I’ve not had time to think about a conversation I had
with Gloria last week in our new favourite off-campus coffee shop (The Coffee Shop).The day before, I had seen a recording of a BBC4
programme about the lives of three men detained under the Mental Health Act.
One, Andrew, had bipolar disorder and, still in the more
manic phase of his condition, could not disguise some wry pleasure in the event
that prompted his detention: a high speed car chase followed by three panda
cars. He seemed pleased by his own skills and the performance of his car even
whilst, as a late middle aged retired consultant pathologist, somewhat
embarrassed. He was equally enthusiastic about another recent decision: to
leave his wife of 26 years and set up a new life by himself in a bungalow.
We followed the course of his treatment: some mood stabilisation
but also a slide into a more depressed state and then later anti-depressants.
We also saw him discharged to his bungalow and, a month later, saw that it remained
unfurnished aside from a bed and television. (The way the film was shot suggested
that he spent all his time on the bed watching TV.)
Throughout this, he commented on a key feature of his
illness: that after making rash decisions in his manic state he would have to
deal with their consequences when he returned to normal. But he distinguished
the decision to separate from his wife from such cases. That is, he did not
think it had been made when he was not in his right mind.
Towards the end of the film, however, he admitted that he
had gone back to live with his wife and we saw him wearing a Christmas jumper,
playing the piano, in a well furnished, comfortable home, in marked contrast to
the dreary bungalow.
This was a documentary in which we had only a very small
and apparently carefully edited snapshot of three lives so it seems somehow
impertinent to speculate on Andrew’s actual relationship. But it prompts the question:
what would it be for such a decision to be merely the product of not being in
one’s right mind, as opposed to an authentic decision. On one reading of the events described and shown, he took the decision to separate around the time of manic and exuberant feelings and, despite
his later claiming ownership of it, the decision was not backed up by much commitment to a
new life (buying furniture etc) and was reversed within a few weeks. But on
another reading, the consequences of just such a decision would always be daunting;
it would be hard to organise a new house whilst depressed and unused to public
transport; the run up to Christmas would tempt one back to the family home etc.
That is, on the second reading, whilst the decision might come to nothing, it need not be inauthentic.
So in what does the difference consist? What makes a life an authentically
chosen life?
My suggestion in the Coffee Shop – which moved a bit
under critical scrutiny – was that it needs a self-conscious conception behind
it. In some sense to be unpacked, there has to be an element of choice, within
what is practical, albeit: a sense that the life lived is one among other possibilities. But,
of course, we do not reflect or exercise much choice when the alarm rings at
6:50am for work. Getting up and off is habitual. So the idea of a self-conscious
chosen conception must allow for un-self-conscious habit. Gloria’s sceptical
alternative was that for most people, for most of the time, habit dominates and
there is little reason to postulate an underlying conception. In the face of
this, I think that the most I can say is that there has to be a standing
possibility of stepping back from an engaged habit or practice and, perhaps, to
give such talk of a ‘possibility’ any content, it has to be exercised from time
to time. (How often? No idea.)
Still, I don’t think that such an idea, now suitably
weakened, is utterly implausible. Here are two popular cultural examples which suggest that people do have such conceptions and do think about them from time to time.
On house buying television programmes in which we get to
hear the deliberation of potential purchasers, their discussion is not restricted
to the kind of description and assessment that the estate agents might deploy
as to the properties and qualities of the houses. Typically it includes that (rooms
are light and spacious and have attractive views, or not). But we also hear
comments about the kind of lives the house would allow the buyers to live: what
they would do or not be able to do were they to buy it. Rooms are linked to
possible uses in more than just the sense that a dining room ‘affords’ dining. So
at least in the case of house buying, the conception of other lives becomes
available.
The other example is familiar from interviews with
successful (or unsuccessful) sports men and women after a key event when they
are asked about subsequent training (eg. after immediate celebration and rest). Rowers are a particularly good example. They often express a dread
of a return to early morning winter training but then reflect that it is
probably worth it because of the prospect of success next year or at the next
Olympics. It is not merely that the prospect of a medal is a telos which
structures and explains their training behaviour. Having a telos might be part
of an unreflective habit. (Perhaps they row to the rhythm of the phrase: ‘I am going to win a medal’.) But, in the post race interview, at least, they
suggest occasional deliberation about the value of the habit, even if there is
no place for such deliberation before dawn on cold rives on winter mornings.
