Not everything without evil is good and not everything under the guise of politeness is actually desired and accepted behavior. The expression may not justify the intention
Since in a way my profession is to complain (and complaining is an expression of concern, not only of a personal egoistic state, but also of a group, social one, not only temporary, but even permanent), then I am continuing to do what I consider my profession. But, in any case, I do not think that I claim anything more than what is even conventional, anything more than what is, in clear terms, culture and education.
The truth is that if I am, let's say, in a store and if all the prices are listed on the items, as the law and order require (as they should be, but they are not), then at the checkout I see on the screen the amount I have to pay – and the unstoppable rise in prices and not having an authoritative, responsible and conscientious address, where complaining and crying about troubles is an additional complaint to complain about – if possible I would be very happy not to utter a single sound from my mouth to annoy the ear of another, for my ear not to hear a single sound from the mouth of another. Of course, this is just an expression, which in no way denies the first and last fact that we are social and communicative beings. I simply wanted to say that mimicry is sometimes more polite than dry and frozen words. Even when we are not aware of it, perhaps precisely because we are not aware of it. Of course, I will be forgiven for this exaggeration. It sounds very nice, but, we know and we are repeating, non-communication is not the ideal of culture. Just as that ideal is most seriously damaged by babbling. And then in a way also what is actually the fault of this text: the wrong address.
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Age – I wonder if I can use this strict and at the same time almost banal definition – is the basin of our narcissism. In the sense of how it first presents us to others (it is then up to others to be accurate in capturing what they see) and how it secondly influences our own actions and thoughts. As a metaphor it might make us smile, but as a pure truth it would weigh on our shoulders, tilting us fearfully downward.
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I will extract a passage from Shpëtim Selmani's latest book ('Nobody Deserves My Anger', Onufri, 2025, p. 94), namely from the chapter 'Cyclops', to capture another aspect-concern, which we often have to face and which I continue to ponder without finding any satisfactory answer.
"He tells me: – Sit down. – No. There's no need. – Sit down, uncle. I sit down because he calls me uncle."
So imagine the situation more closely: a scene of urban traffic, the narrator is a person perhaps not yet in his forties and another person, in his early youth, in a way considers him already finished. Someone who can no longer stand on his own two feet and the others, the young people, out of mercy and politeness – with their own minds, without their own evil – must make way for him, after an address that is not at all pleasant, not at all welcome. By doing that, they believe, their mission will have been fulfilled. What is unwritten, but implied, will have been done. Of course, without evil. On the contrary. And yet, not everything without evil is good and not everything under the guise of politeness is actually desired and accepted behavior. The expression may not justify the intention. The realization may not achieve what was conceived and planned. Then this will inadvertently lead to the most undesirable: to anger and disappointment for the addressee and to shame (if there was this intellectual flexibility) for the addresser. Thus, everything that should have gone well has gone wrong. Individuals taken in themselves suffer this, but all this is not a consequence of the character of those individuals taken in themselves, but of a misguided and stagnant social culture. As we will see below, in the end it will belong to individuals and initially only to individuals to start making a difference. To actually do what is expected of them, what they consider themselves capable of offering.
***
I guess it is difficult to have any kind of agreement on this and this disagreement is a good thing – for there to be an agreement there must be a clash. I guess our views are different and this is still a good thing – for there to be a final there must be a competition. However, I go with the unwavering mind that there should be a tradition of discussing such problems, and unfortunately we have not had it. I think that Albanian literature itself bears this failure equally and inevitably. I could be wrong and of course I cannot say that I have read everything from Albanian literature for the little ones, but I do not remember having seen such problems discussed anywhere. Without trivializing it, we have not had the chance to read, for example, Goodsn (that) walks alone (like one of our classics) by warning his friend that he should not address that person with "Hey!", or if he knew, by name, much less address him with "you". Or does he do this? If he does this, how is it that he has not left any mark on our culture of behavior? And how has no teacher/educator made him dwell on that passage and insist on instilling it in everyone's minds?
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That an, say, 80-year-old might feel offended if you gave up your seat on the bus is a more advanced conversation. I don't think we've gotten there yet. So our concerns are, unfortunately, much more basic.
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So why does a person in his early youth, in the course of his education – in the flower of his education, if I may be allowed this expression – use, in his vain attempt to be polite, archaic terms of politeness and create awkward situations of uneducatedness?
Okay, just like now, I don't know all the possible answers, probably not even the most sustainable one, but I do have an idea.
Family education and educational education are in conflict with each other, maintaining a strange, exclusive and ignorant, sometimes even hostile distance towards each other. The incompatibility is sometimes so deep as to create a terrible mess, making the poor subject lie in a limbo from which there is no way out. If we were to describe it as funny, we would be laughing at ourselves. And how tragic it is, is to be seen.
The archaic term 'uncle', 'aunt', 'eight' (or 'bac', which I personally find even more disgusting than the ignorance in the costume itself) is a product of the politeness of an illiterate society. It could certainly have been used as perhaps the highest term of politeness in a society whose organization was almost primitive, barbaric – without any state structure and without an educational system to be found. It could have been warm, in a way, if you wanted to hide behind it, since it referred to a stranger as a person who could nevertheless be accepted as close, familiar, respectable. But this also shows at the same time the inability (or perhaps the reservation) of a society to make elementary interpersonal distinctions, the usual personal and social categorizations.
***
I'm not saying that things are simple, I just want to believe that if the commitment to education in our schools were greater, we would at least have kept in mind that in a more civilized world, Alice in Wonderland, when encountering a stranger, one does not address them (to greet them, warmly or simply humanely, or to complain about something) with 'uncle/aunt', but with 'sir/madam/madam' (even with these terms we would have to discuss later, when it comes our turn to be careful about respecting the social and gender status of the other), much less address them with "you".
The unknown, the famous unknown and the ordinary unknown, the well-known person we want to respect, the authoritative person to whom we address for anything, is "madam/miss; sir" and the pronoun of the form of respect is "You".
***
If what I just said were true, then perhaps we could weigh our hands. One kind of conclusion we could draw is that perhaps we are dealing with a trivialization of forms of respect, with an unconscious misuse of them. No wonder, it sounds quite paradoxical. The purpose of education is, tautologically speaking, precisely education. When the educational system fails to achieve this, the hope that someone or something else will do it is – again I have to express it strangely – hopeless.
In fact, the media system should also provide some help. I don't want to sound like I'm seeing everything as black, but the media system at this time is almost the most miserable, and therefore tragic, product of that failure of the education system.
As an illustration, I will pose a more rhetorical question. In which television studios, in which interviews (written or visual), do you hear or read the interviewer addressing the interviewee, the interlocutor addressing the interlocutor, with forms of respect?
***
And yet: "Lord (So-and-so!)" (trying to catch the term "lord", respectively confusing the forms). In most cases when fortunately we could come across an example for good, unfortunately we come across this strange, rude construct, which kills the ear like the buzzing of a hornet, that is, when a certain person addresses a certain person. And not "Lord (So-and-so!)". It is not at all difficult to get to the source of this strangeness. This comes because there is a strong Islamic fundamentalist tendency to deny the meaning and use of a natural term, to undo a tradition that manifests and nourishes openness, tolerance and understanding: a person cannot have attributes that are equal to God. But in all other cultures, from which Albanian is most influenced and inspired, the referential term "Lord (So-and-so!)" is completely correct, acceptable and natural. "Signore", "Lord", and many other terms from other languages are all terms of reference both to that being for someone supernatural and incomparable, eternal or centuries-old, as well as to the poor, sadly unknown mortal, in a completely irrelevant time and in a completely lost place.
It means, despite everything, with the most blessed naturalness, we are "Lord So-and-so!"
***
Then think about how the Albanian language has the simplest possible form, using only the second personal pronoun in the plural, which makes everything easier, even if it is poorer. I remember when I first read it War and peace, in my early years of high school, as someone who came from a family, environment, and primary education where respectful forms of address were nonexistent, I was completely stunned by the choice the translator had made by maintaining the third-person singular address of the original. Fabulous! As if I were floating in an imaginary world/culture, invented by an infinitely more troubled mind.
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But, excuse me again and finally, if in kindergarten, throughout primary education, educators, teachers (and first of all their parents) have not considered education in addressing, first to themselves and then to others, important, what remains for the young person reduced to this state is that one day, by himself, by reading, watching movies, traveling the world, by thinking, he will manage to see that there is a more civilized way of behavior than his own, which he should take advantage of and implement. Even if then he will feel ostracized by his own society.
PS:
This is my last text for Gazeta Express, from where I am retiring after 21 years of work experience.
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