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by Eymard de Silva Wijeyeratne

If we dare to look around and open the window of our faculties to sight and sound and taste and touch, our reward will inevitably be pain of mind and disillusionment. What we see is violence, death, destruction and garbage.

What we hear are the sounds of gunfire and bombs and the grinding of teeth in despair and strident howls of rap music. Our taste buds are violated by synthetic foods: a good example of which is a rubbery protein of vegetable origin that is invested with an imputed prawn flavour.

What we touch lacks grain and texture and young lovers have lost the gentle reciprocity and resistance of a caress. While our roads are scarred by potholes and marred by delinquent drivers, escape routes are paved to a smooth veneer with casinos, nightclubs, drugs and contrived sexuality that is drained of natural affection.

The earth that we live in we have taken on lease as a graveyard to settle, when time runs out, our brittle bones, our craven flesh and our shattered memories. The overarching trees, the flowering shrubs, the birds and the scent of the soil are not meant for our enjoyment. Is it surprising then that the language we use lacks vitality in the matter of sensuously perceived detail, which alone can generate metaphor of enlightenment, bite of wit and irony, and meaning that sustains life?

Deluding the public

If one reads the newspapers or listens to television debates, one is left with the realisation that in the matter of governance by the state or in the matter of performance by men holding public office, literary solutions are offered for real life problems. A good example of the potential for the abuse of language is what is pretentiously referred to as the 'peace process.'

One is lured into believing that there is a well-defined step-by-step process for making peace, just like the one used to make cheese. Do we really believe that the rennet of verbosity will curdle the prevailing stream of violence into nicely set stability and serenity?

Here are a few examples of the incantations that politicians and their peace activist supporters argue will usher in peace: "witnessing the unfolding panorama of history", and "manifesting sincerity, openness and candour untrammelled by inhibitions, shackles, impediments and fetters." On the other hand it is suggested that the twin devils of hatred and violence will be exorcised with the words "drain the reservoir of suspicions that is now filled to the brim," or "renounce the appeal of sabre-rattling."

This type of fatuity and affectation in the use of language is to be expected from politicians whose profession, in Sri Lanka at least, demands that they limit the social and physical reality around them to their own petty ambitions.

Peace in the world or in any given country is a natural outcome of the balancing of enlightened self-interest among individuals, among groups of individuals and among nation states. If we limit our discourse to the use of plain language isn't it abundantly clear that the government has made a sincere attempt to invoke peace through negotiation, even at the expense of a threat to the security of the state?

Paradigm shift

Yet, it is unfortunate that many activists who are engaged in what is euphemistically referred to as civil society activity, imagine that they are engaged in scientific analysis when they deal with social issues. Very often, words or phrases are used in a manner that results in fatuity parading itself as profundity.

One such phrase is 'paradigm shift.' The word paradigm is derived from the compound Greek word 'paradeigma' which means 'example, proof or model.' Thomas Kuhn, the well-known analyst of the scientific method, used the word 'paradigm' in a very specialised sense to mean a conceptual framework that encompasses a scope that is broader than that suggested by the word 'hypothesis'.

Scientists rely on intuition or an irrepressible hunch to formulate hypotheses and thereafter seek empirical data that would establish the validity of those hypotheses. 'Paradigm' on the other hand signifies the ex post facto understanding of the conceptual basis of the method used in a given science at a given time.

The heliocentric view of the universe that was introduced by Copernicus and subsequently developed by Galilleo and others represented a radical shift from the astronomy of Ptolemy. It was thus called a paradigm shift.

Likewise Quantum physics and Einstein's Theory of Relativity represent a paradigm shift away from the Mechanics of Newton; in the sense that what is true of the macrocosm is not necessarily true of the microcosm. No longer is it possible to represent truth as one-to-one correspondence between a theory and the objective reality it claims to represent.

Three-dimensional space of length, breadth and height, and three-dimensional time of past, present and future are replaced by a space-time continuum, which the ordinary man cannot comprehend. We find that those who write about social issues use the phrase 'paradigm shift' indiscriminately, to signify a position or an outcome that lacks meaning but generates regular income.

Foreign input to delusion

There is an alarming trend among those who claim to be social scientists to display their pretensions by using and misusing theories put forward by men like Derrida, Foucault and Wittgenstein. They try to make out that knowledge is relative to each person's desire and determination to give his/her own interpretation to a given set of propositions.

This artificially developed cult is an unwarranted distortion of the commonly held and accepted position that in certain fields of discourse people would invariably hold different views on the same subject. Good examples of such debatable issues are 'the death penalty' and 'putting stray dogs to sleep.'

The problem of meaning has been debated in relation to the propositions and theories put forward by philosophers and theologians on subjects such as 'after life' and the ultimate reality that forms the enduring substratum of the transient world.

Several eminent scientists have argued that the propositions of philosophy and religion are meaningless because they are not objectively verifiable with the use of a precisely defined method. Scientists with a mathematical cast of mind, like Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russel, A. N. Whitehead and Ludwig Wittgenstein attempted to reduce language that purports to offer knowledge, into fundamental propositions in logic and mathematics.

Others like G. E. Moore, Gilbert Ryle, and J. L. Austin restricted their inquiry to purely linguistic analysis, to lay bare the pretensions of philosophical theories. Philosophy is of little consequence in the matter of living, while religion is a matter of personal faith that needs to be protected from the corrupting influence of institutional megalomania.

Karl Popper who initiated his career as a Positivist, made a significant contribution in this respect. He argued that any proposition or theory if it is to contribute to the progress of science must in principle be 'falsifiable' with the use of the same rigorous methods that are used for their verification. He was very harsh in his evaluation of the theories of Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud.

Theories that amount to no more than cookery book recipes for marinating the mix of concepts such as 'conflict management', 'conflict resolution' and 'conflict transformation' are thus reduced to a disposable heap of pretensions that are not falsifiable and hence not worth the effort involved in verification.

As we all know, the current British solution to conflict resolution is to shoot through the head. Popper was also critical of the notion of a Utopia. In his book 'Conjectures and Refutations', he says, "Do not aim at establishing happiness by political means. Rather, aim at eliminating concrete miseries."

Creative writing

What I have so far said may create an impression in the mind of the reader that I wish to test every piece of writing on the touchstone-criterion of falsifiability. This is far from being the case. Only pseudo science stands condemned with the use of that criterion.

The use of the term 'creative' to denote novels, short stories, poems and plays does not imply that other forms of writings such as biographies, autobiographies and essays are not creative: though in a different sense. What matters in the case of discursive or analytical prose is clarity and precision in the use of language combined with the logical development of a point of view. Let me take two examples to illustrate the essential difference between these two types of literature.

"Aaron seated himself on one of the chairs by the wall, to listen. Certainly it was a beautiful instrument. And certainly in a way she loved it. But Aaron remembered an anthem in which he had taken part as a boy.

His eye is on the sparrow

So I know He watches me

For a long time he had failed to catch the word sparrow, and had heard:

His eye is on the spy-hole

So I know He watches me.

Which was just how it had all seemed to him as a boy.

Now as ever his eye was on the spy-hole. There sat the woman playing music. But her inward eye was on the spy-hole of her vital affairs - her domestic arrangements, her control of her household, guests and husband included." (D.H. Lawrence, Aaron's Rod)

Here Lawrence uses the metaphor of an eye on the spy-hole and a biblical allusion to enforce the meaning of a woman pre-occupied with her domestic concerns even while playing the piano. This is creative writing at its best.

Here is another piece of writing, which does not qualify to fall within the category of creative writing in the same sense:

"The Buddha recognised that constant vigilance is the price of peace, but extended this to include moral vigilance. Even an Ariya Cakkavattin needs critical monitoring. Governments denying the importance of a sentinel function that cannot stand scrutiny from 'the independent eye of society' are by definition despotic (from Buddhism, Human Rights and Social Renewal Nalin Swaris).

The reader will notice that this passage is a piece of discursive prose that develops and illustrates the need for social vigilance. In the first passage the author uses the metaphor 'eye in the spy-hole' - a term that is not strictly applicable to a woman playing a piano - to heighten the effect of her other concerns.

The 'independent eye of society' on the other hand is a plain smile that compares the collective eye of society to the eye of an individual. The clear distinction between creative writing (call it imaginative writing or fiction if you may) and analytical writing was perhaps the reason why Professor Lyn Ludowkye did not favour students in the Department of English studying philosophy.

English writing in Sri Lanka

We live in a society where book launches are used to rocket-propel literary works into market orbit. I must confess that I am neither equipped nor entitled to pass judgement on these products because I have not taken the trouble to read them. To purchase a book, settle down comfortably in a chair and then find its contents jejune is an unpleasant experience.

A few reviews I have read in the newspapers have created an impression in my mind that the poems, novels, short stories or films, they choose to evaluate are based on circumstances relating to the war in the North. The opportunity that an author grabs to drink deep of a reservoir of pathos dammed by peace activists and do-gooders results in a piece of literature that has no aesthetic appeal.

Writers have failed to clutch and grasp the rich but revealing flow of day-to-day life. Two Sri Lankan poets who impress me in their ability to capture the sweet but ordinary circumstances of life in intimately specific and sensuous perceptions are Patrick Fernando and U. Karunatilleke. The following stanza from Patrick Fernando's poem, 'The Fisherman Mourned by his Wife', will illustrate what I mean.

"Three months the monsoon thrashed the sea, and you

Remained at home, the sky cracked like a shell

In thunder, and the rain broke through.

At last when pouring ceased and storm winds fell,

When gulls returned new-plumed and wild,

When in our wind-torn flamboyante

New buds broke, I was with child."

While it is true that the immediacy of sensuous particularity enriches and authenticates creative writing it is also true that novelists and poets do draw heavily from the font of history, myth, religion and philosophical tracts to enforce and heighten such particularity.

The final claim to be a creative writer depends ultimately on individual genius T.S. Eliot for example drank deep from the philosophical works of George Santayana, Henri Bergson and the works of poets such as Jules Laforgue and Dante. I will illustrate this point with an example.

The memory throws up high and dry

A crowd of twisted things,

A broken spring in a factory yard,

Rust that clings to the form that the strength has left,

Hard and curled and ready to snap.

(T.S. Eliot, Rhapsody on a Windy Night)

Bergson makes a distinction between what he calls metaphysical intuition and knowledge. He treats the latter as a mere static accumulation of facts. He says this difference is to be understood in the same sense that 'the motor impulse is distinct from the path traversed by a moving object, as the tension of the spring is distinct from the visible movements of the pendulum." (Henri Bergson, 'Introduction to Metaphysics'.

Wallace Stevens was another poet, who was influenced by Bergson. In this little poem we vividly see 'elan' that reveals itself to intuition alone, wrapping itself around the dead reality of a tree stump.

"In Oklahoma,

Bonnie and Josie,

Dressed in calico,

Danced around a stump.

They cried

"Ohoyaho,

Ohoo'

Celebrating the marriage

Of flesh and air."

(Life is Motion, Wallace Stevens)

Just as much as progress in physical science enables man to understand and cope with the physical reality of which he is a part, a perception of the particularities of that reality in which he is enmeshed enables him to engage in creative writing.

The grey area that lies between these two extremes is fertile ground for those who wish to develop fantasies relating to social relations and ethics. If we are keen to see our country progress can we not take a rational decision regarding the menace of stray dogs and the death penalty, instead of letting the problem of dog biting man being reduced to that of man biting dog? Why do we wish to reduce the democratic compulsion to protect innocents in society to that of protecting criminals?

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