In The Eyes of Others

April 24 2019

The clothes make the man

only if you are

what others think you are.

How shallow is that,

to depend on the judgment of others?

But when I consider the opposite,

that I exist as a singularity

the sovereign individual,

I begin to feel unmoored.

As if unseen

the impervious boundary of skin

that keeps them out, and keeps me in

had become insubstantial,

and my sense of place

unsure.

The anomie

of the solipsistic self

is like the lost astronaut, whose tether's been cut;

tumbling through space

in his stiff pneumatic suit,

visor fogging over

air running out,

his atoms set to boil off

into the cold black void.

At least if one believes

we exist in relationship,

and that only in the eyes of others

do we find ourselves.

Because who doesn't need

to be needed and loved?

Or doesn't want to believe

one is indispensable?

So there is something to be said

for appearances,

for how we present ourselves

and how we are seen.

The famous actor

who said he got into character

from the outside in,

costume and make-up

as transformational acts.

And the animals

so practised at display.

The brilliant tropical frog

whose skin is toxic

and basks in the jungle untouched.

As if beauty could only come

at the cost of death.

And all the beasts in camouflage,

who recede into the forest

as stealthy as shadows at dusk.

And me, in my standard uniform

looking much like my peers.

Drab, reclusive, concealed,

like all social creatures

invested in the greater good.

A cell

in a multicellular being

of reciprocity

attachment

belonging.

Except

for the brightly coloured ornament

I unobtrusively sport.

Something campy, outrageous, defiant.

A small subversive act

to proclaim myself.

I wanted to write a poem about this fundamental tension: between libertarianism and communitarianism; between the individual and the collective. Libertarians assert their rights, and personal freedom is paramount. Communitarians balance rights with responsibilities, and consent to relinquish some freedom of action in favour of the common good. As the poem asks, do we “exist in relationship”, or as “sovereign individual(s)”?

Our culture tilts toward a celebration of individuality and personal freedom. And immersed in this culture, we reflexively think this is the way it has always been. When actually, this worldview is a relatively recent innovation. So individualism is an invention of modernity; in a way, defines it.

Recent because it depended on the decline of organized religion and the ascent of secularism. So where once, one waited for the after-life to find happiness – when one could finally escape this “vale of tears” – it was now something one could strive for here on earth. There need be no expectation of suffering. It was harder to justify self-sacrifice for the common good; especially when there was no assurance of an eventual eternal reward.

And recent because individualism is a product of the industrial age, sustained by its wealth: one could survive without the tribe, traditional institutions, and the bonds of blood and belonging that were necessary when life was hand-to-mouth subsistence.

And also recent because individualism is a consequence of meritocratic capitalism, with its mythologizing of the heroic striver and self-made man.

While personal freedom is a luxury afforded by this same collective prosperity, as essentially unsustainable as that wealth may be. Unfortunately, where once personal freedom may have been seen as a route to meaning and self-realization, the concept has now been diminished to the sovereign freedom to consume. We are consumers, not citizens, unconstrained by social responsibility or the hidden costs of consumption. So freedom from want has become freedom to consume. (Prepositions count!) And all this in an economy that cannot be uncoupled from constant growth, and has little regard for social inequality or the environment.

(I'll refrain from debating the illusion of this so-called meritocracy, except to say that it is probably more idealized than real. And I say “unsustainable” because the only way to continue supporting this profligate lifestyle is to keep extracting more resources from the planet than it can sustain.)

I think the idea of clothing, which is a kind of unifying device that runs through the poem, comes from the idea of skin: the outer boundary, the demarcation of self-hood; and also the way we present ourselves to the outside world. We construct our appearance, and how we look sends a message. The semiotics of fashion, I suppose. My own “style”, for example, sends a message of frugality, of contempt for status and fashion, of anti-materialism, and of general obliviousness. (So not so much calculated non-conformity and defiant individualism as simple cluelessness and apathy!)

I originally called this poem Aposematic Man. Aposematic colouring is what makes the Monarch butterfly so noticeable: it is advertising to potential predators the toxic foul-tasting chemicals acquired from its diet of milkweed. And, similarly, what makes the poison dart frog – “the brilliant tropical frog” of the poem – so beautiful. (I quite liked the sound of the original title, as well as its tantalizing inscrutability. But in the end, I felt this was one of those poems where the reader needed a small signpost flagging the theme in order to get her, from the get-go, pointed in the right direction.)

As humans, we are torn between declaring our individuality and fitting-in; between our insistent sense of self and our essential nature as social creatures. So we can be both aposematic and drab: both flaunting our individuality, and subsuming ourselves for the sake of “the greater good”.

Except maybe better not drab. Because we are very much poison, and so aposematic colouring would seem most appropriate. After all, we are the most lethal creature who has ever existed on earth: the instrument of mass extinction; a terraforming wrecking-ball that is changing the actual chemistry of the planet, permanently altering its surface, oceans, and air, while diminishing the biodiversity that confers both its resiliency and its wonder.