The Conman's Promise and its Takeaways

If a person’s character is flawed, how do you judge their words? If a person is proven to be a liar, cheat and debaucherously individual, can you trust what they say at face value? Or do their underlying principles fundamentally change the definition of their comments, regardless of whether or not you believed them at first?
These are the questions that are posed when dealing with the yogi Babu Vivekanand. At his first introduction in the beginning of chapter 9, Babu spouts revelation after wise proverb, one upping each statement with one even more profound than the last. He poses to be an interesting character. On one hand, he delivers much of what this book is about, traditionalism vs modernism and, more importantly, that we are all brought together through the fundamental nature of the similarity of human existence. Or, that we all share something between us, a desire to have community with others, pain from the countless physical irregularities, prejudices and evils that affect us, and fear of this pain and unknowingness if we will be part of something meaningful.
The conman does both, identifies what makes us weak and offers a solution for it. This conman, however, does not offer solutions that will truly give us security and complacency, but instead fulfills only short term goals which “generate even bigger and intractable problems (99).” This occurs all the time, it is the very basis of marketing and persuasion. We see this with industries such as clothing, makeup, acne and other skincare medications, and ads for plastic surgeries and liposuctions, among many others. There is a distinctive flaw that we all, or at least a great majority, have. We, like the US and USSR, practice “terror disguised as vigilance (104).” We attempt to make ourselves look the part we are acting for and more importantly, ashamed of the superficial aspects of us as the actor, and we fear being found out of these so-called “shortcomings.” Our values are superficial as we focus too much on the flighted and temporary guises we seek. We make ourselves vulnerable to the reoccurring con of beauty standards and fall for its short-term bonuses, feeling failure when they are not perfectly achieved, or placing them so high on a scale that we do not even attempt to achieve them, and feel as failures for never trying.
Now, I do not resent the industries of fashion and beauty. There is inherent value in the seemingly superficial qualities of these things, and to partake in them is not a shortcoming of one’s person. However, it is the paranoia and constant pressures of perfection that are placed on us, the vulnerable and insecure, who seek continuous safety from the mania of living without a safety net. Because our desires are so heavily influenced by a shortcoming of a constant source of fulfillment, we are always conned. Just as the conman rips people off for personal gain, so too does the marketing of “perfection” con us by offering a piece of what we desire and selling it as the full thing. Those who fall into a hypocritical two-sidedness between personal fulfillment and meaningless distraction, or who disguise their lack of materiality to be anything more than a hypocritical self-congratulation, or those who delve fully into the superficial and call it anything more than that, are byproducts of this con.
So, this brings it back to the original questions, can you trust the conman who’s words are right (or have a hint of truth) but who’s purpose is fully self-involved? The answer then comes through what brings us together, a family of insecure and unsecured individuals seeking answers. All it takes is for proper forward movement, to get us past the obsession of material and fetishization of the spiritual, and instead find a place in the middle, which accepts supposed short-comings and imperfections, and allows for true discussion to occur through a community that understands. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Spiral of Time in Potiki

Potiki is a story focusing on a Maori community fighting to maintain their autonomy from hungry land developers who are desperately trying to coerce the Maori people off of their sacred land. The author, Patricia Grace, constructs the story through a patchwork of memories, where different events, different times, and different viewpoints come together in like a mosaic.   Grace disrupts the linear narrative and describes time in a cyclical way, a never-ending spiral. Rather than segregating time the “past time” of the ancestors from the “present time” of the community, there is a new way of describing time. I found “now-time” to be a fascinating concept, where there’s this spiral temporality where past and future time are narratively experienced. The concept of “sacred time” was more challenging to understand, where the narrative of Christ and the and the ancient myth of Mäui align.   The spiral, like kowhaiwhai, signifies repetition with a difference. Toko shares q
Read more

Potiki literary analysis

In comparing  Things Fall Apart  and  Potiki,  it is evident that each culture, and even individuals within a culture, define home differently. Many of the characters in  Potiki  rely upon the geography of New Zealand to define home. Hemi particularly views home through this lens.              Hemi first demonstrates his commitment to the land when he loses his job. While he is initially disappointed, he quickly resolves that “He’d always known that one day he would return to the land, and that the land would support them all again," (60). He trusts that the land will provide for his family, which is exceptional given that he has recently become unemployed. Additionally, Hemi expresses the importance of protecting his own land. He reflects, “These days people were looking more to their land” because “They had to if they didn’t want to be wiped off the face of the earth,” (60). He then points to the Te Ope people as an example of those who had been forced to protect their land. 
Read more

Potiki Reading

          From the beginning of her novel, Patricia Grace makes her priorities clear: She will be telling the stories that have been untold, and more importantly, unheard. Potiki  begins with the story of the carver, a master storyteller, who places the history of his people in his craft. Like Grace, he is "Seeking out and exposing the figures that were hidden" (7). However, his final story is left uncompleted, because "[It] is not yet known" (10). With the death of the carver, the narrative begins, and the reader is thrown into a somewhat tumultuous world.           Unlike Things Fall Apart , there is a strong emphasis on the "hidden" nature of the story. Roimata's internal conflict is not nearly as clear as Okonkwo's. In fact, it feels almost unknowable. "As a child I lived with my father in a railway house with a small, dark kitchen... Our window framed the flying windows, flying eyes, of trains which riveted the senses, carrying them into
Read more