Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Dougald Hine's avatar

This brought to mind one of the most unrecognised social thinkers of recent times, because he did so much of his thinking on stage and only produced a couple of books – the improvisation teacher Keith Johnstone.

There's a passage I keep coming back to where he describes how playing "status" games in a group workshop, after a few days, there will be a moment of horror, as the scales fall from everyone's eyes. Suddenly, the civilised conventions that avert our attention from our animality aren't there anymore, and you all walk around unable not to see the primate status dynamics animating every human interaction. It's a bleak picture – and it reminds me of what Mary Harrington once named to me as "the theory hole", the kind of nihilism that a bright undergraduate reading Foucault can fall into, where suddenly you're unable to see anything other than power as real.

But then Johnstone asks, so what happens to status between friends? It's not that it's not there, he says, but it's that it becomes something it's possible to play with and laugh about, rather than something played out as if it were a matter of life and death. His example is that you stay the night at your friend's house and when they bring you a brew in the morning, they might give an obsequious bow and announce, "Your majesty, the royal cup of tea is served!" or they might barge open the door and shout, "Get out of bed, you 'orrible little lout!"

There's something here that runs close to what I get from your definition of "pistis" as "relationships good enough to trust". Friendship as what saves us from the grip of law/violence. And the turning upside down of status that brings a liberating foolishness.

Expand full comment
AliceEm's avatar

I didn’t expect ‘the theory hole’ to be one in which all you can see is power! But I know what she/you mean. It’s easier to get to friendship relationships if your family knows how to joke and love. I’ll look up Johnstone. I’m a Johnston myself and fan of also the Caitlin johnstone. Maybe it’s tribal lol

Expand full comment
11 more comments...

No posts