I've recently enjoyed a small slew of fantastic TV shows. If you're stuck for something to watch, I would highly recommend Apple TV's Disclaimer [wrote a sort-of review here], Netflix's From and the subject of today's post, FX's Say Nothing.
Lauded as one of the year's best shows, Say Nothing takes a deep dive into a very heated period of the Irish Troubles, from the 1970s all the way to the 2000s. It chronicles, to an extent, the rise of former Sinn Fein leader, Gerry Adams, as well as the life story of Dolours and Marian Price, the two women behind the famous 1972 Old Bailey bombing in London. On a secondary plane, it also explores the bizarre disappearance of Jean McConville, a widow and mum of ten whose mystery has long dogged Gerry Adams's public appearances.
Without going into too many spoilers here, the show raises some great questions to mull over: one angle that I really liked was Gerry Adams' friendship with Brendan Hughes (the man behind Bloody Friday, who also led the hunger strikers of the 5-year hunger strike for quite a bit of time, before Bobby Sands took over). As Adams goes deeper into politics, of course denying any IRA involvement, we see Hughes feeling discarded and betrayed.
Both Hughes and Dolours Price (as two chief perpetrators of violence) reach a similar conclusion - what was it all for? Were the deaths and violence, the blood on their conscience, worth it if the Cause was slated to end its days in a lukewarm ceasefire? (Or later, in the Good Friday Agreement)
Photo credit: Disney+ and FX
How much of yourself can you safely give to any one cause?
And I mean any cause. The Troubles of Ireland (an "ethno-nationalist conflict", as Wikipedia so quaintly puts it) are something of a thorny subject and I see no point in getting into that argument. Suffice to say might does not make right, and colonialist usurpers should be shot.
But back to the overarching question here, is it really fair to give yourself to a cause and then dig up your marred conscience when the cause goes a different way? It seems to me there should be a certain ownership involved. After all, if you choose to act in the name of a cause and moreover, you choose the leaders of said cause, to trust and follow them, then some part of the guilt should also be yours, when the cause ends up failing.
It's very dangerous business, aligning yourself with other people, yet once you do, you must understand on some level that their understanding of what's right and yours might sooner or later diverge (and they may have the strength to steer you both).
It's a faulty argument this show makes - it seems to suggest that the protagonists end up regretting their crimes, even that their crimes were pointless, since Irish freedom was not won. Except, not really. The driver behind any action (in both peace and war) should be the belief that that action is justified. Not necessarily good, but right. So it's absurd to say oh, because we didn't win, the violence was unjustified. Not really. Those people who died would've still been dead, whether or not the IRA got what it wanted. Say Nothing leads us to wonder...
Does the end justify the means?
It's a dangerous way to live, seems to me. It's playing fast and loose with your own ability to sleep at night. Personally, I think you should strive to only do things you can safely own up to. Obviously, it's hard drawing comparison to a very extreme and violent question here.
But scaling it down to our own, more mundane worries such as getting that promotion, getting the girl, getting the final word in a row, all those other things we're so desperate to get - what's fair and what's not? What's too far? You should never do worse than you can live with, because you might just have to keep living with yourself for a very long time.
Which is why it's all the more important to fine-tune and understand your own moral compass. Set down a solid value system that helps you differentiate between a right action and a wrong action. Can you really be a person who does this or that and go on living with yourself?
It doesn't seem to me that we have that. I think organized religion has, to an extent, provided that, or used to provide that, but I do worry that abiding by a religious value system "simply because" will leave you conflicted sooner or later.
After all, my actions need to be guided by my own understanding of right and wrong, because that way, I have skin in the game and more of a reason to abide by it. I can't just be doing what I'm told is right/wrong, because sooner or later, I will come to a situation that challenges that external distinction, and be forced to another choice. Do I continue to abide by someone else's value system, or do I choose "wrong"? Either way, it creates serious dissonance.
Which is what the characters are experiencing at the end of the show, I think. It's a dirty, foul thing, realizing you're not the good person you thought you were, and though most of us live far less interesting lives than these people, I think it's a potential realization we all come to, sooner or later.
The only difference of resonance is, did we follow our own compass, or somebody else's?
(While I really enjoyed the show, I do think the end was tinted a wee bit manipulative. By painting Gerry Adams as scum, and leading us to understand that the chief perpetrators of violence ended up regretting their actions, you're saying something which I'm not sure is the best thing to say. If there was a bit where the marauders, the English invaders likewise regretted their cruelty and violence, not to mention unjust occupation, I must've missed it. So without also showing that, the show makes itself guilty of bias.)
