Jon Paul Sartre has this concept which he calls "bad faith." It has something to do with the purpose of life, and the tendencies of human beings to glom together, or break apart -- depending on which side of the philosophy fence you sit on -- and rounds-out to explaining something very dramatic about the existence of our species all together. Now, I won't lie to you -- I'm not smart enough to write at length on the basics of Bad Faith (shock of all shocks, right? Judging from the first few sentences....) , nor describe in detail the prevalent holes and discrepancies that tend to appear in brilliant theories and concepts; but, what I can do for you is promise you a tale of how this rotund, silky-smooth kernel of knowledge (popped from a philosopher's mind) has made me question what exactly it is that I'm doing in Japan.
Listen in, loves, here it is....
I was a freshman in college the first time I attempted to lift the thick slice of rye bread holding together the big philosophy sandwich in the sky. I didn't have much success -- success in learning in the way I think is important, at least. I remember feeling my neurological pathways changing direction, giggling their assets like they were on a disco dance floor, but the big picture (what it means to question the existence of existence and the like while wearing berets and drinking mocha-chinnos in uppity coffee shops) never really stuck.
I don't mean to imply I didn't care. I was just so busy. I was a fairly studious student who always strove for nothing less than a B+. (I had also taken a semester off of school to travel in Europe, and was trying to catch up to graduate on time.) I devoured textbooks and paid close attention to what was triple underlined on the chalkboard in order to grab onto the tail end of the Dean's List, kicking and screaming. However, once my grades were calculated, I quickly forgot the most interesting aspects of the majority of my subjects. As soon as I was faced with the next 20 page research paper, the mathematical calculation to determine the sun's distance from the planets just seemed to be the least practical piece of information crowding my head, so in turn, it was forced out by the perils of AM/FM radio's marketing niches and the influence of the digital age.
But, I'm happy to report that even if I let some of the more animate concepts of philosophy mingle, there was something about existentialism that grabbed me by my shoulders and shook me hard. (Could it have been Camus and Robert Smith's homage to him that cracked the surface of the gothic make-up and angst of my heart? How romantic!) But, tried as I might, even the existentialists got shoved around, and possibly out of, my intellect. And, Sartre's theory of Bad Faith has mutated into something loosely resembling it's original self in my mind.
Although my explanation of Bad Faith isn't anything the Philosophy Cannon would hold in high regard, today -- six years after my graduation -- it has had a profound effect on my actions towards other people. My definition of Bad Faith is when a person has a core belief of principals and an idea of how to live life, but chooses -- for whatever reason -- to shun those principals and live apart from the idea of what they believe to be an honest life.
My own personal Bad Faith, an anti-internal utopia, would have me living a selfish, piggy life. I'd be out searching for opportunities to partake in gluttony, sin and individual gain at the cost of others. (It sounds torrid and just a bit titillating, doesn't it?) Well, actually, only a third of what I've said truly bothers me. Only the part about individual gain at the cost of others comes close to what I really feel is keeping me living my life in Bad Faith here in Japan. I'm not so much against all the sin and gluttony. That can be kind of fun.
What I really believe, and what isn't quite as clear-cut as many faiths of organized religion would have one believe, is that everyone needs to have an equal right to happiness and opportunity. Because I'm aware of the stark contrasts between what everyone needs and what everyone actually gets, I'm currently living in Bad Faith because I'm not doing a whole heck of a lot to make that gap grow smaller. I'm coasting in a cushy enough job -- looking very much the part of what people all over the world think Americans are supposed to look like -- , in a country that idealizes similarities, group work, and the idea that everyone plays an intrinsic part in the whole.
I am currently taking the easy road. I'm living in Bad Faith. I'm living my life in an area of the world that hates confrontations, appears on the surface to be very much of the same ethnicity and dislikes the discussion of serious subjects. (Maybe it's not that they dislike the subjects, but maybe that I lack the vocabulary/cultural education to speak of such things. However, when I did ask my English Conversation Class about the Japanese royal hierarchy and why female lineage is considered to be less blue-blooded than male lineage, I was told I have a reputation for "serious talks.")
I don't know. I feel I should be doing more than telling a random white American military boy (right out of some Texas high school) to stop blaming all of his bar brawls on the "blacks" who live in Fukuoka and having to explain to him that by saying that, by thinking that, he's expressing his belief in a stereotype and is espousing ignorant and racist concepts. I should be doing more than teaching my Japanese friend that it's not OK to laugh at homosexuality or people who are gay. I should be doing more than slipping sabotaging non-truths into my English lessons so that my seniors think that all American men and women share equal relationships when it comes to running a household. "No, no, really! All American men and women switch off cooking super-sized dinners every night and cleaning the dust off of their large and extravagant chandeliers on the weekends."
I'm not saying that Japan is without it's own discrimination, racism, sexism and inequality. I think, however, that I have a responsibility to work on the discrimination, racism, sexism and inequality in my home country -- the USA. Well, actually, I have a responsibility to do that work wherever I am, but being away from the US, knowing what it feels like to be a representitive of the "great big land of huge hamburgers, freedom of expression, and Bon Jovi" it's clear how much the US is duplicated, and how at times, those duplications propagate inequality.
I don't, however, believe that all of the world's problems are the soul creation of mimicking the United States, and I do believe there are millions of men and women from a variety of places who are passionate about any number of the earth's hurdles and are spending their lives to alleviate the difficulties of those hurdles. Personally, my passion is in the US where I see over and over again just how much work needs to be done in such a wonderful place. I was reminded of that work when I went back to Colorado over the winter break and saw this....
Take a closer look....
I was/am livid. I was/am heart broken. I didn't/don't know what to do.
At the time, I rattled off a quick, and mighty vengeful list of what my possible options were. Most of them included the possibility of me ending up in jail or a fight. I perked up a bit when, during my rant, when I said something along the lines of, "I can't believe this person hasn't had their tires slashed!" It was an "Ah ha!" moment. My friend who I was with had to talk me out of it. "The hotel probably has security cameras. You'd get caught. Would it be worth going to jail for this a#*hole?" Actually, yeah, it would be worth going to jail for, but did I do it? No.
We discussed the possible legal actions someone could take if I were to post their car's photo and encourage some kind of letter writing campaign to change the absolute insane hate and fear in one person's cockamamie mind. (That's an Indiana plate, by the way. You know, just in case you'd need the plate number -- 43 3157 -- and the State that issued it for whatever reason.)
The best solution (and it was rather lame at that) that we came up with was to complain to the management of the hotel. We wanted to try to use our power as consumers to make hateful person's life a little more troublesome. Even if they had to park their disgusting van across the street and walk an extra 50 yards to the entrance, it would have been a small victory. (And, even while writing this now, I realize that my friend and I could have changed hotels. We could have taken our business elsewhere, and even though we didn't think of it at the time, we probably wouldn't have because we liked the rate a different friend of ours could get us because he worked there. -- What's that you say? Bad Faith.)
So, did we? Did we complain? No. When we came up with the idea to vocalize our discontent we were shopping. (I hate to admit this, but we were at Walmart -- just add it to the long list of my crimes.) You see, we had moved the conversation along. I really wish the idea had hit me when I was standing in the parking lot, whooping and hollering about how someone could have so much sickening hate in their being, but it didn't. So, I had to wait until we returned to the hotel. (Could we have gone directly? Sure. Did we? No. Bad Faith, remember?) I made a mental note to bring up the brown van with the manager when we returned. Then we went to dinner.... Then we met up with friends.... Then we had a few drinks.... You can see where this is going. Remember, I'm living my life in a way that lets brown-van driving hate-mongers believe that they're just in believing what they believe.
So, in the end, I returned to the hotel that night, giggly from cheap beer and seeing my friends. And, the brown-van villain was all but forgotten. It wasn't just myself I let down by cruising a along, blissfully happy in my Bad Faith that night, but also all of the men and women who've been touched by or who have had to suffer the terminal illness of AIDS.
This is the work that needs to be taken on in the United States, and by me living in Japan, letting more time go by without vocalizing the differences between what the population of the US is told and believes, and what is actually happening, I'm living in Bad Faith.
But, I've also re-contracted for another year. So, I guess that means I'm not quite ready to live in my internal utopia -- my idea of Sartre's Good Faith. (Actually, Sartre never went there. That's just a part of the mutation.) I'm not such a masochist that I can totally whip my psyche. I do do good. I'm making some kind of difference in the world by teaching English in rural Japan. I just know that I probably won't feel satisfied deep down until I make more of a difference in the United States of America.
