put something into’ the representation myself. That ‘something’ I call ‘personhood’, or, ‘to exist as I do’. It is a fully subjective concept extrapolated from my own experience.

Now this, I know, is not a new idea. Developmental psychologists commonly believe that infants are solipsist, believing only they have subjective existence, but eventually inferring that others have experiences like theirs and so reject solipsism.

However, if they begin as solipsist, it follows that they also do not believe in the existence of material objects other than as representations. Solipsism does not only apply to other minds – it applies to everything.

It could again be argued that this is unremarkable and that, as they infer the existence of other minds, so infants come to infer the existence of material objects, eventually understanding that objects continue to exist when unperceived. What puzzles me, however, is the strength of feeling I have come to attach to that inference. As I said earlier, I simply abhor the suggestion that I might be mistaken in my belief that other human beings experience the world that I do. And, strangely, it seems that this is the case even more so for physical objects. For example, there are various commonly understood psychological states – such as some forms of psychopathy, narcissism and autism – in which the individual lacks a full concept of or appreciation for others existing as they do, but not in which physical things do not exist for them.

I therefore suggest that, as my first concern is to ensure my own existence in a world of others, that ‘personhood’ contains material, as well as subjective, existence as a necessity. It acts as a bridge, enabling me to tentatively leave my subjectivity and traverse the chasm that separates me from the ‘material’ world.

This process also explains why I attribute personhood to those human beings – such as children and those with certain mental illnesses or brain damage – that do not exhibit the behaviour I do. It is because my sleight of hand relies not on the nature of another’s subjectivity – to which I have no access – but on the subjective representation of them as a human being. If I were to exclude some human beings from the category ‘person’ on the basis of the perceived nature of their subjectivity, inferred from their behaviour, the process would fail.

4

The unconscious knowledge and the need to efface it that I have posited may also account for the almost hysterical and generally unphilosophical reactions of many thinkers to scepticism.  For example, Bertrand Russell has said that to doubt “the particular facts of sense” would be “pathological” and that “absolute scepticism” is “unreasonable”. GK Chesterton concurs that “fundamental scepticism, where it is fully believed, is a patho­logical condi­tion and calls for inter­vention and help of the psy­chia­tric kind”.

What interests me most about these claims is not whether or not they are true, but the way in which they are made. Terms such as ‘unreasonable’ and ’pathological’ are clearly loaded. There is also the smugness with which ‘refutations’ of the sceptic are put forward, such as Moore’s famous ‘common sense’ argument that he can prove two hands exist simply by holding up his hands and saying “here is one hand, and here is another”.

If the sceptic is so misguided, why have so many eminent philosophers spent so much time debating their claims? Why do there continue to be so many books that include the word in their title? Perhaps it is further evidence of the unconscious need to believe the material world exists, of an almost instinctual railing against what one doesn’t want to hear, like a child kicking and screaming when they are denied their wants.

Consider this quote from George Bernard Shaw: “I can’t stand people who will not believe anything because it might be false nor deny any­thing because it might be true” (my emphasis). It is not that he disagrees with or can refute the sceptic, but that he does not want to be subjected to them. That may be a reasonable sentiment for a writer, but is it acceptable in a philosopher?

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This theory could be criticised for requiring the unconscious mechanism, which raises questions about the singularity of the subject or self. In addition, I am not prepared to admit the possibility of self deception as it is counterproductive – the more one attempts to deceive oneself the more one affirms that about which one wishes to be deceived. However, it is not necessary for the definition of self to stipulate that it must be aware of all its activity. Even if the unconscious is, rather than a simple mechanism, a ‘sub-self’, it is still no less a part of that self, however unpalatable one might find the idea.

The central criticism, however, is that I am positing something that is unfalsifiable, precisely because the whole process is unconscious. However, Karl Popper, who made the concept of falsification popular, argued that psychoanalysis is unfalsifiable, but this has not stopped it from gaining currency. There is still room in philosophy for phenomenological as well as positivist approaches, and, to repeat, my knowledge of the world is wholly subjective. I cannot and do not question that I perceive the representations that I do, but everything else is inferred.

Further, I have no objection to admitting that my theory is just that – speculation – and therefore do not see it as a criticism if someone points it out. It is a hypothesis that requires further exploration. Therefore, the charge that, if it were the case, developmental psychologists or psychiatrists would already have recognised and classified the anxiety that I have posited, does not hold either. If it as deep seated, as primary, as I suggest, the unconscious would be more adept at repressing it than anything else. That does not mean, however, that it will never be uncovered.

A final charge I can imagine is of unoriginality, and I must concede that this may indeed be the case. My philosophical education has consisted mainly of epistemology and metaphysics in the Western tradition, with smatterings of Eastern thought, and some consideration of psychoanalysis and scientific method. When it comes to phenomenology, I am woefully unread. But then again, which of us can be sure we have ever had an original thought? What I can deny, however, is plagiarism, and if I happen to be in the company of other thinkers, which I am sure I am, I shall be grateful to be informed of it.

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In conclusion, therefore, I suggest that the concept of personhood may be the method by which the isolated subject ends its metaphysical solitude. It extrapolates from its own experience in order to endow its perceptions with a firmity that they, in the final analysis, do not warrant, and thereby mitigate the deep seated anxiety that results from its unconscious knowledge of the limit of empiricism.

You can discuss this in the Philosophy Forums.

There is nothing more I want to do at this moment than share this extract from his BAFTA screenwriter lecture earlier this year.

“As I move through time things change. I change, the world changes, the way the world sees me changes. I age, I fail, I succeed, I am lost.  I have a moment of calm. The remnants of who I have been, however, hover, embarrass me, depress me, make me wistful, the inkling of who I will be depresses me, makes me hopeful, scares me, embarrasses me. And here I stand at this crossroads, always embarrassed, wistful, depressed, angry, longing, looking back, looking forward.

“I may make a decision and move from that crossroads at which point I find myself instantly at another crossroads. Therefore there is only movement. A screenplay is movement. It is written in time and expresses a passage of time. It is made in time, and it is viewed in time. It’s a movie, it moves. ‘That’s two hours I’ll never get back,’ is a favourite thing for an angry person to say about a movie he hates.

“But the thing is, every two hours are two hours he’ll never get back. You cannot hoard your two hourses (sic). So you are here, and I am here, spending our time as we must, it must be spent. I am trying not to spend this time, as I spend most of my time, trying to get you to like me. Trying to control your thoughts, to use my voodoo at the speed of light, the speed of sound, at the speed of thought. Trying to convince you that your two hours with me are not going to be resented afterwards.

“It is an ancient pattern of time usage for me, and I’m trying to move deeper, hoping to be helpful. This pattern of time usage paints over an ancient wound, and paints it with bright colours. It’s a sleight of hand, a distraction, so to attempt to change the pattern let me expose the wound. I now step into this area blindly, I do not know what the wound is, I do know that it is old, I do know that it is a hole in my being.  I do know it is tender. I do believe that it is unknowable, or at least inarticulable.

“I do believe you have a wound too, I do believe it is both specific to you and common to everyone. I do believe it is the thing about you that must be hidden and protected, it is the thing that must be tap danced over five shows a day, it is the thing that  won’t be interesting to other people if revealed. It is the thing that makes you weak and pathetic, it is the thing that truly, truly, truly makes loving you impossible. It is your secret, even from yourself.  But it is the thing that wants to live.”

You can read the full transcript at close-upfilm.com.

The writing? Oh, not bad. Slowly, but coming along. Third chapter’s almost complete. How’s the play doing? Oh, that’s a shame, I am sorry. Perhaps Broadway, then? Oh, I know, but needs must.

Look, I’m glad I caught you, I was going to call. I could do with some help. No, with the day job. That’s what everyone says! I have kept it quiet, but I can tell you now, if you have ten minutes? Wonderful. Let’s see, is this, yes, it’s open, let’s go in here. Well, I know I can count on your discretion, but this is particularly sensitive, I can’t chance anyone overhearing, you know what these places are like!

Right; do you remember, about ten years ago, I kept telling everyone about a wonderful character I’d found, but he didn’t have a story? Yes, I did didn’t I! Well, he kept growing, but only as a character. There was simply nothing for him to do. He had some amazing ideas, amazing and disturbing ideas. Simply scathing about people: kept going on about the serenity of the slave, comfort of the condemned and such.

Still, no story came, it was all bloody philosophy, but I couldn’t shake him. Then, about a year later, I met this producer – sorry, I can’t name names. I don’t remember why, but I started telling her about this guy. She became quite excited by what he had to say, and the next thing I know she offered to buy him. I didn’t understand at first, explained I had no story. But then she wrote a figure down on a napkin – I know – and, well, I just couldn’t say no.

Since then, I’ve been feeding her this character, and the success! His success! It’s unbelievable. What? Well, that’s the thing – you have. Everybody has! What was once the preserve of holiday camps and village halls now has everyone glued to those bloody boxes every Saturday night.

Yes! No, really, I’m telling you the truth! On Sandy’s life, yes! It makes sense though, doesn’t it? You’re not the first to have said so, but don’t feel stupid, it’s virtually flawless.

The thing is, there’s no room for anything else now, is there? The guilt’s killing me. And, I don’t mean to be rude, but he was right about people. I can’t stand to look at them anymore. I need to end it. So I thought of you, what with your experience. I know she didn’t go quietly, but you did lever her off ITV after 17 years. How did you do it?