The School of Life

On Adultery

Is sexual liberation over? You may think so, reading Jealousy, the sequel to The Sexual Life of Catherine M. In it, lusty Parisian academic Catherine Millet, who hung out with the whores in the Bois de Boulogne, reveals something controversial: a heart. When her man slept around, she went barmy. 

 

Hypocrisy is the most logical attitude to infidelity, as it fuses many issues, and beliefs about it formed in a world very different to our own.  It has a religious dimension.  As an infidel betrays God, so infidelity betrays the faith between two people.  The assumption is that loyalty in body, mind and spirit are interchangeable.  But arguably, people began disapproving of infidelity for a more practical reasons, to stop rows about property.  

Avid debauchee Alexandre ‘Three Musketeers’ Dumas lamented, ‘Why is what was called cuckoldry in the seventeenth century called adultery in the nineteenth?’  His answer was inheritance law.  Once, first-born sons got it all, then the law changed, giving every child a portion of the estate.  So husbands who once worried only about the paternity of their heir grew to fear every cuckoo in the nest.  And society grew fiercer about female infidelity, while in men a mistress remained a badge of success.   

Female sluts got it in the neck since Eve bit the apple.  Katie Price is slated for cavorting with her cage fighter.  But male sluts are less tolerated than before.  The court of public opinion is still out on randy Ashley Cole, while Cheryl is a latter-day saint for fighting for her love.  But for those whose private lives are private, now we have DNA-testing, good contraception, fidelity seems less relevant.  With the internet and the liar's friend, the mobile phone, slipping the marital leash is ever easier.  Why can't we act on passing fancies without breaching emotional loyalty?  

I understand infidelity’s fans.  Yet I believe monogamy, with the right person, is the least-worst path through life. Even empty sex threatens a relationship, as nobody can guarantee it will not come to mean more.  This belief is less old-fashioned than imagining that mind rules body, like 17th-century rationalist, René Descartes.  On the contrary, scientists have found neurochemicals released in sex, vasopressin and oxytocin, mean that where lust leads, territorial feelings often follow.  Love and sex, mind and body, are as interchangeable as ever. 

 

- Catherine Blyth

 

Tom Mellors shares his ambivalence about our herding instincts

In Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche observes that "for as long as there have been humans, there have also been human herds." He considers humanity's long history of obedience and concludes that "everyone on average is born with a need to obey, as a kind of formal conscience that decrees... 'thou shalt!'"

 

The herd instinct may originate in our desire to become one with our community and surroundings but it can all too easily negate our individuality. It’s an instinct to fit in with the group and 'to follow'. At its best an instinct that joins us in family groups, congregations, tribes, peoples, and nations. But at its worst an instinct responsible for youth gangs, celebrity worshipers, of people who "stick to a brand", or submit to a dominant idea of how to live.

 

The dominant commandments in our "developed" society too often seem to comprise 'thou shalt consume', 'thou shalt work and be successful', 'thou shalt desire', and 'thou shalt love thyself above all others'. Although these commandments are not chiselled into stone or scripture, they are proclaimed subtly from almost every billboard and television advert. John Carpenter's cult film They Live incorporates this idea into its main plot. In the film George Nada, a homeless labourer in Los Angeles, finds a pair of sunglasses which reveal the true messages in the advertising around him. So when he looks at a billboard advertising something, all Nada sees is the words "Obey", "Watch TV", or "Marry and Reproduce".

 

The humanist philosopher Erich Fromm often talked about the biblical creation story, with particular focus on Adam and Eve's expulsion from paradise. Fromm believed that when Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge they suddenly became aware of themselves as being separate from nature, while remaining in nature. This, he says, explains why they suddenly felt ashamed and naked. Fromm believed that humanity's subconscious awareness of its disunited and separate existence is a source of guilt and shame, creating a deep desire to escape the feeling of loneliness. One way to overcome this loneliness is through conformity with the group and obedience. A quick scan of 20th century history provides many examples of where the herd instinct has become a religion and a goal in itself - few examples more destructive than Nazi nationalism.

 

The herd instinct today is a complex one, driven by strong narcissistic drives as well as the drive to obey and conform. The stories you hear in the news about absurd crimes committed over the gain of petty objects are arguably an example of when the tension between the need to obey and narcissistic desire fall out of balance. Yet to presume that all herds are exploitative would be to overlook the importance in life of smaller herds, such as family and friends. Confucius saw virtue in these groups, and he believed that familial duty especially helps individuals to cultivate personal and social harmony.

Nietzsche’s alternative to the herd is a life of extreme individualism which is supremely narcissistic. Rather than chase after extreme states of being - within or without of the herd - we should strive to negotiate a balance between the two.

 

Richard Herring on Bad Habits

Rather late in the day we’ve just come across Richard Herring’s wonderful radio series on Bad Habits. The picks for the series are procrastination, lateness, laziness, perfectionism and workaholism. But let's face it there are many more to choose from. We’re very familiar with people who struggle with workacholosm here at The School of Life – they signed up to our Work course in the hope of redemption, but then find they can't tear themselves away from the office to get here in time each week. In the programmes, Herring reminds us that, in Hollywood at least, the overworkers always finally realise it's family that matters. But then confesses with charming honesty, "I've worked so hard I don't even have a family to neglect." Herring interviews a whole range of people who have been involved with The School of Life – Tom Hodgkinson, Oliver James, Jon Ronson among them. You can download all the programmes here. Enjoy.

Photo by Matt Stuart.

 

Geoff Dyer urges us to sort out our time-keeping in 2009

Punctuality is largely a matter of one’s inherent nature. I’m not a great reader of psychoanalysis or psychoanything for that matter but I wonder if there might be a connection between the kind of birth you had and your time-keeping as an adult. Do overdue babies become habitally late adults? Do premature babies turn up early for appointments? More research needs to be done in this area. If this is the case, if there is any relation between how you timed your arrival on this great stage of fools, and how you time your arrivals once the play gets underway, then I must have come out promptly at 9 months, no weeks and no days, right on the money, like clockwork. As I matured I realised there was no correlation at all between being reliable, punctual, dependable and being boring, that in fact being unreliable and chaotic and late actually means that you spend more time doing boring things, unravelling the knots of chaos.

People who are late are also the key losers, the ones without cash who have forgotten their passports or mislaid their concert tickets or who’ve forgotten their pin numbers, the ones who for one reason or another are always getting into scrapes. Have nought to do with them because they are not fun, wild, crazy people, they’re bores, or – and this is even worse – they force you to become boring, to clear up the mess which they leave in their wake.

This is an extract from Geoff Dyer's sermon on Punctuality delivered for The School of Life on 30 November 2008. Listen to Geoff talking about the sermon on Monday's Today programme here or download an mp3 of the full full sermon here.

Forthcoming sermons from The School of Life include: Sam Roddick on Seduction, Alain de Botton on Pessimism, Robert Winston on Curiosity and Richard Wiseman on Humour. Tickets costs £10. For more information or to book click here.

Mark Vernon on why The School of Life is reinventing the sermon

Sermons have almost as bad a reputation in the UK as late night talk shows on BBC Radio 2. There's the vicar, "six foot above contradiction", displaying all the arrogance of the religious and their ghastly sermonising. Verbose, haranguing, waffle: these are the synonyms that come to mind. Samuel Pepys sarcastically wrote that they were "good, honest and painful".

And yet, are we missing a trick in rejecting the sermon? John Wesley launched Methodism on sermons, along with all that followed, from stirring hymns to the Labour party. In the US, the sermon never died: it is the chief characteristic of the political rally. Where would Barack Obama be if he did not understand the charisma of the church preacher? His mix of religious rhetoric and secular aspiration is the wellspring of his success.

Malcolm Boyd commented that some of the best sermons he ever heard were in the theatre. In similar vein, there is a new experiment being pioneered by The School of Lifeto reinvent the sermon, or invent the secular sermon. Tom Hodgkinson was the first of the lay preachers. The editor of the Idler campaigns against the work ethic, and chose as his text, "Love thy Neighbour". He delivered a discourse against usury which, he argued, is the opposite of neighbour-love. For most of human history making money from money, as opposed to investing it in something real, has been regarded as a sin. Why? Because it is ripping off your neighbour: it "dulls the edge of husbandry" as Shakespeare put it; it destroys community. Thus the Bible commands: "Take no usury off him, that thy brother may live with thee," and Ecclesiasticus adds: "Be not a beggar by banqueting on borrowing". Read a transcript of the sermon here.

Hodgkinson's oration was littered with such Bible quotes, and yet, the last person he sounded like was a Calvin or Spurgeon. It was as if the best words of the good book had been liberated. They could speak afresh for our times when unencumbered by hellfire and damnation. The surprise was that the sermon format genuinely worked for delivering a substantial, life-challenging message. Standing around afterwards, with a cup of tea and a copy of the parish newsletter, the secular congregation admitted he had a very good point.

All this shouldn't be taken too seriously, of course. But then maybe that is the point, and there could be a lesson in it for the churches. People want to hear spiritual ideas, demanding ideas, ideas that make a difference. And the sermon is an excellent way to deliver them. It is just that the barriers around church-going are often too high or prescribed.

Secularists might feel more kindly towards the sermon if they knew that the ancient Greeks practiced a form of such preaching called the diatribe. It was probably invented by Bion of Borysthenes, a cynic philosopher of the third century BC. The diatribe was a form of shadow-boxing for an audience, posing rhetorical questions, parodying opponents. A glimpse of Greek Sunday mornings in the marketplace, standing around Bion's lectern, can be caught from the handful of his sayings that remain. One day he caught sight of a wealthy citizen in the assembled crowd, and retorted: "He has not acquired a fortune; the fortune has acquired him!" On another, he felt his congregation weren't paying enough attention and chastised them with a cry: "You want barley when what I brought is wheat!"

So bring back the sermon! Geoff Dyer will be preaching on punctuality this Sunday and The School of Life have a host of key cultural figures taking to the pulpit in 2009 including Sam Roddick on Seduction, Alain de Botton on Pessimism, Robert Winston on Curiosity and Richard Wiseman on Humour. For details or to book click here.

Mark Vernon is The School of Life's expert on friendship and a member of the teaching faculty.

The Daily Aphorism - a new website from The School of Life

We need good ideas today more than ever, to give us the courage and humour to get through these uncertain times. So today we’ve launched The Daily Aphorism, a new website that distributes a short and pithy piece of wisdom every morning. Sign up now to receive a beautifully typeset aphorism in your inbox every day for a month.

www.thedailyaphorism.com

But what exactly is an aphorism? An ‘itch of wisdom’, ’the world in a phrase’, or for the more prosaically minded, ‘an original thought, spoken or written in a laconic and easily memorable form’. Anyone can write one, though it takes some skill to do it well. Famous aphorists have included Blaise Pascal, William Blake, Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain, Albert Einstein, Marcel Proust, Franz Kafka, Winston Churchill, Jenny Holzer and Woody Allen, many of whom are featured on The Daily Aphorism website.

As part of the campaign, we are also inviting you to compose their own contemporary aphorisms. Here is some advice from aphorism expert James Geary about how to compose a winning entry: 

There is good news and bad news. The bad news is: 'How to write an aphorism' is something that can't be taught. The good news is: It is something that can be learned.

There are three basic methods of composition. There is the 'spontaneous combustion' method, in which the aphorism flares out fully formed at unexpected moments, sending the writer scrabbling for napkins, envelopes or any other scrap of paper on which to write it down. Stanislaw Jerzy Lec was a great practitioner of this method: "No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible."

Then there is the 'deliberate composition' method as practiced by the likes of La Rochefoucauld. He would attend a swanky salon, discuss all manner of subjects, such as love and friendship, then retire for hours to his room where he would produce several sheets of prose, all of which he would eventually distill down to one or two sharp, shining sentences: "In the adversity of even our best friends we always find something not wholly displeasing."

And then there are the 'accidental aphorists,' those writers who never intend to compose aphorisms but just can't help themselves—aphorisms occur naturally within longer stretches of text, such as essays, novels, or poems. Ralph Waldo Emerson was a classic accidental aphorist: "What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have yet to be discovered."

So, it's really a matter of finding out which kind of aphorist you are. Then I find it helpful to apply these handy laws—keep it short (after all, only a fool gives a speech in a burning house), definitive (no ifs, ands, or buts), philosophical (it should make you think), and give it a twist. It's also useful to keep in mind what Gabriel Laub said about aphorisms: "Aphorisms are so popular because, among other reasons, they contain half-truths, and that is an unusually high percentage."

Entries should be submitted via The Daily Aphorism website before 31st December. The competition will be judged by James Geary, philosopher Alain de Botton and Director of The School of Life Sophie Howarth. The winning aphorism will be the main feature in The School of Life’s window in the New Year and the winner will also be offered a free place on one of The School of Life’s courses.

The Daily Aphorism has been produced in collaboration with St. Luke’s. The aphorisms have been typeset by Susanna Edwards and Joseph Harries and posters are available from The School of Life's shop.

 

Adam Phillips on Excess

William Blake argued that "the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom" – but was he being ironic? Psychotherapist Adam Phillips is on the radio every night this week exploring the role excess plays in our lives. He invites listeners to consider how much of their lives is organised around notions of the right amount – whether of food, love, sex, money, shopping, sleeping, solitude or beliefs. He argues that each developmental phase of everyone's lives has its distinctive excesses: from infancy – characterised by excessive sleep and needing excessive care – to toddlers – excessively bold, and yet dependent. He also looks at greed and whether human appetites are, by nature, excessive; and how, in adolescence, the growing individual has the wherewithal to commit significantly aggressive acts.

 

Listen to the programmes here.

David Gale on not having all the Penguin Classics

I like to read, me. If I don’t do it daily I get a rash and if I don’t go to a bookshop (usually a charity shop) every 48 hours I feel unsettled. I have a lot of books on my shelves and I hope I will be able to read them all. I have calculated that I will be dead long before I succeed in so doing. It is not as if I have stopped collecting in order to read what I’ve got. I add to the collection every few days, transferring my allegiances from the last crush to the next pash in a coldly fickle moment. I would like to read all the books that I would like to read but I’d need a parallel life in which I simply circumambulated my capacious library whilst drinking real ale and swimming.

The pathology of plenitude is upon us. Too much stuff, too little time. What to do? Give up, obviously. Try not to think about box sets. Abstain from secondary stimulants such as magazines designed to induce purchase. Dip toes in the weir of nonchalance. Say ‘I know enough already.’ Or ‘I will stop now and let culture swim before me until I am just a figure at the bus-stop as culture rolls towards the horizon leaving flared trousers in its wake.’

Thanks to the ever-rewarding Things Magazine I learn that Penguin have issued the Penguin Classics Library Complete Collection, comprising 1,082 titles and retailing at $13,315.84. With an Amazon discount of 40% this works out at a trifling $7,989.50.

I am not remotely tempted. Were money no object I would not part with the requisite sum. Besides, I read at least seven of them at Uni. But as Completions go, this one is up there with The Assembled Nouvelle Vague, Its Antecedents, Its Tendencies and Its Divers Spawn, a 60 DVD set (I made that up). Certainly the owner of the Penguin set would never need to go out again. It would, on a personal level, be the End of History.

I suppose one might just buy them in order to feel better in some disturbed way but still keep going out. Much as the life of the Duc des Esseintes, the aesthete ‘hero’ of J-K Huysmans’ ground-breaking 1884 proto-virtual-reality novel of the Decadence ‘Against Nature’, has its cosy charms (the Duke purchases a chateau and lavishly decorates each of its rooms in a different style: one simulates a boat, another contains a collection of perfumes with which he composes an aromatic symphony etc) (it’s a Penguin Classic) (he never goes out again), I fear the sickly perfume of atrophy would soon drive one out to the nearest All Bar One. (’”Mine’s a pint, squire!” barked the Duke thirstily.’)

No bugger who buys the Classics Collection will ever read it. We can speculate on how nice it feels to have it though: “Now that I have the Classics Collection not only is my library complete but I am. I have sealed the fissures through which dripped the contempt of the cultured. Like the taxi-driver I am fatly equipped with the Knowledge even if I do not, as yet, appear to know how to get to King’s Cross. I can, however, at any time that I choose, immerse myself in the canon and fire my firm self through the firmament of cultivation. It is as if I had a warm puppy in each trouser pocket, where the puppy is the good feeling and the trousers are the garments of the mind. And now, if you will excuse me, I am going to kill myself. For I am finished here.”

Read David Gale's blog here.

Mark Vernon on why Hadrian is so relevant today

Mark, who is teaching the Love course at The School of Life in September, recommends Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar and a visit to the British Museum's summer exhibition Hadrian: Empire and Conflict.

"Most exhibitions of the great from the past are full of re statues, coins, plinths and papyrus fragments that leave you interested but cold. The statues, coins, plinths and fragments here feel alive with the spirit of the great emperor himself. The sense of connection with Hadrian deepens when you hear that one of his first acts as emperor was to withdraw from an unwinnable conflict in what is now Iraq."

Read more on Mark's Philosophy and Life blog.