Thoughts on Consistency, Part I

In many ways we are all characters, as if in a story. A good story builds a consistent character, or at least a character the reader can expect something from. Hence you have the devices of foreshadowing, irony, climax, etc. We each develop these sorts of roles. As our interconnected stories unfold, we are one others' readers; consequently, we at least think know what to expect from one another. Again, this is more or less the basis of everyday communication, be it verbal, non-verbal, direct, or indirect. (J. Habermas has been saying this kind of thing for ages now; so blame him if you think my premises are wrong.) Anything markedly different generally falls into the category of unstable irony -- the inconsistent becomes the consistent, the harsh becomes the compassionate, etc. I only say this to illustrate the fact that we often have a basic, functional understanding of one other, and as a result we have certain expectations of one another. For the most part, unless we don't know enough about the other person to make such a sound judgment, we normally feel safe enough to engage them without too much prior consideration. Ah, and yet our inner cynic sometimes hastens to try and make us wise to the possibility, indeed the inevitability, of what we do not expect. Obviously, the anticipation of such irony is by no means foolproof; after all, this kind of prophetic prognostication would serve to eliminate the word "irony" from our conceptual dictionary. It just wouldn't be possible anymore. All the same, our inner cynic will go on to assure us that it is still better to expect the random, thus stripping it of some of its more overtly malevolent and destabilizing wiles.

Take, for instance, my present interest, in this short essay, in all things aleatory. To be sure, it has not always interested me, as my friends frequently point out that nothing seems capable of always attracting my transient attention span. It is, one could say, within my character to flirt from fascination to fascination for indeterminate but ever fleeting periods of time. If something, such as the vacuous term "postmodernism," makes an apparent residence in my working vocabulary, it is outside the grain of my established character to maintain any sort of lasting interest. To do so, then, would be unstably ironic for my readers, that is, those with whom I interact. This, however, begs the obvious question: Should we be so reticent to embrace instability? More frighteningly, though, what if we are already unknowingly embracing it?

The randomness of life is a common complaint. And yet this grievance is bandied about as if "life" is something singular, some kind of something. However, consider the implication of believing "life" to be more a collection of something(s) (maybe, for the sake of saving rationality, we can say that the singularity is only recognizable at all -- at least, if nothing else, of being singular -- because of the fact that all we have to go on is multiplicity). Even if we were able to differentiate ourselves as individuals from a singular "life" that happens to be random, we would be left to wonder if we, as individuals, were any less random than whatever is left that constitutes such "life."

The point of this, and a rather banal one at that, is simply to introduce what follows: we human beings are inconsistent, and there is probably very little any of us can do, or possibly even should do, about it.

Consistency is, of course, like most things, in the eye of the beholder, and if we are to jump headfirst into our existential, radical "nowness" (a problematic assumption for any number of reasons that aren't worth exploring at the moment), then it really doesn't hold too much meaning either. As far as I see it, its importance remains mostly pragmatic, as it compels us to assess, from the present of course, our views of the past and the future, and thus come up with a reasonable assessment of the place we think the present plays in all that. So, like the story metaphor I was outlining before, we think about consistency in order to not go mad! We need a unifying story, something to give us a bit of sense to things, even if we kind of know it's something we've told ourselves. There's nothing in and of itself wrong with believing the stories you tell yourself, or the ones told to you for that matter; in fact, belief in a story inevitable. The danger comes when we forget the banal point above, no matter if it is a "good" or "bad" one: don't necessarily believe the hype.

Anyway, I realize that by now, as you come to the end of this post, you are probably more than eager for a clear thesis or a theme, or at least something concrete to make sense of why this is worth writing about, some sort of thoroughfare through which to navigate the twisted terrain of mixed metaphors, puzzling personal pronouns and parenthetical exclamations. That, though, is for the fun-filled non sequitur that is Part 2 tomorrow -- A Trip to the Christian Bookstore.