Donkeys Together.

Strangely, after writing that last blog we went to see Ibson’s ‘Enemy of the People’ at the Crucible. A doublethink extravaganza. The mayor fights for prosperity, his doctor brother for his truth while his wife manages to speak in several different regional accents. It was as if different emotional states required her to move around the country. The crowd, when push comes to shove, were shoved; not towards considerations of reality but rather mortality. One’s bread must be buttered on the side that, when dropped, lands uppermost. The play asks us to decide between a Nixon-esque pragmatism and the snowballing irrationalities of a Blair-esque moral stance. The crowd, i.e. society, i.e. us are confused by this no-win choice, but just as we are comforting ourselves on our moral certitude of being powerless Ibson goes on to suggest we too are just as donkey headed as the main protagonists. We the audience leave amused but little more. We remain unlikely to vote in the forthcoming election for the party that canvasses us on the basis that we’re all donkey-heads. Yet we skip from emotion to emotion in the wink of an eye just as the wife managed to travel from Newcastle to Birmingham to Belfast. Whilst I believe our emotions appear first and are basically honest, being unblemished by rational thought, I also believe they should be quickly followed by a moments disinterested reflection. I don’t want to cut my finger in the presence of a person rendered useless by their fear of the sight of blood. So how are we, each in our own personal cognitive enclave, to cope with both emotion, swayed by rhetoric, and reflection, swayed by logic? Which way should the swaying donkey head look? Luckily we are served with another sense. Call it intuition, spirit, gut feeling or meditative instinct; it is a voice far quieter than the ego’s insistent demands. Should poverty, conflict, avarice, envy, ignorance bring the ego to prominence it is little heard. So on my platform of us all being donkey heads together, and much more, I urge you to vote for me.