Facades, interpretations and sparks

Following the great response obtained from the last two posts and meditating about the comments receives, as well as other details of life in general, not for the first time, I started thinking about the interpretation of words, the intentions of the expression and the usually unnecessary defences that people offer, making the already arduous task of understanding each other even harder.

As an example I present you with an imaginary though plausible situation: we are in a public place, a street, for example, and we see a man jumping on another to beat him furiously and relentlessly. Our first reaction will normally be to rescue the victim from his beating. We interpreted the attacker must be evil and therefore the victim represents the good we must defend.

Continuing with the imaginary situation, once separated, we question both about their reasons for the attack and we find out the "victim" had previously caused some harm to the attacker in a situation previously unknown to us. Assuming we believe it, the roles of both characters has suddenly become not so clear.

If a change in interpretation can happen in such a black and white image (henceforth B/W since I will be using it repeatedly) one must stop to think, how many grey situations in our life do we interpret correctly? After all, life is never B/W (we wish!), the ying-yang is actually a circle of chromatic variance between black and white, the good has its dark side and the evil has its goodness.

I am specially concerned in that sense with concepts such as "justice" and politics. Something like Law which should be B/W and provide the moral grounds on which to base our decisions (after all it IS written in white paper with black ink, how much more B/W can it get??) still requires an external agent to interpret it on the basis of the situation being evaluated (judged) and prior similar situations (jurisprudence). So, if the rules society demands of its members is something so dependant on interpretation... Imagine what happens with unwritten rules...

I am currently reading a book which contains many of these moral philosophical dilemmas, "Xenocide", the third book in the saga of Ender, by Orson Scott Card. I recommend it, if you want to swim in the philosophical moral waters.

All this, also, comes from the interpretation of the renowned sheep's pen in yesterday's post. Although my intention was, indeed, to expose a metaphor about escaping the rules set by society, the actual field on which I had the intention to refer to was not quite as broad and generic as it was later interpreted in the comments, but something much closer and personal: couple's relationships (there, now go and give the subject another twist see what comes out... just don't be frightened by what you find out...). However, since I wrote the whole thing from behind a facade of metaphors and partial meanings (after all I do have a patched-up little heart to protect), each one read, interpreted and understood something different.

Even though, people sidestepped part of that self-imposed facade to expose themselves; some remaining in semi-anonymity, others sprinkling their sincerity with drops of humour.

Yes, us boys we tend to build elaborate facades to protect ourselves. Society has taught us repeatedly that boys don't cry, when in fact, of course they do. Even though sometimes tears don't flow, we cry. Other traditions erect the female side as the sensitive side and the male side as the cold analytical calculating side of consciousness. They are, after all, part of the same ancestral teachings. Adults do not engage in banalities as there are more important issues to address (false). You have to be strong (why?!?). No Christian uses a preservative (hehehehe... sorry, I digress).

Returning to the subject of interpretations, as I was saying, another concept that worries me is politics. If interpreting mucho more open, known and "simpler" situations is already hard, I cannot help questioning how much I do not know, I do not understand and therefore I misinterpret in the field of politics. Due to my political ideas I've often been classed as left-winged (yeah, sorry ;-) ). However, the fact that people side with one or the other with very little information is something I find disturbing.

Think of your own job, the amount of knowledge you have of it, every small detail. Now imagine someone from your own environment (obviously not in the same job) who, without previous training, has to sit at your workplace and do your job. What degree of success would that person have? Even the substitution of someone in a chain of manufacture could have disastrous consequences. Why? Precisely because of the small details we know by heart of our own jobs.

How, then, can we possibly argue, judge and make decisions on the field of politics? We have a minute percentage of the information on these people's jobs. Just whatever we get from the media. How many of you actually contrast information from varied sources? I naturally mean not only reading from this or that paper, but also reading state reports, public accounts, registries, socio-economical studies and other publicly available documentation which politicians are required to publicise. Only knowing this much information could we consider ourselves capable of voting one or other party.

May, as an example, serve the following news-flash (not political) I heard this morning on the TV news. In a brawl between gipsies, a pregnant woman was shot, though thankfully with no grave consequences, in the small back. Several times they referred to this by saying the woman was shot (actually, the interpretation is lost in translation, sorry) rather than the fact that she received a stray bullet or was caught in the crossfire. Why? Because a pregnant woman being shot is naturally much more scandalous than the alternative; although the way they conveyed it is not true it was said in such an ambiguous way as to not be a lie, either.

In the end, the truth is not on the eye of the beholder since the poor guy is subject to his own interpretations and exposed to the facades of the actors involved.