Directory of Lost Causes (By Quentin S. Crisp)

What do you think of Western civilisation?

I feel like most of what I write, if not all of it, is some form of attack on what is generally known as civilisation. The irony here - which even commenters on Youtube are able to see - is that to criticise civilisation I use the tools of civilisation, such as the computer, the printed word and so on. Let's assume for a moment that what I desire is the end of civilisation, and also assume that my wish can come true - if it does, then that also means everything I have ever written, and really everything I have done so far in my life, must be jettisoned with the civilisation of which it was a part. I don't mind that idea as much as I might, but it does make me feel like what I'm doing at the moment is essentially empty and pointless, since, for instance, in writing books and making entries on my blog, I am part of what I hate, and what I believe is unsustainable and MUST END. I have occasionally toyed with the idea of only working in the oral medium, as a story-teller or poet, but have to admit that this idea has not got any further than the idea stage.



It's not just the media I use that are part of civilisation, though. My stories rest upon a whole tradition of literature that is part of the history of civilisation, and are full of references and concerns that will mean nothing when civilisation comes to an end. I rely on people who are part of what I hate to be able to read and understand these things in order to give my life meaning. That sentence may be shortened to, "I rely on what I hate to give my life meaning." And that is the hollow heart of my existence.

Last night I watched another episode - I think it may be the final one - of Bruce Parry's programme, Tribe. In this episode, he was spending four weeks with the Penan, a hunter-gatherer people who live on the island of Borneo. I almost always find these programmes about pre-industrial societies (many of them pre-agricultural), deeply moving. If I ask myself why, the answer is very simple. These people are human. We are not. We have lost our humanity. We lost it a long time ago. Perhaps that seems like a simplification. Nonetheless, that is how I feel. If I am almost constantly consumed by incredible rage and hatred, and sunk in depression, it's because I live in a society where everything that is important (including human beings themselves) has become invisible. In every programme I have seen, Bruce Parry is welcomed into the tribe he is visiting, given of all the tribe possess and treated almost - often completely - like a family member. This is called community. We don't have that anymore. I certainly don't feel a part of my own society in the way that these people make Bruce a part of theirs. This makes me unspeakably angry. To me, civilisation means violence, exploitation, deception, greed and spiritual bankruptcy.

During the programme last night, it emerged that the entire way of life of the Penan is under threat because of the logging industry, which is destroying the primary forest which is the Penan's home. The areas of forest that have been decimated are largely being replaced by palm oil crops, which do not support the kind of complex eco-system of the forest, which hardly support anything at all, apparently. The palm oil is used in products such as soap, shampoo and biscuits for the rich, civilised countries of the world. To me, the contrast was marked. The Penan welcomed Parry from the civilised world, let him live with them, fed him, and so on. The civilised world, on the other hand, has given the Penan nothing, but only taken and destroyed.

I truly hope that this will be one case in which evil does not prevail, as it seems to all too often. I am writing this largely to play my small part in making the cause of the Penan known.



As to what we should do about 'civilisation', I don't really know. I have a few random thoughts on the subject, such as, er... kill Jeremy Clarkson. Hmmm. Well, let me try to be a little more sober about this. First of all, there are too many people in the world, WITHOUT A DOUBT. Having children is NOT A RIGHT, it is a privilege. Secondly, although I am a person who, to use a dismissive psychobabble phrase 'has a lot of anger', I suppose I should say that I would not like my own anger immediately associated with and ascribed to the Penan. When Bruce Parry asked them at the end of the programme what it was they most wanted, one of them spoke of how the Penan were in no way against progress, but what they wanted was real progress. The first thing he gave as an example of real progress was land rights.

This brings up the question of what real progress is, of course, and, I suppose, no matter what my own desires might be, we're not going to magically return to some pre-industrial, pre-agricultural world. The only thing I can think of at the moment is that we simply have to rediscover what is important in life, regain our lost humanity, and let that guide us. Some things are not so important. If there are sacrifices to be made, then the likes of biscuits and shampoo should be among the first things to go.