Fake it till you make it! A teacher’s perspective on the illusions of respect

 

The luminous blue screen of my computer holds its steady gaze at me, and that’s making me a little uncomfortable. Apart from some winks and forehead wrinkles caused by occasional stray thoughts, my eyeballs keep ogling the blank white sheet waiting an outpour of words. I am pushing my brain into forging a relay of thoughts on the phenomenon of respect. Fake or real, we covet it; it remains the most common denominator in all spheres of life.

An immeasurable abstraction as it is, the phenomenon of respect nourishes in an ambience of predictability for acknowledgement. So, naturally it entertains a rich element of uncertainty around it; a vacuum that welcomes expansion and void. And, it is there, in the heart of it, a core desire for an expansive will to stretch. May be it is this void that gravitates mind into seeking it. But, there is an intellectual catch in this craving; a warning to take care of as Aristotle puts it in the following words:

Nature abhors a vacuum

Aristotle

Of all the possible meanings that can be brewed out of this observation by this great philosopher, the one I seek is relevant to the element of human esteem. Esteem, in varying degrees, signifies a level of respect or honour that one is credited with by conforming to the laws and decrees already framed by the culture one is born in or made to work for. In existential philosophy, this aspect of life where an individual seems no more than a captive of his circumstances already decreed for him, is called his facticity. Race, class, age, past, body, beliefs, desires and personality traits - are the given, factual dimensions of human existence. All these aspects of human existence are the ones that can be viewed from a third-person perspective.

All measures of respect or dignity that are valued in a particular culture or working environment are assessed with reference to these factual dimensions stated above. So, in this regard, a person in possession of a certain level of self-esteem is predominantly a slave to his social conventions that he has to adhere to.

Most definitely, this endowment and reception of esteem is part of a social rigmarole networked into a variety of social conventions. Through this network of needs that humans have woven for a collective claim over the attainment of temporal prosperity, comes the question of mutual integrity and credibility. That’s where they are naturally bound into an obscure ideal of estimation for one another. The better aligned you are to the predetermined dimensions of the social norms, the higher claim you owe unto others’ estimation of you. A distinctive characteristic of human consciousness, argues Sartre, is that it is capable of ‘nihilating’Being. An individual causes a world to be discovered’ through the negativity he imparts to elements of the world. Sartre uses the example of looking for his friend Pierre in a café and realizing that his friend’s absence is as real and vivid as the other physical features of the café.This leads him to suggest that there is a nothingness at the heart of human consciousness which allows individuals to doubt, imagine and interrogate things in theworld.

That is a paradox and asks for a deep scrutiny of the existence against all claims of self-authenticity and self-consistency. In principle, whole intellectual quest into self-actualization swirls around this basic problem i.e. “nothingness at the heart of human consciousness”. This nerve-tingling sensation occasioned by this discovery of a great void, or a vacuum, as suggested in the thesis statement, puts a big question mark on the notion of credibility we long to be recognized with. Since our entire social, professional, or to a great deal, our economic pursuits are anchored around some ideals to be met, we want to meet these ideals keeping our personal ideality intact. The entire struggle that ensues is a kind of perpetual tension between ‘being and nothingness.’ As we get closer to ‘being’ by conforming to the element of facticity, the nothingness recedes. It seems fitting to say that like many other coveted ideals, esteem stands an evident risk of being fake since it does not seem to coincide with the ideality of personal pursuits on an intellectual level.

The notional feel of this respectability is nowhere as besmirching and elusive as in the profession of teaching, especially in a society like ours. It is crudely dubbed as the profession of those who, by certain twist of misfortune, had to skid away from their line of desired profession and later settled for teaching as a means of survival. Not a very wrong perception though. Nevertheless, how justifiable is the intensity of contempt that is so often lashed up against this means of survival? What is completely overlooked is that teaching has been ranked as the third most stressful job in the world after heart surgery and air traffic control. Certainly, the element of stress, as envisioned by the visionaries, authenticates the sensitivity of dealing with human mind, character and by extension his soul. Does it not sound like a credential potent enough to win a stature and esteem in society? Well, the answer is always bleak and unworthy. If life is doomed to be a ‘losing battle’ as says Bernard Shaw, why not do so gracefully and fake some esteem unless we can make it.