on ubuntu
"Aesthetica" by Allie Rowbottom
10 Dec 22 | Issue 46
I feel the eleventh of December is close enough to go Christmas.
This week I found myself being recommended "Four Thousand Weeks" by Oliver Burkeman (www.penguin.co.uk/books/433471/four-thousand-weeks-by-burkeman-oliver/9781784704001), and discussing with Mathilde and Kevin Straszburger from Objet those posters that show your lifespan marked out in little squares as weeks, which you colour in as you slowly die go.
I'm tempted by Four Thousand Weeks, but being born on the wrong side of the sixties much less so by a wall chart announcing my impending death. OK, gear shift to a more festive mood.
Both of these items couch our lives in the notion of getting things done. I can't help but wonder whether this is the best framework. If achievement is what we should be aiming for, and not contentment (I've written before on the more obvious choice of reaching for happiness, and why instead I choose to aim at being content). 1
The maxim I like to judge my week by is Did I live my best life.
Lots and lots of leeway there, allowing poolside sitting, keeping a hospitalised friend company, constructing the world's largest Lego replica of Hogwarts. Whatever you feel is the best life for you at this moment.
If you want a really good measure of living-your-best-life, and you felt you had to shoehorn in a season-of-goodwill-to-all-men message, then Ubuntu is a pretty good option.
There lot's of PhDs and YouTube videos on Eastern, Indian, and Western thought. Less so on African. And not a lot on ancient South American, I guess playing football with a human head isn't an easily exportable philosophy.
Colonialism chose to ignore African oral traditions, leaving Ubuntu in relative obscurity. You probably know it as an open source Linux based operating system. 2
It is in fact the ultimate goodwill-to-all-men code, and as philosophies go, I think surpasses Daoism for simple instructions to live by.
Ubuntu is a Zulu word, with many variations in the Bantu language family. Commonly translated as "humanity" but you can also define it as “a quality that includes necessary and indispensable human virtues of humanity, compassion, understanding, and empathy”. Yes, Bantu languages are somewhat compacted.
In Kivunjo, the verb Naikimlyiia means "He is eating it for her".
N: A marker indicating that the word is the "focus" of that point in the conversation.
a: A subject agreement marker. It identifies the eater as falling into Class 1 of the sixteen gender classes, "human singular."
i: Present tense.
ki: An object agreement marker, in this case indicating that the thing eaten falls into gender Class 7.
m: A benefactive marker, indicating for whose benefit the action is taking place, in this case a member of gender Class 1.
lyi: The verb, "to eat."
i: An "applicative" marker, indicating that the verb's cast of players has been augmented by one additional role, in this case the benefactive.
a: A final vowel, which can indicate indicative versus subjunctive mood
A much simpler way of understanding Ubuntu is in the phrase umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu.
A person is a person through other people.
No I think therefore I am, but I am because others see me.
Fuck/wow* (delete depending on your temperament).
Doesn't that just say it all. You are defined by your relationship to those around you, not by your personal achievements.
Your place in the world is defined by your place in your community. It is a view without mirrors. No self reflective gaze to analyse your ego, instead the light, the look in the eyes of others reflects the sort of person you are. I am because we are.
As a sub-Saharan humanist philosophy, critics say it's too loosely defined, and ill suited to modern city life, originating from village sized communities. I see these as strengths. It's a guideline, not a rule, and turns a city into a street by directly engaging with those around us. Or as the Bunyoro proverb says Omwana takulila nju emoi — A child does not grow up only in a single home. You may recognise this phrase in its Western migration: It takes a village to raise a child. 3
Proof of Ubuntu's success as a unifying concept is seen in its adoption by Desmond Tutu when chairing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), quelling the aftermath of South Africa's apartheid.
We are different so that we can know our need of one another, for no one is ultimately self-sufficient. The completely self-sufficient person would be sub-human.
Desmond Tutu, No Future Without Forgiveness (1999).
Here's three good articles on Ubuntu. Shortcutting this week due to Covid brain.
www.thoughtco.com/the-meaning-of-ubuntu-43307
1000wordphilosophy.com/2019/09/08/the-african-ethic-of-ubuntu
But what about presents you ask? It's Christmas. We want presents. Well. I bought myself "Aesthetica" by Allie Rowbottom. Twice now I've enthused about something I haven't read or seen to find myself somewhat less than whelmed once I was consuming it. Since this is officially a column about what we buy, I'm going to start going with not-recommending-but-reporting. It intrigued me so I bought it.
Here's the official blurb:
At 19, she was an Instagram celebrity. Now, at 35, she works behind the cosmetic counter at the “black and white store,” peddling anti-aging products to women seeking physical and spiritual transformation. She too is seeking rebirth. She’s about to undergo the high-risk, elective surgery Aesthetica™, a procedure that will reverse all her past plastic surgery procedures, returning her, she hopes, to a truer self. Provided she survives the knife.
But on the eve of the surgery, her traumatic past resurfaces when she is asked to participate in the public takedown of her former manager/boyfriend, who has rebranded himself as a paragon of “woke” masculinity in the post-#MeToo world. With the hours ticking down to her surgery, she must confront the ugly truth about her experiences on and off the Instagram grid.
Judge your own intrigue, you can read an except at lithub.com/aesthetica (it’s not available at bookshop.org just yet so you’ll have to find your own copy, I refuse to link to evilzon.com)
Musically I've been enjoying EASTER, which is about as near a Christmas reference as I'm going to manage. They create a sort of austere art techno. Very Berlin. Lali Puna with all the warmth taken out, if you will.
I really want to see Aftersun. The title alone is enough, but the poster beguiles, and the trailer brings forth instant man tears with its implied exquisite melancholy.
I nabbed the Naikimlyiia breakdown from Steven Pinker's “The Language Instinct” Buy here
Buy me a coffee at www.buymeacoffee.com/vfnIE9P0Ta
Illustration by Fatima Fletcher
The amazing artist Fatima Fletcher is artist in residence.
Please show Fatima your love by following and liking every single one of her posts at www.instagram.com/fatima.fletcher, and visiting fatimafletcher.com, where her work is for sale, she is available for commissions.
Her wonderful Ruff Ruff coasters are for sale at fatima-fletcher.square.site/s/shop
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References
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_takes_a_village
Legally I have to tell you I might get five pence or something from Bookshop dot org should you purchase something, but really I just want to stick it to Amazon and keep independent bookshops alive. Yeah, rebel me, bringing the man down from the inside etc etc.
will be curious to hear what you think of aesthetica!
I actually discovered the original meaning behind ‘Ubuntu’ recently because of a coffee shop in our neighborhood: http://www.ubuntu-cafe.fr/