Jakraj (ya-cry) is a Polish word that I have created to describe a very specific concept that is international in scope. "Ja Kraj" means "I country" or "I nation" or even "me nation" in that lose way that words and phrases actually describe reality as opposed to the sense of false definition that dictionaries mostly give.
This morning I slowed and stopped on a back road in the centre of the city to allow someone to back their car onto the road from a parking slot, not an easy task on this particular road as it is narrow and people often drive too fast. As I was only stopping and not turning or even parking, I did not use my indicators. The car coming up fast from behind did not even bother to check why i had stopped: it was enough that I was in his or her way. I hit my horn as they went by to warn the guy pulling out. luckily no contact occurred, but it is a good example of jakraj.
So, what is jakraj?
Jakraj is the me-centric vision of the world, where only your existence has any relevance, the world having its meaning totally defined by your presence. Other people are mere objects, placed in the environment to either assist or hinder you, much as characters do in a computer game. There are no real relations between other people or things, other than some objects withhold certain other objects to hinder your access to them. Jakraj means that you seek no responsibilities, only power.
The jakraj vision of life is incredibly common in Poland, even walking down the street can be a surprising experience because those people with an inflated sense of jakraj naturally expect you to move out of their way, and that means anyone with a job, for example, that has the slightest control over another's existence. The more power, the more jakraj, and the average citizen is adept at recognising the amount of jakraj in another at a glance on the street. What, then, when they meet someone from a culture or background that values jakraj less? Well, initially you steer around people, any people walking towards you, but are surprised when some of these people do not have the courtesy to do the same. Once you figure out what's going on you can play the game your way - dress in your most informal clothes and deliberately not steer out of the way of anyone coming towards you who make no visible effort to steer around you. The result is a bump, but remember to turn your head quick to observe that look of surprise when they think they have blundered and mistaken your level of jakraj.
Well, walking on the sidewalk, what does it really matter? In reality I generally ignore these people as I have better things to do, but on the road it is a different matter, because ownership of a bicycle gives you more jakraj than a pedestrian, and a car has far, far more than either. I have severely reprimanded my wife on a couple of occasions when she has been driving - as a university lecturer she has an unconsciously high amount of jakraj - after she has come very close to pedestrians while travelling at some speed.
In the workplace many managers have severe problems with jakraj, and a common theme is that one's subordinates should be treated like automatons, or, as the Victorian dogma went, they should be seen and not heard. How can one receive any critical assessment of your work if you are motivated by jakraj? Any criticism, whether positive or negative is an attack on the self-esteem, a deliberate attack and nothing to do with the content of the critique. If you are going to be critical in a negative way, it must be done in hiding, so that the person you are criticising does not know it was you who put the knife in their back.
I used to assume that in any country with such a high Christian profile as Poland, concepts as love, mercy, and responsibility would be strong. How wrong I was, the popularity or lack of religion has no positive relationship with morals, family values and all the rest, but it can severely damage it, and this is part of the burden of history that still oppress Poles. The Roman Catholic church is a major offender here, it ensures that community feeling is crushed, although I am sure this is not always deliberate, but when you see, week after week, that your religion does not care to engender brotherly feeling, does this not mean that to achieve salvation it is best not to respect your fellow man or woman? I am not going to say that I know the precise mechanism or mechanisms, but what I do see are some large elements that seem to have cause and effect links. The many people who are good, are good despite of their religion, not because of it, and that is the saddest thing I can say.
Jakraj is alive and well wherever you go in the world, and seems almost a prerequisite if you wish to be a successful politician. Fortunately, when you recognise your own, personal jakraj, you can begin to fight it. You can question the negative ways of society and how you can feel impelled to follow them even if you can see the result is less than good. And if you believe in religion, remember that at the end of the day it is not what society thinks of you that is important, it is what your god thinks of you, and if you are a jakraj-ridden priest then your chances of success in the afterlife are far less than the most despised criminal - for you pretend to represent your god, and gods have little patience with those who mislead their people.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Micro-adventures: Spice 2 Life!
Having spent 75 days taking a self portrait of myself every day to fit the group-of-the-day on Flikr Group Roulette (see my Fugger blog for all 75 pictures), I felt it was a pity to give up the fun part. Taking a picture involved dreaming up a suitable image, preparing for it, taking it, processing the resulting image, posting it and then encouraging people to come and see it. It all took rather a long time.
I did it to see if I could prove that art could be separated from craft, part of a long term project to show that art exists in all fields of human effort. That means that you first need to learn to recognise it in a particular field, and that in turn meant trying to define what we mean by art. High art was the first casualty.
Anyway, I quit taking part as a Fugger to give me time to write, including in this blog. However, no matter how much fun this is, most of it is merely writing down concepts I have already worked out in my head. What happens, then, when I eventually finishing writing down all those concepts? Comment on current affairs, write about my home improvements or my cats? I don't think so, there are already enough people doing that kind of thing. No, I want to talk about the harder concepts, the ones where you have to create the concept before commenting on it, more like the carpenter who designs a table, makes it and then comments on it, or the artist, rather than as a mere critic passing judgement on others concepts.
What I am trying to say is that I need a way of generating new ideas. Generating new ideas is the most effective when you do something new, when you get to know something more of your effort goes into maintaining your earlier ideas and pushing them to a conclusion. Fresh ideas means getting off one's metaphorical butt and doing soemthing different. Welcome, then, to the micro-adventure.
Everyday you need to set aside five minutes for an adventure, something that benefits only your personal development and not your work or home duties. It could take longer than five minutes, but that is my best first-guess. I have tested over the past few days, on Friday I went to a gym and signed up. Yesterday we explored the lifts and the underground garage in the city's largest and best mall. Today we explored the foot crossings at the northerly end of the train station platforms, near where they load and unload the mail, which we had not noticed before today when we went to get some photos of the station for a work project.
Fitting the micro-adventure into the working day, as part of a shopping trip or whatever is fine, it is the deliberate removing of five minutes from other tasks which is important. What is scary is not knowing whether I can continue to generate ideas for adventures every day; however, having generated adequate images for 75 days I do have some faith in being able to generate ideas in the future for things to do.
I did it to see if I could prove that art could be separated from craft, part of a long term project to show that art exists in all fields of human effort. That means that you first need to learn to recognise it in a particular field, and that in turn meant trying to define what we mean by art. High art was the first casualty.
Anyway, I quit taking part as a Fugger to give me time to write, including in this blog. However, no matter how much fun this is, most of it is merely writing down concepts I have already worked out in my head. What happens, then, when I eventually finishing writing down all those concepts? Comment on current affairs, write about my home improvements or my cats? I don't think so, there are already enough people doing that kind of thing. No, I want to talk about the harder concepts, the ones where you have to create the concept before commenting on it, more like the carpenter who designs a table, makes it and then comments on it, or the artist, rather than as a mere critic passing judgement on others concepts.
What I am trying to say is that I need a way of generating new ideas. Generating new ideas is the most effective when you do something new, when you get to know something more of your effort goes into maintaining your earlier ideas and pushing them to a conclusion. Fresh ideas means getting off one's metaphorical butt and doing soemthing different. Welcome, then, to the micro-adventure.
Everyday you need to set aside five minutes for an adventure, something that benefits only your personal development and not your work or home duties. It could take longer than five minutes, but that is my best first-guess. I have tested over the past few days, on Friday I went to a gym and signed up. Yesterday we explored the lifts and the underground garage in the city's largest and best mall. Today we explored the foot crossings at the northerly end of the train station platforms, near where they load and unload the mail, which we had not noticed before today when we went to get some photos of the station for a work project.
Fitting the micro-adventure into the working day, as part of a shopping trip or whatever is fine, it is the deliberate removing of five minutes from other tasks which is important. What is scary is not knowing whether I can continue to generate ideas for adventures every day; however, having generated adequate images for 75 days I do have some faith in being able to generate ideas in the future for things to do.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Tradition as the death of culture
Yes, I know that it is a commonly held view that tradition preserves culture, and it does, if you like your culture preserved in sugar, vinegar or brine.
What any of us knows about the culture of our ancestors is very little, and if you ever tried to live life as it was a hundred years ago or more then it would not be long before you discovered that you have little idea how things work or what people did from minute to minute throughout the average day. What we know are what people thought worth preserving, with little idea why they thought it was worth preserving. A good example is Polish cuisine, which is incredibly mind-bendingingly Cutlet, cold meat, cutlet, cold meat...
Find yourself an old enough cookery book, preferably one published before the 1940s, or perhaps a one recently published on some local cuisine, if you can track down one of the half dozen shops that actually hold or can order it, then the story changes, there really is a cuisine, with something called 'variety'. The problem is not restricted to Poland, most northern European cuisines have been shredded through a lack of respect, both at home and abroad. Polish cuisine never really had much chance, most of the country was still at peasant status before the Second World War, and then when great numbers of peasants moved into the now expanding cities after the war, they glutted on what was available and what they liked - cold meat, cabbage and cutlet, almost for any meal. Cabbage, originally an Italian import several centuries ago, was preserved in brine for the winter to give something vaguely fresh to eat while there was nothing much worth eating growing outside. These days cabbage, of various varieties, in brine is the staple vegetable, eaten almost every day and often for two meals. Lettuce, in its plain green leafy variety, is either used as a piece of decoration on the plate or drowned in cream and sugar.
Tradition has little to do with the preservation of culture, it is instead a wild stab into the past to justify present actions in which we all participate and yet fail to describe the reasoning for to later generations. They, as do we with our inherited traditions, assume that they have been passed on for the best reasons, in good faith, rather than merely as a set of conveniences.
What any of us knows about the culture of our ancestors is very little, and if you ever tried to live life as it was a hundred years ago or more then it would not be long before you discovered that you have little idea how things work or what people did from minute to minute throughout the average day. What we know are what people thought worth preserving, with little idea why they thought it was worth preserving. A good example is Polish cuisine, which is incredibly mind-bendingingly Cutlet, cold meat, cutlet, cold meat...
Find yourself an old enough cookery book, preferably one published before the 1940s, or perhaps a one recently published on some local cuisine, if you can track down one of the half dozen shops that actually hold or can order it, then the story changes, there really is a cuisine, with something called 'variety'. The problem is not restricted to Poland, most northern European cuisines have been shredded through a lack of respect, both at home and abroad. Polish cuisine never really had much chance, most of the country was still at peasant status before the Second World War, and then when great numbers of peasants moved into the now expanding cities after the war, they glutted on what was available and what they liked - cold meat, cabbage and cutlet, almost for any meal. Cabbage, originally an Italian import several centuries ago, was preserved in brine for the winter to give something vaguely fresh to eat while there was nothing much worth eating growing outside. These days cabbage, of various varieties, in brine is the staple vegetable, eaten almost every day and often for two meals. Lettuce, in its plain green leafy variety, is either used as a piece of decoration on the plate or drowned in cream and sugar.
Tradition has little to do with the preservation of culture, it is instead a wild stab into the past to justify present actions in which we all participate and yet fail to describe the reasoning for to later generations. They, as do we with our inherited traditions, assume that they have been passed on for the best reasons, in good faith, rather than merely as a set of conveniences.
Friday, October 3, 2008
The all-new Art and Craft movement
Back in the late 19th century, after the first real expansion in education for the people and the related change in society in Western cultures brought about by the industrial revolution, artists began to notice that the level of quality of things like furniture and furnishings had risen so much it was rivalling what they were producing, and what is worse, all those oiky-factory owners were now able to not only pump out vast quantities of similar, good quality goods, but a whole range of items. Ever wondered why Victorian homes were just bursting with fabric, wallpapers, furniture and the like? No, not as the usual pundits have it, because the Victorians lacked taste but, all of a sudden, they didn't have to be in the aristocracy to have a comfy home. Of course, if you were poor, you were still going to have to wait for another century before you could join in.
So, imagine that you were a painter and had been brought up in an art tradition that focussed on replication, and you have spent years learning about how to paint someone in a realistic manner. That's what artists were for, producing likenesses of real people and scenes from history or religion. Imagine, then, what happened when someone with a wooden box could come along and take a chemical image of your potential client, and then get a craftsman to add paint to the resulting image? What is worse is that they could reproduce these chemical 'photograph' images any number of times, and even print on paint using a machine, so that 'paintings' could be produced on a production line. How much art was then left in your reproduction skill?
Having competition can be a good thing as it helps people to realise that they cannot remain sitting on their bottoms while other people in the world live second class lives. When you see your own livelihood drying up because someone else has put the work into giving the customers a better choice, it forces you to re-evaluate your own product. And artists did, they realised what they could offer was originality, a product that had passed through human hands and contained that human's own input visible in the result, and so was born the Arts and Crafts movement. Even today, many people are prepared to pay extra for a product with the human touch. Sadly, the artists in the Arts and Crafts movement rather missed the point, because they really beat up the reputation of factory products, with the result that huge numbers of people today in the media still trash the reputation of factory goods - while typing on computers, talking on mobile phones and generally living lifestyles that would be impossible without the comfort of technology and the factories which make it possible.
Hence, it is time for a new movement, the Art-Craft movement, but this time instead of having the purpose of beating up the opposition, it will embrace it. We are looking for a quality win:win, and no matter if you are a roadsweeper, fashion designer, business person, painter (either kind) or university don, you are going to discover the art and craft in your life and work.
So, imagine that you were a painter and had been brought up in an art tradition that focussed on replication, and you have spent years learning about how to paint someone in a realistic manner. That's what artists were for, producing likenesses of real people and scenes from history or religion. Imagine, then, what happened when someone with a wooden box could come along and take a chemical image of your potential client, and then get a craftsman to add paint to the resulting image? What is worse is that they could reproduce these chemical 'photograph' images any number of times, and even print on paint using a machine, so that 'paintings' could be produced on a production line. How much art was then left in your reproduction skill?
Having competition can be a good thing as it helps people to realise that they cannot remain sitting on their bottoms while other people in the world live second class lives. When you see your own livelihood drying up because someone else has put the work into giving the customers a better choice, it forces you to re-evaluate your own product. And artists did, they realised what they could offer was originality, a product that had passed through human hands and contained that human's own input visible in the result, and so was born the Arts and Crafts movement. Even today, many people are prepared to pay extra for a product with the human touch. Sadly, the artists in the Arts and Crafts movement rather missed the point, because they really beat up the reputation of factory products, with the result that huge numbers of people today in the media still trash the reputation of factory goods - while typing on computers, talking on mobile phones and generally living lifestyles that would be impossible without the comfort of technology and the factories which make it possible.
Hence, it is time for a new movement, the Art-Craft movement, but this time instead of having the purpose of beating up the opposition, it will embrace it. We are looking for a quality win:win, and no matter if you are a roadsweeper, fashion designer, business person, painter (either kind) or university don, you are going to discover the art and craft in your life and work.
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