Blog address for all the posts: https://learn1.open.ac.uk/mod/oublog/view.php?u=zw219551
‘Why, because you always speak in imperatives: like all beauties when they are in their prime, you are tyrannical...’ – Meno – The Socratic dialogue by Plato
Giving commands is an attribute of someone with power and authority; obeying commands and orders is a sign of subservience and subjection. In effect, there is an hierarchy. Yet, somewhere along the line there is respect, at least one hopes so.
In an ordered environment, such as one in which experience and good conduct results in promotion to a higher position in the local community; work environment, there may well be jealousy diffused among the unworthy of command. There may also be one or two people with a hankering to attempt to sway favour, from the elevated positioned person(s). towards themselves . In the UK, we call this person a ‘brown-nose’.
So far, we have two types of character attributes; jealous and deviously selfish.
Bovine character, flat character, or NPC
Many people are simply bovine in their thinking; this is a job and it pays wages. Or, as cattle think, ‘This is grass and it feeds me’. Great! We can’t all be the chief. I am one of these ox-like people, and I, like every one of those cows on the commuting train, have other bigger fish to fry. Hmmm! Bad usage of mixed metaphors! Cows eating fish? I overheard a conversation on a bus yesterday: ‘…...They serve vegan chicken there’. I thought, ‘Yeah, chickens ARE VEGAN’. I forgot they eat worms and insects.
Being outwardly dull by dint of not wishing to waste energy on useless and temporary conversational unity is only broken when one person selects another for only two things; conveyance of information, and another desire to assuage a compelling need. Ultimately, this need is for companionship, I suggest; in the short-term and with a hope of a longer term shared policy of frequent connection.
Back to the hierarchy of power and control.
Now we have highlighted the drone workers, the jealous, and the obsequious persons in our group, we may be left with some that have respect for their leader and a desire to attain the same level of pay their leader has. These persons may be compelled by a single idea; money. Let’s separate these characters from our milling crowd, who are already beginning to form into their respective groups. Over there, if we look closely, we can see the flatterers fawning over each other and smiling too much.
Let us hope now, that, that one mild person without the spotlight on them, in the corner, quietly waiting for an introduction on our gameshow, is someone who cares for others, and wants to lead by example, and has the capability to create bridges and ladders for others to follow their footsteps. Let’s call her Mary (she is mentioned later). Perhaps, if we are gentle, she may put her book down when we bring her forward for inspection. Unfortunately, there is another person in the room, distant from our direction of gaze, but never far from our attention. This is the person that Meno in the Socratic dialogue by Plato, is speaking of.
Person of Interest
This is the person, who is physically attractive. I suggest that, amost everyone is initially distracted by a physically attractive person. Worse, still, for those of us who are the meek person in the corner striving with concerted effort to achieve something in life as a builder that needs recognition, if this beauty is eloquent in speech, we shall remain a ‘flat’ character in a story. The focus will be on the cheery, peppy, humourous (humorous Am.) entity that brings a joy to turning up for work each otherwise dreary morning; ‘Meet Dave, he swims like a fish!’ A welcome relief from the cud-chewing cows on the train and on the bus. Or, ‘Meet Mandy, she sings like a bird’. A welcome relief from the non-vegan hens clucking over their lunch-time worms in the canteen.
Farmer for a day
Sadly, it is only the hungry who get to eat at the top table, so our story ends with a magnificent cockerel (Rooster Am.) or a trilling song-bird with enchanting songs, taking a managerial role and systematically and ruthlessly abusing the talents and experience of the egg-laying hens, and the herd of cows thoroughly and diligently munching through their work and re-checking their efforts, in order for that cuckoo to maintain a semblance of efficacy in their role.
A sour outlook, I grant, yet we should be wary of the person with bigger fish to fry.
In case you got lost in this zoo of wondering; a parallel principle behind this, is that vegans are people who will not contaminate their bodies with produce that has been formed by harmful activities on other sentient entities. The difficulty for vegans, I feel, is whether they should choose organically farmed crop that might use bone meal, animal manure, and fish blood as a fertiliser, or foodstuff that is grown using chemical fertilisers. This is absolutely not an attack on any person with any culinary preference.
The Showdown
Finally,
‘Come on down, Mary!’
‘Hello’
‘What do you do for a living, Mary?’
Mary sheepishly smiles, with a mischievous glint in her eyes.
‘I work in a chip shop.’
[Cut to game-show host]:
‘Lovely! Are we in for a treat tonight, folks. We have as competitors, a fish-fryer, a professional angler, and a custodian of a disused Victorian coal mine who breeds canaries. On our experts team, we have Mark, who swims like a fish; Mandy, who sings like a bird; and Giles....'
[Zoom to close-up of host]
[Host winks and gives beaming conspiratorial smile]
'.....who is our actual secret farmer.'
'Which one of our contestants will win the grand prize of being farmer for a day? Will it be Mary?
[Cut to close-up of Mary]
'Solomon?'
[Cut to close-up of Solomon]
'or Eve?'
[Cut to close-up of Eve]
[Cut to beaming smiling host]
'Let's find out!'