A Most Beautiful Failure

 

One of the things that inspired this year's theme was a talk I went to, many years ago, called "Beautiful Failures". I mentioned it in a post, in 2016, all about my visit to the Brisbane Writer's Festival that year. The talk was by Lucy Clark, a journalist who wrote an amazing editorial titled "My daughter, my beautiful failure", and her experiences researching and writing the article inspired her to research and write an entire non-fiction book all about the pressures of modern schoolchildren.

The premise is simple, Mrs Clark noticed that own daughter was failing at school, but this wasn't due to laziness, stupidity or misbehaviour. It was due, in part, to poor mental health - in particular anxiety - but more importantly, how her anxieties were exacerbated by modern schooling's  competitive, hierarchical grading systems; one-size-fits-all pass/fail dynamics & rigid culture of independence. Whilst, as I understand it, schooling in Australia has improved its attitudes towards mental health, it's clear that the structure of the schooling system hasn't shifted in recent years.

The main difference between the article and the book, is scale. Lucy Clark's article was about seeing her daughter as a microcosm of the schooling system whereas the book looks at the macrocosm, the system itself, and sees how not just the "failures", but even the successful children in the schooling system are being put under an incredible amount of pressure.
Now, I have not read the book. If you want to know more about how broken the education system is, then you should buy the book and read it yourself. What I know about the book, I learned in an hour-long presentation at a book festival, from the author.
What I know of the book is what was spoken about in the talk at a book festival. For example, I learned the disturbing term "suicide clusters". TRIGGER WARNING: I'm going to talk about this in detail, if this is a triggering concept for you, you can skip to the next paragraph (after the three dashes). Or, if you read on and this topic brings up any unwelcome thoughts for you and you want help, I recommend you call Lifeline on 13 11 44, or follow this Google Link which can help find local support for you. For you see, what a "suicide cluster" is, is a series of concurrent suicides which happen after one person commits suicide, which itself triggers several others to as well. It's actually the reason why trigger warnings became so popular - it has been shown that people who are "at-risk" of suicide, can be triggered to attempt it simply by being exposed to a suicide victim - and this was disturbingly common in high schools. As has been established, because of the high stress of school, so many school children who were similarly struggling with mental health, leading to this disturbing knock-on effect of children killing themselves. I don't know whether it's because the stress of a fellow student dying is enough to push someone over the edge, or if hearing of someone like them committing suicide is inspiring them to do something they've been thinking about for a while. I'm not suicidal myself, so I can't really explain it, but what matters is that dozens of schoolkids were dying, because of the stress of school...

 - - -

But, I'm not actually talking about school. I'm thirty-one years old now, High school was over half a life-time ago for me. Rather, I'm taking inspiration from Mrs Clark's epiphany. I haven't read the book, so I'm looking at my personal experiences, and using the things I learned from her talk as a small piece of a much larger puzzle.
See, whilst I think her work is phenomenal, I think Mrs Clark didn't go big enough. See, the problem with the school system is exacerbated by the fact that it is a "system". Which means flaws in the system, by nature of being applied again and again, reiterates mistakes. If one child with anxiety struggles because of mental health, all children will, because they will be forced to undergo the same systemic structure.

Now... huh, can I think of a system, a broken system, which is applied to everyone resulting in countless systemic flaws? A system which causes struggles for all involved because of its rigid hierarchy, and unfairly hurts those who have mental health issues, or health issues in general; a system which causes stress across the system, even for those who "succeed" at it?
Capitalism. I'm talking about capitalism.

Whilst I am not a rich man, I'm also not exactly low on the socio-economic ladder, because of the foundational privilege of my family having enough wealth to support their children, I don't suffer as much as most do in this system. But, I see it, in my personal, professional and political circles.
We have a system which is meant to have a cycle, a continuous recirculation of the economy, since the only way an economy works is if it keeps cycling. But, because capitalism is about competition and the accumulation of wealth via owning the means of production, like an ouroborus the head feeds from the tail, whilst the tail is bled dry, creating this lop-sided self-cannibalizing system which is inherently unstable, and only perpetuates by artificially inflating itself (literally, we call it "inflation") to keep feeding the eternally starving head, whilst consuming the rotten, shrivelled tail to the bone. The philosophy of capitalism - possession of value - goes against the philosophy of economy - continual flow of value - meaning the system is inherently broken.

The system is broken, and it is causing us to fail. It causes health struggles; it causes homelessness; it causes starvation; it causes socio-economic divide & untold stress across the system. But, as I've come to learn, whilst we are failing, we are beautiful failures. As Mrs Clark learned, her daughter could come through the other side of the education system because of a support network of friends, because of a shift in her own belief system & because she learned to overcome the system, and get out the other side, unscathed.
And we can overcome by supporting one another - that's the whole idea of charity, welfare & social programs; we know the system is broken, so we try to tip the scales back a bit. We can change our belief system, we can start seeing the system for what it is, an imperfect and broken system - Anti-capitalist philosophy isn't about opposing money, it's about valuing every member of the system, and not just those who own, and earn from, capital. And it's about working to get out the other side, unscathed - now, I don't know how you can "stop" capitalism, I fully admit that, but I do know it's possible. Some people believe due to ignorance (or being mislead by those who are pro-capitalist), that ending capitalism would end money, that without capitalism you can't own anything & that capitalism is natural... but, that's confusing capitalism for "economy". If it ended tomorrow, you wouldn't lose any money; you wouldn't lose your job; you'd still own your house and your car & you can still go buy fish and chips (if you want)...

But, we aren't the failures, the System is.

Now, I know that even talking about this makes me sound like a hippy-dippy dreamer. Some people will call me pro-marxist (even though I'm not); or try to tar me with whatever brush they can, so they can throw feathers and have me look like the fool. But, I'm not a fool, I'm just an anti-capitalist. Capitalism is just a philosophy, and an economic system based on that philosophy "private ownership of the means of production". I don't know how to end it, but it can end, and until it does, we will continue to fail in myriad ways. And yes, whilst I am an anti-capitalist and I hate the failures in the system, I am not so blind that I can't see the success of the system. Some people thrive well in this system, and do well for themselves and others (see again, charity; welfare & social programs).

But, if you are a successful capitalist, a rich man, you aren't a beautiful... no matter how much the rich pretend to be charitable, kind & thoughtful, so long as they perpetuate this system, they are a vampiric snake, cannibalizing its own tail - and so long as that's the case, I'd rather be a beautiful failure than an ugly success...