To be inspired by art is, at times, to have a new pair of eyes and, at other times, to gain a new brush and new tins of paint. There is a subtle line between the two: With new eyes, one can see the same world from a new angle while, with a brush, one can paint over what exists, change colors and shapes, and give a fresh look to the world instead. One book gave me the dilemma of deciding where that line stands and to what degree our vision is based on what we look at and what we choose to see.
“The Paul Street Boys” is a novel by Hungarian author Ferenc Molnár depicting the lives of boys who band together to look after each other in the streets of Budapest. While their country may be at war with enemy armies on faraway fronts, these boys are fighting too in a way — with other bands of boys to defend an empty field in an idle, poor corner of the city. The focus of the book is territorial control over the field by two groups of boys.
The field is sacred to the boys, as it is their homeland — their country — and they must defend it against other boys who want to make it their own. They brawl with each other, pretending to be soldiers and even making ranks and flags for themselves in this imaginary war as their elders do in real ones.
I don’t want to spoil the plot or give away the tragic ending of the book, but Molnár’s creation from 1906 inspired me to write this column about his commentary for his time and the message we can still hear today. Though the world is very different today than what it was in Molnár’s time, and many kids in major cities don’t even play games in open fields anymore, this part of the book sticks out. A group of kids can be fanaticized by their own beliefs, ascribing value where it doesn’t belong and seeking meaning where there isn’t any. There’s never proof that the field is “owned” by anyone, but the kids believe in their ownership anyway. This sounds familiar to the predicament we find ourselves in today.
Our technology and media give each person their chance to find a group to band with, their own flags to fly and their own imaginary — these days, often real — fields to defend. The way society has been changed in, at most, 15 years by social media is revolutionary since it has become uniquely easy to join a group of like-minded people without ever meeting them face to face and defend a territory without ever being there. This, in turn, generates a sense of identity built on the conviction that any other group is strange and inferior, according to Homeland Security Today.
We give ourselves the power to play our own games, sew our own flags, make up our own ranks and pretend that we own our special grassy field like the Paul Street Boys.
Technology gave us an infinite amount of eyes to see the world with. We seem to only have a select number of our favorite paints and clash over them time and time again. We need to fundamentally change and improve the way we hold opinions and believe in ideas. We must be free to keep them as we did, but we must not be incentivized to fight tooth and nail for our vision. Technology allows us to express our identity, but in that process, it also turns our personal, often flawed vision into a reality of its own. Therefore, the purpose of future technology and inventions should be expanding one’s knowledge and consciousness through engagement, not fulfilling one’s self-righteousness.
Molnár himself would never have known the technological wonders of our age, but he could tell that his world was heading toward war as blindly as the Paul Street Boys, and so we must heed his warning and think about how the digital dimension influences our culture. Molnár gave life to the boys, characterizing them as naive but deluded lost souls. Their insistence on fighting came from the hope that they were part of something bigger than themselves, which is reflected collectively in the way we behave online.
My appeal to you is simple: The entire world is our grass field, and we are all the Paul Street Boys. We must not let fighting blind us, and we must not let the field wither away as it eventually did in the story. The great threats faced by today’s democracies are as much from within, due to radicalization and fanaticism, as they are from the outside, due to the risks of conflict. A survey conducted by The Guardian exemplified this, as it reflected growing polarization among both Democrats and Republicans. Maintaining a dignified civilization begins before anything else by upholding freedom from dogma and conviction.
More than that, it begins with the decision within to open your mind to new ideas and see the world as it is with its unwelcome complications rather than simplify it with paint and brushes. Expanding human minds is the ultimate force by which the isolation of human hearts can be fought against.
Deniz Gulay is a sophomore double-majoring in history and Russian.
Views expressed in the opinions pages represent the opinions of the columnists. The only piece that represents the view of the Pipe Dream Editorial Board is the staff editorial.