Let's Talk
The first time I heard the word "audacity," it was on the KKB show. That Silverbird Saturday show that came on and we heard the line "my meat! My personal meat!" I was convinced for a long time that that was how a person asked for his meat. Overtime, I have realised that the meat belongs to the pot. You're only given when you ask. Not shout. Except you live in Nigeria and Lagos at the same time. As an aside, Teni, the singer acted as a judge in one of the episodes.
I didn't know what the word "audacity" mean. It was strange. I thought it was spelt "ordercity" for a time. But the word came out, carrying a weight in its pronunciation. I could almost hear its power. It need to sound Napoleon over other words. It was apparent, this word, these three syllables, these eight letters, ruled something man cherished.
So, I set out to find meanings...
(Cut to current month)
(Cue in sprinkled Harmattan arriving in piecemeal)
Earlier this month, an answer came.
I was scrolling through my Twitter timeline when I found a rather unusual event. (If you're used to being on Twitter, you will understand that there's no "unusual" event. Twitter is where Musa's Gate is).
Australia was on fire. That was unusual news. But a 20-year-old lady, Kaylen Ward, self-dubbed herself The Naked Philanthropist. That was Unusual Twitter event. What she did? She raised an estimated $1 million sending her nudes to people who wanted for a fee. All the money realized went to the victims of the Australian fire.
This bothered me. Why?
A. She was able to donate more money than Jezz Beezos and Amazon combined.
B. The Act itself.
C. The outcomes of Act.
I wasn't exactly bothered about A, considering recent reports from Davos. But B and C were like knives trying to gut my feelings. I wondered, in the context of Kaylen, What's good? How do we define it? What's bad? At what point are the lines separating them clear? At what point do good and bad intersect? What are the similarities between these dichotomies?
I wanted to be objective, so I asked people. In summary, these were the answers I got:
1. The end doesn't justify the means.
2. Good and bad are independent of each other.
3. Good and bad are never white and black. They always have shades of grey.
On 1: the people who argued in this direction insisted that there's no way her act of sharing nude would ever be a good act. Hence, the end of result would also be bad.
If Means= Bad
Then, End= Bad
People is this category claimed that there was no way that sharing nudes was going to ever yield something good. When asked why they said so, two reasons were prominent: religious and moral reasons. The moral angle was that to have shared her nude, she had created problems much more worse than what she intended to solve. Teenagers younger than 18 could have gotten those images, for example.
On 2: this people believed that the fact that she shared her nude was a stand alone act different from the donation. Both of them didn't mix. The action of porn didn't mix with philanthropy. P may start both words but they sound different. Why?
"To assume that sharing nude is bad is one thing," they said, "but to insist that the end of sharing the nudes was bad too is purely illogical".
If Means = or ≠ good or bad
Then, End = or ≠ good or bad
None determined the other.
On 3: the people on 3 seemed to be skeptical, they resorted to the title of a BDSM book. Here, they sat on the fence. They said you can't just say anything is ever good or bad without evaluating the pros and cons. There's no single way of determining what's good or what's bad. You just had to look enough to know.
Good or Bad = ?? until we look, bro.
Were any of the 3 categories wrong or right? I couldn't say. But from 1 and 2, I saw what "audacity" meant. It became clear...
Audacity was holding our views, our understanding of life, our opinions, our beliefs, to people's face and telling them to have a good taste or we force it down their throats. It's our moral courage and compass. It's what's good and what's bad and ensuring that we come out with our definition triumphant. The word isn't a noun, it's a verb.
All through the discourse, I noticed that the view of what's good and what's bad depended entirely on who was defining it. It was always about bias. No objectivity. For people in 1, what she did, both the philanthropic act and nude sharing are one and the same. For 2, good is philanthropy, bad is nude but they don't mix. For 3, look before you define. For example, you could look and say that the nude sharing was like a charity dinner. Where, despite it being to raise money a dinner is arranged as encouragement. The nude was encouragement. That's looking.
The writing was on the wall: no one had an objective definition of good or bad.
The audacity was in the knowing of a certain definition for each acts man commits and sticking to it. All the while sticking it into others.
The only conclusion that could be reached was that Good and Bad could only be defined and discerned on objectivist ground. An independent and external umpire who wasn't affected by the definitions. Someone who is bigger than the imperfections of such definitions. Someone who isn't affected by the bias. Someone who could see that the audacity to define nude or philanthropy as anything wasn't beyond their scope. A judge outside of here, not blinded by our acts, the ends or means.
Ask yourself who that is.
What's your answer?
Follow it.
On Desk
1. I am currently reading The Archive Of Alternate Endings by Lindsey Drager. 50% in. This book picks stories you know, like Hansel and Gretel, and create alternative endings for them while linking it to other stories where alternative endings are also created. Quite fascinating concept.
2. I just published an essay in The Republic Journal where I discuss African writers and issues of colonization, etc. Read here.
3. Started a Scifi story with a tentative opening passage that reads:
“Anyone who has lived in Lagos long enough knows this one fact: if you've your picture on the body of a Danfo, you're a street legend.”
Musa's Gate
1. Well, I learnt this week that chainsaw were invented to cut through women during childbirth at a time when there was no anaesthesic. I hear the screams in my sleep.
The original chainsaw
I found some beautiful paintings by a Niqabi:
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See you soon….in my business.