For the past few days I’ve felt a little like the guy in The Day of the Triffids who wakes from an eye operation to find the whole world infected by some mysterious virus that renders them all blind. The previous night, lying in hospital with his eyes bandaged, there had been a spectacular meteor shower. It was a light show to rival the fireworks that launched the Beijing Olympics. Everyone watched. Everyone was transfixed. And yet everyone who saw it was blind the next day.
I woke up yesterday and checked Facebook on my phone as I ate breakfast. Almost all the new posts involved a shaky video of someone tipping water over themselves. Everyone. From a philosopher to a housewife, a fencer to a hedge fund manager. I felt as if there had been some ice bucket meteorite shower in the night which I must had slept through. Everyone had been infected. And it horrified me.
I caught up yesterday, and I now understand the phenomenon, but it doesn’t feel any less weird. I know that this is partly me, partly who I am: a misanthropic loner, a high-functioning depressive, a man so determined not to join anything that the thought of going to Glastonbury makes him feel slightly sick. I get that. I get that I’m not the natural constituency for the ice bucket challenge.
But this is something else. I’ve spent the last 48 hours trying to work out where my uneasiness stems from by reading articles by other refuseniks. Some suggested that it was a waste of water. Some said that there were more effective charities, or more immediate, necessary causes. Valid though those might be, I realise that my unease is triggered by something else. Lady Diana.
Remember the frenzy that followed Diana’s death? The sea of flowers, the horror, the tears, the disbelief? The crowds, the sheer crowds? It was a kind of madness. It might have been a necessary, cathartic madness, but it was a madness nonetheless. The swirling, infectious mob mentality scared me. At the time it was very hard to say you felt nothing. I was shocked by Diana’s death, sure, and sorry for her children, but that was not enough for the crowd. It was like competitive grief: I care more than you care.If you don’t care your front door will be daubed. You will be shamed.
And It’s the same competitive caring that is happening here. Let me show you how much I care, let me show you what a sport I am! Watch me! Watch me! Watch me! The donation, inevitably, is an afterthought: The Independent reported on research which said that more than half of those who took part did not donate afterwards.
However, it’s not so much the competitive caring that unnerves me - I’m happy for people to outcare each other - it’s the viral-like spread of the phenomenon. We are not immune. We are all open and vulnerable to this need to belong, to connect, to identify. To care. Sane, thoughtful people have been caught up in it. A philosopher for god’s sake! I want to grab them and hold them to me and scream, ‘what are you doing?’ None of us is safe. I am not safe. Human nature is manifest; society has demonstrated its contagion, and I’m scared.
