In Orwell’s ‘Reflections on Gandhi’, he comments that ‘most people genuinely do not wish to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings.’ He’s writing about how partiality – to vices, to friends and family - may make us fail to do the right thing, but that this failure is part of being human. Whilst ‘alcohol, tobacco, and so forth are things that a saint must avoid, sainthood is also a thing that human beings must avoid.’ For Orwell, Gandhi’s ‘renouncing otherworldliness’ makes him an entirely different kind of person to you and I. Saints and Humans, two species on the same planet.
But then you have Navalny. Alexei Navalny was an anti-corruption activist in Russia, and one of the closest things to a saint in recent history. He published videos exposing Putin’s mansions, his press secretary’s $620,000 watches, the $4 billion stolen by Russian pipeline company Tesneft. Putin poisoned him with Novichok, and, after recuperating in Germany, he still returned to Russia. In prison, he conducted a 24-day hunger strike and eventually passed away in an Arctic Circle penal colony, almost certainly murdered.
He is – undoubtedly – one of the Saints.
But in Navalny’s memoir ‘Patriot’, he’s clearly one of the Humans too. He watches Rick and Morty on the plane where he’s poisoned. In prison, he improvises a recipe for ice cream, and craves salt for his salad. He is swooningly in love with his wife, Yulia, a partial as hell, love-at-first-sight, ‘my soulmate’ kind of love. And there’s a toe-curling story where, as a young lawyer at a work party, he puts a flight attendant in tears by being truly, gratuitously horrible. If he’s a Saint, he can’t be one in the way Orwell describes.
In Patriot, the Saintness and the Humanness mix together. Just before he lands at the airport, where he knows he’ll be imprisoned again, he writes of the convict-admin he’s got to do. How he needs to make sure Yulia has access to his bank account, because ‘a hundred newspapers around the world can report that I’m arrested…, but the bank manager will still respond ‘Sorry, there is nothing we can do to help. He must send us an email or use our very convenient phone application.’ Imprisoned, he tuts over the messiness of the cell, asking why ‘there are always degenerates who, after being fingerprinted, start pawing the walls, covering them with these greasy black marks?’. He’s wryly gutted not to have a six-pack after 24 days on hunger strike.
The whole message of the book, Saint-acts by Humans, is summed up by a story that is not about Navalny at all. It’s about an ordinary businessman, Pyotr Ofisterov. Ofisterov is weak-chinned, slightly doughy and the father of five children. He’s caught up in one of the fraudulent indictments against Navalny, with the Russian government banking that he’ll lie for their case. But he doesn’t. He won’t lie, despite possible imprisonment, despite his five children to raise. And, when Navalny asks why, he responds ‘Do you really think you’re the only one who wants to remain an honest man?’
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As humans, we have so many templates - heroes, villains, failures, successes, lives small and big - shown to us and we have to figure out which one we will be. When we’re considering these templates, the Saints are daunting. I find it mind-boggling there are people, in the world, who are martyrs. Who sat in flames and burnt in pursuit of their convictions. It’s so much easier to sanctify these people with Saint-Talk, to put distance between us and them. Saint-Talk says ‘they’re not like us, they’re a different kind of person entirely’. And with Saint Talk comes an excuse. If we fall short, if we are not as good as them it’s not a product of our conviction - but of the ‘kind of person’ we are. If you’re not made of Saint-Stuff, you can no more do Saint-Acts than a hammer can be made of china.
This impulse, to distance the Saints, is understandable, but we should resist it. It’s comfier to think that the Saints are a different person, but it becomes a cheat - a way to duck out of acknowledging when we are falling short, and if we are choosing to prioritise ourselves. We need to remember Saints are humans too, and in doing so face up to all the dizzying possibility of the good we can do in a life. To face up to where we are falling short, and keep this as an injunction to do better.
One of the best ways to resist the illusions of Saint Talk is to find our own moral exemplars. These are people who do good things, who do the best things out of everyone you know, who push the envelope of goodness done in the lives that you can see. Really good ones act as living reminders of Patriot’s message - that Saint-Acts are done by humans, people who breathe, smile, and like Mauritanian Folk Music.
I’ve been thinking about mine. I have friends who are Effective Altruists, premising an entire career on maximising the good they do. Another works for the HALO trust, defusing landmines to keep kids safe. There’s doctors (i.e. pain-minimisers), and mental health nurses (i.e. sadness-minimisers), and those in policy - trust-busters, housing advocates and more. In this molten-glass time of life, my friends act as reminders that people can and do choose to focus on doing the right thing.
My family are good for this too too. They’ve shown me how to do the right thing - whether through your career (nurses, social workers, doctors, teachers) or other means (donating to charity, fundraising, running community organisations). Ignatieff describes the impact of his family, how ‘he felt their influence not in an injunction they ever uttered about the way I should live my life, but rather in the distinguished way they had lived theirs. My ambitions felt less like my own creation than a tradition inherited from them.’ This resonated - I feel I’m in a tradition of people who try to do the right thing, and I feel lucky that this makes it harder to wrap myself in Saint Talk.
Ultimately, I’ll probably end up in something business-ey - I like it, I enjoy it, and I think I’m good at it. Maybe my way of doing good things will be as a Business Batwoman - corporating by day and donating by night. But choosing this route makes these people, these reminders - my everyday Saints - even more important. They’ll remind me that there are lots of people doing the right thing, and I’ll need to find my own way to live up to them, even if it’s less direct than theirs. So, if anyone else is choosing a non-Saintly route, I’d suggest keeping your own everyday Saints close by too.
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One last note from Navalny when - in prison in Siberia - he was being denied winter boots. He wrote that ‘I’ve been getting a lot of letters lately from the outside about depression, gloom and apathy. Seriously? Come on, cheer up. If you’re alive and well and out there, you’re doing all right. Finish your pumpkin latte and go do something to bring Russia closer to freedom.’ The first thing you can do is buy Navalny’s book here. The proceeds help support his family, and I haven’t done it justice here because I can’t. It’s brilliant.
If you enjoyed, take a look at… On Good Days; On Advice or On Qualities
Read Arnold douses diary
The imperfect is our paradise. Note that, in this bitterness, delight, Since the imperfect is so hot in us, Lies in flawed words and stubborn sounds. —Wallace Stevens, “The Poems of Our Climate”