The Unchanging Mind and Self-Destruction
Fiction plus delusion threatens to confound us all, how can we fight it?
Shakespearean tragedies revolve around irredeemable flaws in otherwise great people. Brutus was honourable to the point of naiveté, thinking he was fulfilling the faith of his ancestors when in reality he was being used by skilled political manipulators. Macbeth was ambitious and covetous — his taste for power easily whetted to sanction multiple murders. Leer let his pride be the vector through which he was ruined; surrounding himself only with those who told him what he wanted to hear… no man is so great that he can divorce himself from reality and still prosper.
That these people were, erstwhile, renowned and good and that their strengths usually played a pivotal role in their undoing is the tragedy of their path toward destruction. The fact Leer is reduced to lunacy, impoverishment and ill-health isn’t what makes it sad — that he was a Great Man, undone by what would (in moderation) be a strengthening trait is.
The Bard told these stories because the drama of tragedy is fascinating. I think there’s mileage in saying that it taps into the same vein of lurid fascination that we indulge in whenever we build up an actor, singer or celebrity before invariably tearing them down in a scandal of sex, drugs, religion or politics.
It’s a narrative very well-worn by the seedier tabloids because it sells. Musicians seem especially fertile hunting grounds for players: Britney, Pete Doherty, Amy Winehouse and more.
There’s a lot more to say here, and a lot of nuance, but neither aspect is really to my point. The ghoulish British Paparazzi have undoubtedly pushed many famous people to substance abuse, and worse. How much individual control the central figures have over what happens to them is debatable — could Amy Winehouse have realistically done anything differently? Or was hers a future already carved in granite? As I said: nuance, and a great deal more detail than I have the intelligence to parse.
Other famous people, on the other hand, have their downfalls very much caused by one simple failure of character. It’s that specific, Shakespearian flaw that I want to look at today: the inability for some people to change their mind and the increasingly reality-detached war against reality they are then forced to fight in order to minimise their cognitive dissonance.
As Principal Skinner once said: “am I so out of touch…? No… No, it’s the children who are wrong.”
Let’s keep with the framing device and imagine a Shakespeare play, wherein we meet a beggar on the streets of Elizabethan England. In soliloquy, they address the audience — a little like Kuzco at the start of The Emperor’s New Groove (2000) — melancholing that they used to be a big, important, renowned, sought-after, quoted and celebrated person! But now… now how things have changed. But it wasn’t their fault, you see, they were a victim of a conspiracy!
We then see their life, at the apex of their success as a playwright. Shows open to standing ovations. Lords and nobles flock to see the greatest actors of the century perform this author’s works. The Queen, herself, is rumoured to be planning to make our playwright a Knight of the Realm! The Virgin Queen considers herself to be one of our protagonist’s greatest cheerleaders!
The Playwright’s latest-penned script is completed, and they sit listening to the auditions for the roles with their regular director and usual financier. Halfway through, an actor steps out and performs a superb monologue — they hit all the emotional notes, correctly sound out every measure and hit the musicality of delivery associated with Elizabethan theatre. Once finished, they wait for a verdict.
Playwright can’t contain themself any longer, and laughs bawdily. “You?” they chortle, “you think you could play this role? My dear innocent girl, don’t you realise all actors are men?” The Director and Financier laugh, too, and the actress leaves — rightly unhappy at the state of affairs.
Some time later, this event comes back to haunt Playwright. A group of female actors picket their next production, saying that Playwright is a bigot. Director and Financier still back Playwright, but they are more subdued than before, this isn’t something they’re willing to laugh off now. Maybe Playwright should extend the hand of friendship? Maybe even write a role for an actress in their next play…?
But Playwright is unmoved. Have they ever steered things wrong before? Are they not a renowned writer, wordsmith and artiste? Did the Queen herself not single them out for praise and favour? These silly women should educate themselves, then they will realise that Playwright is correct and let them continue doing what they do best.
Unfortunately for Playwright, the actresses petition the Queen. Would she like to be told what jobs she could and could not do, by some mere writer of plays? Why shouldn’t a female actor audition for a role, if they can portray it well?
Other authors, actors and public figures are starting to come down on the side of the actors. Playwright is losing the battle of public opinion.
Unable to accept that they have gotten anything wrong, because they are such a lauded personality, the Playwright starts looking for evidence that they are right. There are, naturally, plenty of people who share Playwright’s opinions and many more who go even further. They wrap an arm around them and say “we know, we know — did you know those women aren’t just delusional, they’re actually trying to take acting work away from men?”
The arguments resonate off themselves, and so have to their own stakes to stand out from the noise they, themselves, create. These women are neglecting their children! They are no longer feminine! They are a threat to all of theatre! Possibly to the whole fabric of society!
The Playwright is pulled down this path, step by step, because at each turn they are faced with a choice between accepting their limitations and changing their minds in the face of reason or moving a little farther down the rabbit hole… each step into the warren offering succour for their view and confirmation that anyone disagreeing with them is bad. The farther down Playwright goes, the harder turning around becomes because of the sunken cost: they’ve pushed away friends, workers, backers and cronies because of this issue… and to reverse themselves would mean accepting that was all a mistake for which only they are culpable.
Finally, Playwright meets up with their old Financier. Playwright has a new theatre project — nothing to do with women — and they hope to rekindle their working relationship. Financier is interested, but can’t help raise an eyebrow and look for confirmation: Playwright definitely isn’t going to turn this into part of their anti-women-actor crusade, are they…?
The fire flashes in Playwright — how dare Financier ask that! Don’t they realise how dangerous these women are? The damage they cause? They are harming the very nature of… and here, their old colleague stops them cold. “I don’t care”, they say, “it doesn’t matter, if you can’t stop turning everything you touch into a proxy war for this issue then we can’t work together.”
Playwright leaves, fuming, threatening to double down on their crusade. Triple down. Quadruple down. They won’t stop because they are right… and because stopping is now beyond their powers. They are, to all intents, finished. A great career now ruined, associated with the increasingly unhinged rantings of a once-vaunted talent.
That would be a tragedy, I think, in the vein of William S.
Naturally, this example is a barely concealed retelling of the career of comedy writer Graham Linehan. An unstoppable TV comedy creator in the 1990s and early 2000s, co-creator of the beloved Father Ted, the darkly funny Black Books and the zeitgeisty The IT Crowd, Linehan is now nothing short of poison to any project he touches.
The man is inseparable from his crusade against trans people, especially trans women. Every waking hour of his existence is now devoted to finally, somehow, proving to the world that we are delusional, dangerous, violent paedophiles and rapists. Even Linehan’s former collaborators cannot work with him, regardless of their position on trans issues, because it is now the only thing that galvanises his existence. He is incapable of anything else. Even if he started work on a project at the opposite pole to trans issues, he would invariably find a way to turn the operation to it, like a moth into a naked flame.
If he weren’t so ghastly in his works, he would truly be a tragic and pitiable object. Moreso still, because he is incapable of seeing his own stubbornness as the foundation of his predicament. He genuinely believes a cabal of malevolent “trans activists” have ruined him, because there is no configuration of reality of which he conceive where he is not correct.
There is one, final, wrinkle in this tragedy: if Linehan were a little more powerful, and had started his crusade a little later in the 21st Century, he would be in nowhere near such a predicament.
Make no mistake, Linehan isn’t a pariah because of his anti-trans views. They are very much now par for many people in UK, public figures and private. Linehan is a pariah because he started his crusade at a time before the anti-trans backlash began, and thus found himself starved for allies and co-conspirators. Whereas Rowling and Musk can take advantage of a moral panic around the trans “folk devil” that has now been going on for years, Linehan was stood alone. With nobody to back him up, he drove himself to the point of a breakdown trying to maintain his certainty and prove he was right.
The former comedy-writer saw himself as the last sane man in a society of madness, and this “Omega Man”-esque role has damn near driven him to the brink, going on live television and likening trans healthcare to Nazi experimentation.
But the tragedy isn’t done unfolding, best beloved. Linehan’s tragedy probably is done, but not the greater tragedy. For Linehan, due to his psychological state, it’s unlikely he will ever enjoy the plaudits he once took for granted. Sooner or later, he will be nothing but an obituary in the newspaper — and, mark me, that obituary will spend far more time discussing his life as a demented evangelist than his time as a respected comedy writer. So passes Denethor, son of Ecthelion.
The greater tragedy is one that affects the rest of us — you and I, best beloved. Where Linehan was left with no option but to devour his own sanity, like an ouroboros, others have much greater resources to reinforce their worldviews without fear of that cognitive dissonance driving them to distraction.
We in the trans community, being natural gadflies, have a saying: “being a TERF rots your brain”. By this, we mean that there is so little evidence to back up the “gender-critical” movement’s constant, Jeremiah-like predictions of imminent doom — caused by trans people — that they are forced to adopt and uncritically accept ever-more peculiar and self-evidently stupid propositions, such as “babies getting sex changes” or “lesbians being forced to have sex with men masquerading as trans women”. The radicalisation effect of social media draws many Gender Critters so far, and so fast, into the vortex that their views are oftentimes dissimilar from fever-dream gibberish.
The problem we have, all of us, is that many of those who have allowed their brains to decay like this not only have each other — and a massive “anti-woke” movement — to bolster each other… they are also wealthy and powerful enough to skew public perceptions. Reality can be changed to fit them.
Rowling confidently announces that being transgender is the only human condition we’re expected to accept without proof, apparently forgetting concepts like pain and hunger, and her acolytes both on-and-offline congratulate her on her incisive wisdom. Stop trying to get me to eat a rock by telling me its a potato, humans don’t eat rocks she will declare… the concept of salt (an edible rock) slipping her memory, and thus allowing her own metaphor to prove the opposite to her point.
Back when he was alive, it used to be said of Apple CEO Steve Jobs that he had a “reality distortion field”. Those who worked with him used this to describe his persuasiveness, his infectious energy and enthusiasm — especially when it mixed with his stubbornness, temper-tantrums and willingness to let-go any employee who tried to tell him “no”. If Steve wanted water to flow uphill, then you had to either find a way to make it do so… or not be the sucker in his line of sight when he announced it.
Thanks to unchecked wealth, social media, a pliant news industry desperate for stories and a population starting to get mean now Capitalism clearly won’t deliver on its promises; we have exactly the same situation. The Chief-Twit and She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named now help to craft the shared reality we inhabit. Who cares what actually happens, we can tell them what happened!
And they are not alone. Whereas the Tragedy of Linehan is that he was incapable of self-interrogation — of simply changing his mind — the tragedy for the rest of us is that the powerful now don’t need to. They can sculpt reality to fit a world that only exists in their minds, and encourage their followers to tilt at windmills… believing them malevolent giants.
I don’t know how we turn that around, or if we can. I suppose all I can suggest to you, dear, is that you and I can both learn from Shakespeare. We can even learn from Linehan. We can learn to accept the necessity of challenging our own beliefs in good-faith, and in doing so strengthen those ideals and ideas which maintain their wisdom in the face of interrogation. We can learn to bolster our reasoning by adopting a “steel man” approach to the arguments of others — such that we interpret even flawed arguments in their most powerful mode and exercise them thusly against our own logic, to ensure our logic can withstand them.
And, when we find our reason cannot stand a challenge, then we can learn to be open to the possibility of changing our minds. That way, at least, we can avoid becoming the former-playwright, blaming their downfall on everything except its actual cause: stubbornness.
