There are three things that have been swirling around in my head. An art exhibition from 1974, Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey and dog poo.
I feel they are somehow connected. At the moment, I have no idea how.
Let’s start with the film, which I do recommend, there are so many bits I could write about, but the one that stuck with me was the story of the Sun God’s cattle. (With a story that is nearly 3,000 years old, has the statute of limitations on spoilers expired?)
Quick background if you haven’t read or seen the story. Odysseus is on a bit of a long journey home and, along the way at one point, the sorceress Circe gives him a warning. He and his crew will come to an island where Helios, the Sun God, keeps his sacred cattle. Whatever happens, they must not eat them or it will cost them their lives.
Odysseus passes the warning on to his men. Do not eat the cattle.
Now, the thing is, these guys are hungry. They’ve been trying to get home for ten years and food supplies aren’t exactly abundant. Then a storm traps them on the island for weeks. Their food runs out and eventually they are starving. While Odysseus is away, the men decide they would rather risk the gods’ punishment than starve to death. So, they eat the cattle.
In the film, Odysseus discovers the men in a bunker in the middle of the night, eating the meat. He asks them something along the lines of: Did you think the gods would not see you?
But let’s just pause there for a moment.
Dog Poo
Next, dog poo. I live near a public footpath that leads to the fields where I walk the dogs. I love these fields. But the alleyway leading to them is full of dog poo.
I grumble every time I walk down there about people ruining this lovely little jewel of a place simply because they can’t be bothered to bend over and pick up their dog’s doodoo. I’ve even started leaving a whole roll of poo bags there for the particularly lazy. But then I noticed something. Whenever I actually see someone walking their dog down that alley, they always pick it up. Which got me thinking. Maybe it isn’t that people don’t know they should pick up their dog’s poo. Maybe they just don’t want to be seen as the person who doesn’t.
Anyway. Hold that thought.
Rhythm 0
Which brings me to the performance artist Marina Abramović and her work Rhythm 0. In 1974, at a gallery in Naples, Abramović stood completely still for six hours. Beside her was a table containing 72 objects: things like a rose, perfume, grapes and honey, but also scissors, a knife, a whip and a loaded pistol with a single bullet.
The audience was told they could use any of the objects on her however they wished. She wouldn’t resist and she would take full responsibility. At first, people were gentle. They gave her a rose. Kissed her. Moved her arms and changed the position of her body. And then, gradually, they realised she really wasn’t going to stop them.
Her clothes were cut from her body with razor blades. Then the blades were used on her skin. Her throat was cut and someone drank her blood. Rose thorns were pushed into her stomach. When the gun was brought to her head, a fight broke out as other members of the audience tried to intervene.
After exactly six hours, Abramović stopped being passive. She stood up and began walking towards the audience. The people who had cut her, stripped her and humiliated her when she was an object that didn’t respond suddenly couldn’t face her when she became a person who could look back at them. And they ran away.
Who Am I When Nobody Is Looking?
So, all of this has made me stop and question: who am I when I don’t think the gods, or anyone else, is looking? I know I’m capable of leaving dog poo. I know I’m capable of ignoring the warnings and doing as I please. But am I capable of harming another person simply because I can? And perhaps the more uncomfortable question isn’t whether I could become one of the people holding the razor blade. It’s what stops me?
Is it because I’m a good person? Because I’ve been taught that hurting another person is wrong? Because there are consequences? Because someone might see me? Or simply because, most of the time, the world around me keeps certain boundaries firmly in place?
But Odysseus’s men knew the line. Don’t eat the cattle. They had been warned exactly what would happen if they did. And they obeyed, right up until they were starving. The line didn’t disappear. It moved.
It’s easy to be honest, kind, to do the right thing when it costs me nothing. Easy to say what I would or wouldn’t do when I’m not hungry, frightened, desperate, angry or surrounded by other people doing something I thought I never would.
Obviously leaving a dog turd in an alleyway is a very different universe from taking a razor blade to another human being. It’s tiny. Mundane. Yet I keep seeing the same thing. If someone thinks nobody is around and there is no consequence, the poo sometimes stays there. If another person appears, out comes the bag. And at the other end of the scale, I doubt the people who walked into that gallery in Naples thought, I wonder if I’ll cut and humiliate a stranger tonight.
We’re remarkably good at adjusting the rules when circumstances change, or finding reasons why, in this particular instance, they don’t quite apply. Very few of us are the villain in our own version of the story. Which makes me wonder how much of my behaviour comes from who I believe myself to be, and how much comes from knowing that somebody else can see me. Perhaps who am I when nobody is looking? isn’t quite the question.
The more uncomfortable one is: Who am I when I think I can get away with it?
If you enjoyed this, I send a thoughtful, sometimes slightly cheeky weekly email. Sign up here.
Photo by Jonas Koel on Unsplash
