In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts

Going back over some familiar ground here -- this is the third of Gabor Maté's books I've read, and I've come to greatly respect his insights. In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts deals specifically with addiction. Maté has worked for many years among drug addicts in one of Canada's most deprived urban areas; he also (somewhat controversially) counts himself as an addict, though his personal addiction is not to a legal or illegal drug, but rather to overwork and to the compulsive purchase of classical music CDs.

There is some overlap between this book and Maté's previous work on ADHD -- many addicts are trying to soothe their restless minds with the help of illicit substances (as well as traditional drugs like alcohol and nicotine) -- but his central point is that all addicts are fundamentally seeking to calm minds disordered by trauma. Sometimes this trauma might be inter-generational oppression, or childhood sexual abuse, but it might be a deep inner disconnection caused by loving but distracted parenting -- anything that prevented the parent from closely bonding with their infant. Maté admits that he himself has often been a less than perfect parent, and that though his own parents were loving, he was born into the profound misery and dislocation of war, and was fostered out as a baby for his own safety.

The most moving sections of this long and scholarly book are the personal stories of the addicts with whom Maté has worked. Often difficult to deal with, unreliable, violent and bitter, Maté brings us close to their pain and their longing for connection. Maté's work makes a mockery of the simplistic solutions often proposed for dealing with drug addiction, or indeed for troubled youth or dispossessed minorities, or any number of 'problem' populations. Maté's compassion and reflection should be essential reading.
 

Stolen Focus

Johann Hari is an extremely readable writer. Coming from a background in journalism, that's not really surprising. I don't always agree with everything he says, but when he claims that the world is suffering from a global crisis of attention, it's hard to argue.

In Stolen Focus, Hari doesn't just blame screens and social media for our inability to focus; poor diet and pollution also play a role, along with general exhaustion and poor sleep. He also points out that it's not just personal weakness that makes us vulnerable to eternal scrolling and constant phone-checking; these technologies are being specifically designed to be addictive. I think Hari is being optimistic in calling for an end to 'surveillance captialism.' There is just too much money tied up in advertising, and though he admits that any solution will rely on government regulation, I honestly can't see that happening either, which is a bit depressing.

Hari also takes a couple of chapters to reflect on the way we are robbing our children of the chance for mind-wandering (my own childhood was basically reading and mind-wandering), by scheduling every minute of activity and removing free play from our education systems. As far as I know, things haven't gone quite so far here in Australia as they have in the US and UK, but we are certainly heading down the same road with a focus on competitive testing and a move away from unsupervised play.

Stolen Focus is a sobering read, but I was relieved to note that I'm already following a lot of Hari's advice. I make a lot of time for reading (books!), I don't spend much time mired in social media, I strive to achieve a 'flow state' while I'm working, I let my mind wander. But as he points out, individual efforts aren't enough to solve this social crisis, in a time when we need more deep thinking and imaginative solutions than ever before. I'm afraid it might be too late to go back.

So You've Been Publicly Shamed

Six years after its first publication, Jon Ronson's So You've Been Publicly Shamed remains an important book. Ronson was moved to write about the phenomenon of Twitter pile-ons, like that faced by Justine Sacco, who made a joke in very poor taste about AIDS and Africa before boarding a plane, only to turn on her phone on arrival and discover that she was the world's most hated woman and that she'd lost her job. Years later she was still suffering the fallout from a thoughtless, stupid (and yes, offensive) tweet. Is shame something that we feel, or something that others can impose on us? What about when that shame is disproportionate to the offence? 

Generally I'm not one for joining in pile-ons, though I'm pretty sure I may have added my pebble to the heap a couple of times (though probably only for Donald Trump, who seems to be essentially unshameable). As Ronson points out, the reason why 'public shaming' was abandoned as a legal punishment (think being put in stocks) not because it was ineffective, but because it was too cruel.

Ronson interviews many people on both sides of the shaming divide, including a psychologist who believes that all violence stems from an experience of shame or humiliation. That gave me pause for thought. Ronson didn't link this idea specifically with domestic violence, but it certainly chimed with what Jess Hill said in Look What You Made Me Do. 

Weird link alert: I'm also reading The Mitford Murders, a novel by Jessica Fellowes featuring the Mitford family, and one of Ronson's interviewees happened to be Max Mosley, son of Diana Mitford, who was subject to an attempted shaming over a 'Nazi sex dungeon' -- oddly enough, the shaming didn't work and he continued his life with almost no consequences.* Ronson initially wonders whether this was because Mosley himself refused to feel ashamed, but later decides it was because of the nature of the scandal -- no one cares about consensual adult sexual activities these days, however kinky. Racism, sexism, trans- and homophobia, will however, bring down the full weight of public judgment.

So You've Been Publicly Shamed is full of interesting and pertinent ideas in a world where social media has claimed the power of the mob. It's also highly readable, funny and sometimes sad.

*Edited to add: I didn't realise when I wrote this post that Max Mosley had recently died. Another coincidence.

Watching the English

 

Published in 2004, anthropologist Kate Fox's tongue in cheek book, Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour was an entertaining and enlightening read. My father is English, so I'm not sure if some of these 'rules' were passed to me genetically or through upbringing, but a lot of this book rang very true. I think some of these social rules have been transmitted to Australian society, but other aspects seem to apply specifically to the English (as distinct from the Scots, Welsh etc). 

Fox theorises that much of what she terms the English 'social dis-ease' (her central defining characteristic of the English) derives from living on a crowded island. An obsession with privacy, rigid rules of fairness and courtesy (an overuse of please, thank you and sorry; a notorious obsession with queueing), a preference for understatement and modesty, all might plausibly spring from a need to protect oneself from the proximity of others. (Indeed, Fox sees interesting parallels with Japanese society, also a crowded island.)

This is something that probably hasn't travelled to Australia -- with plenty of room to spread out, Australians can afford to be more friendly (not a universal rule, I am well aware, and one mostly applied to 'people like us.') But an emphasis on humour, which Fox sees as a distinctively English way of being in the world, I think has travelled down under -- self mockery, taking the piss, irony, wordplay, all seem just as characteristically Australian as characteristically English.

Some aspects seem more uniquely English, such as a preoccupation with class markers (not defined by money or occupation, but by language, taste and attitudes), and a tendency to 'Eeyorishness' (as indicated by the phrases 'Typical!' and 'Should have known...'). But the typically English social awkwardness and discomfort with expressing emotions publicly, certainly seems to have been passed down through my family. Typical. Should have known.