Even when combing the internet daily, I rarely come across an insight spoken or written by a thinker which really prods me and makes me think. Most people who write are parroting some mainstream opinion or sentiment, and you can read the first sentence of a paragraph and already you know what the rest of the paragraph - or even the page - says. It's delightful to find this kind of insight. I often find them in the social commentary essays by "Paul Graham." And last night, I was taken by the words of a man by the name of "Derek Walcott"
Last night I was listening to radio new zealand over the net - and they were broadcasting a BBC program called "World Book Club." I got started about halfway through an extended interview with Derek Walcott.
One question was about something he had written in a book of his called "Omeros." He had said, "It is a crime to leave a man's hands empty." And the person asked him to explain what he had meant.
The scope of this man's reasoning astounded me. This was his (somewhat rambling) response:
In the slave ship they don't have any tools - obviously - so a sculptor (a carver) gets up and he has nothing to do with his hands; that's a penalty; that's a crime - a punishment, because there's an instinct to shape things in every human being. If you deprive the sculptor (the carver) of that instinct then he's technically dead, spirtitually dead. So that crime is a huge one in terms of removing the possibility of tools from an artist - which would make for instance the presence of a poem itself unrealizable. I couldn't write that line if I didn't have a pen. If the pen were taken from me, the thought would not be possible. And that is the punishment we're talking about. But of course, cultures do that. Entire cultures deprive people of expression - so you can't sing your native songs; you can't speak your native language. Consequently you can't write .... Now remember we know that black people can make slaves out of white people just as easily as white people can make slaves out of black people, it has happened - ok? So to deprive a race of utterance is the biggest crime you can do. Right? I mean that's why wars are fought.
So what he's saying is that he looks as it as one of the worst crimes against humanity to forbid people to have the tools they need to fulfill their own personal aspirations. And he goes further to say that this is one of the main causes of war around the globe - if outsiders or governments subjugate people to where they cannot become what they are according to their nature - the people will rebel and raise up arms. It's a fascinating perspective... and I agree with him wholeheartedly.
Another interesting thing I noted was that, in his judgement, to punish someone is a criminal act. He put those two words together as synonyms for eachother. I recognize this is true as well. And this premise of his shows that he's a very wise man, in my opinion.