Not whatI expect from the Mother’s Union.
And not what I expect to see in a cathedral toilet.
But there it is: in the Ladies in St. Mary’s Cathedral. And all the torn off tabs a mutely eloquent testimony of domestic cruelty.
The ground seems so fertile for seeds of hate…
And how is this possible when life is so precious
And the world so beautiful?
I remember when people hated me with a depressing regularity, I would frequently hear conversations like:
“What is? A woman or a man?”
And then they’d look me up and down, and then usually say:
“It’s a man! Ugh!”
And I’d just stand there, never very far from them, and have no idea what to say.
That’s how it begins: dehumanising a fellow human being.
Invariably because they represent something you’ve been taught to dislike in yourself.
That’s why a crucial part of the cruel anti-trans legislation that’s being enacted all over the United States is devoted to defining sex as “unchangeably biological sex”, denying the validity of our gender identity, and so denying us the status of human beings.
Like a lot of what is cruel in us, it begins in the warfare of the school playground.
Certainly for me this is the kind of thing that would happen over and over again when I was much much younger and imprisoned in the boarding school.
People would say cruel and unpleasant things to me
And I would be dumbfounded and have no idea how to reply.
Until later on when I was alone,
And could then think endlessly of what I needed to say to confound and wound my enemy.
I never dared say any of these things in real life, of course,
Being far too frightened,
Though I sometimes think that was one of the ways I learnt to write dialogue.
And so perhaps it did serve me in the end…
But at the time when I was adult and starting out on the terrifying road of living as a woman, I didn’t find myself imagining witty put downs to silence those who were insulting me.
Instead I kept trying to understand.
This wasn’t out of any particular virtue on my part; it was almost certainly out of professional interest.
My profession as a playwright has become so ingrained that I am constantly curious about what makes people tick and constantly trying to put myself into other people’s shoes.
And along with that comes a reluctance to judge people.
Because I know we are all such a bewildering mixture of good and bad, and that the more we can understand someone and the suffering they are also going through then the harder it becomes to condemn them.
And that is why I think drama can be such a force for good.
“Empathy is a muscle”, I’ve been quoted as saying, and good storytelling helps us strengthen it.
And maybe, bit by tiny bit, that’s the way we can change the composition of the human soil:
Make it less receptive to hate and more receptive to love.
“All of us”, to quote Queen Jesus,
“All of us in this together
To love and to be loved.”
Thank you to everyone who has just subscribed and to all of you who have subscribed all along.
You help me so much in this difficult time….
I’ve discovered this week that I’m still preoccupied with the parable of the sower, and it’s triggered a couple of important memories that I’ll be sharing with my saintly paying subscribers tomorrow.
And then on Wednesday I’ll publish act two of Wuthering Heights.
You are all helping me hugely rediscover my pride in my forgoten work: so thank you for that also.
Hope you’re all having lovely weekends….
Yes Jo, but when I worked as a psychiatric nurse unfortunately I encountered far too many people who lacked empathy for patients and abused their power positions. One wonders what it is about some human beings when given a bit of power? Two opposing philosophical views on human nature espoused by Hobbs and Rousseau……….!