A negative to start: few things get my goat by the gonads more than someone announcing they have just had a life-changing realisation. Elevating this empty claim with the title 'epiphany' is rarer, but all the more offensive for that. There is something so implicitly self-congratulatory about the paradigm formula 'I've just had an amazing epiphany' and its cognates ('I've just had an incredible realisation', 'I've just come to the wonderful realisation'). On thinking about why this seemingly innocuous claim grates with me to such an extent, I most emphatically did not experience any epiphanies of any sort. If I felt an epiphany scratching in my cerebral recesses, I would immediately suppress it. I can safely posit myself in the camp of the anti-epiphanists.
To claim epiphany is tantamount to saying, in effect: 'I've recently obtained complete access to the hitherto concealed laws of the universe, and you haven't. Thank you, Goodnight.' The subtext wreaks of conceit. In this fantastical moment, special knowledge apparently bundles itself up, brands itself ostentatiously with 'Top Secret' stamps, and delivers itself as a marvellous ad hominem revelation. 'Everything just...made sense.' Well hats off to you, sir. Great kudos, Madam. A legion of sweaty physicists has been clambering for your keys to the cosmos for many years now, but you got there first.
I would welcome the epiphanist to take his/her perfect form and mould other untruths with it before attempting to wield it persuasively against me. My resistance swells when it is faced with any act of intellectual haste, and this is precisely what the epiphany is. As a moment of instantaneous sublimity, the idea has its use in constructing the myths of progress which console us every day: history lurches forward in fitful leaps as Albert chalks out e=mc^2, or Edison materialises the light-bulb, once confined to his comic-book thought-bubble, into the real thing. But the run-of-the-mill epiphany is far more dangerous, even though it can be seen as an individualisation of this 'history is summed from pivotal points' model. Epiphanies, for the most part, are tools used by confused people to delude themselves into thinking they've succeeded in resolving their heavily pixellated life. They bring the comfort of closure, but it is a rushed, forced variety of closure. I'm convinced that many of the worst decisions ever made first tempted their deciders in the seductive form of the epiphany.
Epiphanies do not menace solely because of their swiftness and freshness (note the integral involvement of recency in the formula, the word 'just': 'I've just had an epiphany.'). Danger also lies in their ready-made nature: the fact that, like nuggets of conventional wisdom, they are 'always already' constructed. For some unfathomable reason, the epiphany is dignified to a sphere in which it is rendered immune to regular criticism. Once I pluck out an epiphany from the nethermind, that's it. Pointless disputing revelation, the highest form of truth, right? The epiphany carries an 'Undisputed Canon Amusement Park - Free Entry' ticket with it at all times. But the ticket is a forgery. The problem is, the epiphanist is so busy toothlessly guffawing at his own good fortune that he/she forgets to check the verification barcode. 'Come right in, epiphany, my faculties will be glad to have you. You're extremely good looking, aren't you?' Epiphanies tend to effortlessly slip past the useful systems of check and balance we have installed, designed to filter the good counsel from the bad. I will leave you to conjure yourselves the horrors that would arise if the thought 'I really want to put frozen chicken on a wooden stick and lick it like an ice cream' were pampered with the special treatment reserved for the epiphany.
These benign realisations seemingly working in our favour are actually the germs of extremism. Moderation (and, in my view, good living) requires that everything which passes through our minds, frivolous or profound, should be subject to the same laws of scrutiny. Confusions, obfuscations, wading through the mud - these sensations should be part and parcel of an unending process of self-examination, enjoyed in themselves, rather than slighted as tiresome preludes to the moments when 'it all comes together'. Progress is a sloth of an animal, and its quicker, more glamorous agents should be treated with suspicion. Renouncing the charm of the epiphany is a liberating act. I noticed the other day that my most widely used conversational mannerism is 'I don't know.' Even when spouting comfortable facts securely placed within my field of knowledge, 'I don't know, but...' often remains the introduction. The quirk functions not so much as an admission of ignorance as a signal to one's interlocutor: 'This is what I say now, but it could very well be otherwise, and my thought is eager to play with its companions even before it's been verbalised itself.' Hesitation is a wonderful, heady aeration of a thing. So the next time you feel the urge to tell me about your moment of insight, dear epiphanist, consider whether your nugget might not be better left in the flighty realms of possibility, untethered in the ether. The world repays second thoughts. And if it is still importunate enough to demand a trip down to earth, worry not: myself and my mustered army of anti-epiphanists will be more than happy to suffocate it with the gentle prods of uncertainty. 'I don't know, but people who have epiphanies are usually wankers.'
13 comments:
Yes, I've often thought that declarations of epiphany are usually sounded from the mouths of attention seeking tossers. More annoying still are those characters that wait with silent glee after the declaration, making you ask what the epiphany was.
i like epiphanies. not all of us are self-reflective enough to realise that the factors that make up our own lives - our relationships and values and attitudes - are all closely interconnected. the gradual unfolding of a complex personal truth is only the product of an intricately precise mind. for most of us, truths which perhaps should be self-evident creep up stealthily and surprise us in rare moments of reflection.
So an epiphany is a thought that seems to explain a whole lot, that comes on quickly, and that the thinker takes quickly and uncritically to privilege their perspective on things.
What's your issue here, really?
Is it the idea that thoughts can be both abstractly general and powerful? Is it the assumption that both can come on quickly, through rational reflection or otherwise? (Are you saying they can't? Surely in any reflection there are points at which one realises something, and why shouldn't some such points be a big deal?)
Or is it just the attitude with which some, perhaps most epiphanists, wield their realisations in public discourse?
You want people to care about the content rather than the act of thinking? But why should that deny that epiphanies play a real and important role in even the best thinking?
Hehe, wow, trumped by an acid keyboard. If my post had been more of a well-reasoned argument, less of a rhetorical exercise, I'd be smarting big time now. Will take on board.
I think Slav just nailed in a sentence what I couldn't get in many paragraphs:
More annoying still are those characters that wait with silent glee after the declaration, making you ask what the epiphany was.
I think that's my issue, TS. Just trying to flesh the rest.
well i thought your article was great tom. and i felt i was able to discern the irony throughout, rather than what others have perceived as your clutching at a clear, well-reasoned argument frustratingly out of your limited reach. If thats what they're after then perhaps you should post your thesis on this blog. Or reply with a piece about people who take shit too seriously and bring down the mood of others who've just enjoyed a totally gold rant. but please make it reasoned.
linked to epiphanies; i cant stand when people tell me about their life-changing (travel-related) experiences. I am sure that some travel experiences are significant enough to impact considerably on somebody's worldview, however i find that more often than not such epiphinous/epiphanic (spelling?) life-changing experiences indicate a lack of forward thinking and/or imagination. but who knows? maybe i need to go to bali and see what its all about.
Right on brother. Perhaps should have put a 'grain of salt' disclaimer at the top for those who don't know me. Although Tom Swann - no excuses!
Amenite -
"or perhaps even seeking to subtly alter your own thinking by presenting the less confronting situation of their own flawed reasoning being corrected. Their delusions that your own thinking could be improved by their suggestions serves only to emphasise just how far below you they are, and the fact that their actions have annoyed you (and to such an extent!) only intensifies their ignominy."
No one is disputing the utility of reflective correction of flawed thinking or the relative merits of other people's thoughts on one's own, rather the point originally made by Tom was that reflection should not end at the appearance of a seeming 'breakthrough'. The main issue which your crudely ironic remarks about Tom's alleged arrogance failed to address was the revisable nature of possibly all of our convictions. Obviously we can't revise all of them simultaneously - you might have heard of Neurath's boat - but we can revise any one of them in the face of new evidence. This was Tom's main intellectual issue with the label of the epiphany: that it provides false closure and has the sub-conscious effect of deterring revision of a particular conviction. Far from claiming that the anti-epiphanist never has to face the burden of being "wrong", he promotes just this awareness of possible error at all times (especially in moments of prophetic excitability).
You would do well to look beneath Tom's rhetorical devices and realise that the practical significance of his piece is the promotion of intellectual modesty, the attribute I assume you were clumsily attempting to satirise.
this whole intellectual wankfest is a joy to read...cheers tom!
i cant be bothered engaging in any critical debate for fear of being unable to match the searing feats of unnecassary wordplay by which we all demonstrate just how smart we are. Plus i wouldnt want to have an epiphany during writing and become self important with my knowledge delivered from up high. Although really what better way to receive thoughts...without all that wastful thinking process by which humdrum regular thoughts are mundanely processed.
Huzzah.
Dave R
Have you been peeking in secret?
http://epiphanist.wordpress.com/
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