Hellraisers and their Discontents

By Chris Chrappa

Every now and then in the midst of one of my cascades of complaint, my mind begins rolling its third eye at me. We all have our moments of self-doubt and reverse narcissism, but this, this is a different affair entirely.

Have you ever found yourself sitting around with some of your friends, laughing, chatting, engaging in a little insider trading, and, when the gamut of morally pure conversation has been run, spreading gossip?

Not a little of the time, the gossip is about those we know and are even close to, and perhaps we're even talking smack about someone, to someone who we were, a day ago, talking smack about to the person we're now talking smack about. If you think that's hard to say five times fast, try having a mind that tells you incessantly what you're doing as you're doing it. Such is the complexity of the soap operas we weave about ourselves, like the spider that chokes itself with its web.

Do we know why we are such avid, opprobrious gossipers? Can we fathom this undying urge to let the lips and words flap freely under the auspices of "entre nous"? Between you and me, I think the answer to both is yes, and yes, I will tell you why.

Not all gossip is complaint. Some of it is just "I heard John boned Jane," or "Hey Jude told me that Jack was just behind Wall Mart eating peppercorn out of a tea cup;" in other words, there remains some pretense, at least, that information is being exchanged.

Other gossip is gossip about feelings. "I hate Prometheus, he's such a jerk and he's always taking my lighters," and such like. Most decent people just call this complaining, or bitching, or "speaking" one's "mind;" while the upper crust of academia and our noble homo academicus give it the illustrious name of critique.

There comes a time in every student's life-at least in the Humanities-when he or she begins to feel a large cape spawn from his or her back (what decent-people call self-righteousness), emblazoned with a huge "C." At this point, one takes oneself and one's complaints far too seriously. One even stops realizing that the gossip/bitching ultimately grew from one's own back. Clark Kent disappears and Superintellectual takes over for good.

A joke should illustrate my point, one you've probably heard: A man walks into a bar and sees a man, drunk, bragging about a special talent he has. "What is it?" asks the man. "I can jump out of this thirteenth story window," says the drunk, "and be perfectly fine." Needless to say, the man thought this a bold statement, so he challenged the drunk to prove it. "Fine," said the drunk, and lept out the window. Seconds later, he walks back into the bar, and does it again. Finally, as he casually strolls in for the second time, the man exclaims, "that's amazing, how'd ya do it dude?" The drunk whispers to the man that it's easy, you just jump out and think you're not going to die, and you don't! So the man leaps out the window and splatters like an egg in a frying pan. The bartender turns to our survivor and says: "Superman, you're a real dick when you're drunk."

"Critique" works something like Superman's prank. You lead the other guy into absurdities and contradictions and emerge victorious through a slaying of the other, or rather through showing that the other slays himself. "Kindly let me help you or you shall drown," said the monkey placing the fish gently up a tree.

I don't really laugh when I hear the Superman joke, I just sort of nod my head and say, "hmmm, yesssss." Essentially, critique is the same damn thing as complaining, except done this time under the pretense of correcting a fellow wisdom seeker or institution, or exercising seasoned reason, or exorcising bad reason. Whatever the motives, a complaint is a complaint is a complaint, and what interests me about the whole spectacle is the idea that if we all actually got what we wanted, therefore eliminating all reasons for complaint, we'd be miserable. It'd sort of be like heaven; the heaven of which Twain remarked "has not a single feature in it that man actually values."

And if we really don't want that complaining should stop, that blissful equilibrium should reign on earth and peace be granted for all and sundry, what we must want is to raise hell. To be hellraisers. "Rascals," as Alan Watts accurately said.

This is why my third eye balks at me. It tells me, "You idiot, you sit here and whine about thus and such, about the power society and the stupid politicians, about pompous professors and pretentious students, but what would you do if it were all how you wanted? Have you even thought about how you want it?" Indeed, I haven't. Probably most of us don't, at least beyond the local situations that are perhaps too unbearable to remain as crappy as they are. So, we must want something along with hellraising, or making a fuss, or being unbalanced, unhinged in some way: complaining must be about more than "getting things changed." It must be about the real, and the pain of accepting what is.

I would say that above and beyond the surface effects of complaining, what is on display is a wrestling with the real, which already presupposes an acceptance of it.

You can't wrestle with an invisible opponent, though a lot of critique almost accomplishes the feat. What is expressed, at any rate, is the impossibility of fabricating a Heaven from a basically hellish situation, of making it bend to one's will or subduing it by mouthy or heady police work.

Indeed, we are far too quick to run for help or seek shrinks and their various magical potions-it's not the anxiety or the displeasure that's problematic most of the time, it's the shirking, hasty rejection of it. What's left is a lulling tedium bolstered frequently by chemicals designed specifically to lift you up to the empyrean, leaving the crabby earth to walk its backwards path. We cope rather than accept.

Perhaps we take in so much sensory data every day, so many words, so much meaningful and meaningless meshwork, we grow dense or thick with input, like a computer moving really slow after being left on for too long. Some want to crash, some want to keep on truckin.' No doubt many will point out to me that some have debilitating viruses indifferent to desires or wants. They crash regardless, unless operated on or cured by local technicians.

But, also no doubt, there are far too many who use the "virus" as an excuse to escape decision, complaint, dis-ease, acceptance. There is a joy in instability and the unknown that is still remarkably fertile and untapped. Where do you think most of the great artists went for their in-spiration, their breath of fresh air? To the headshrinker?

We're pressurized with the world, and complaining is a latch that releases the tense coagulation accruing in our souls from day to day. Critique is a highbrow way of doing this. Think of it like a meal, where if pure satiation or gratification were to occur, the ultimate dining experience, one would never need to eat again. If you've ever seen American Psycho, it would be like Bateman actually getting to dine at Dorcia. It might as well be all over-- Heaven, baby. Bateman with a pure mind-- imagine that!

Complaining, or critique, is like regurgitation, or defecation, or urination, or even ejaculation, depending on the venom and level of noxiousness involved.

It's a way of keeping the ball rolling, which always means keeping things just a little (or, usually, a lot) unbalanced. Madness is pretty much the norm, and every once in a while we need to just step back, let our third eye's take a deep whiff of the chaos, and smile at it all.

Bateman's method was to raise hell, to become one with the chaos and second rate meals he always seemed to be eating. Superman lets idiots throw themselves out of windows, even helping them along.

Most people just complain. Think about that the next time you rant and rave, or hear a sniggering bore buzzing on about the injustices of consumerism. And gosh darnit, be relieved that the hell we're raising is-not yet at least-nothing like the Heavenly megalomaniacal utopias often envisioned.

Be a rascal. Be a hellraiser. Tell me I'm wrong.