‘We all have the capacity to influence others.’ Photo: Brendan Gleeson (left) and Colin Farrell in The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)

‘Does posterity remember kindness?’

Human kind: Martyn Kelly answers a cinematic question

‘Does posterity remember kindness?’

by Martyn Kelly 27th January 2023

There is a scene in The Banshees of Inisherin (the Golden Globe winner, tipped for Oscar success), where one character, played by Brendan Gleeson, asks another: ‘Do you know who we remember for how nice they was in the seventeenth century?’

‘Who?’ comes the reply.

‘No one. Yet we all remember the music of the time. Everyone knows Mozart’s name.’

This is a pivotal point in the plot. Brendan Gleeson’s character has realised that his time on earth is finite, but that he is yet to make any sort of mark. He wants to step back from friendship, and focus instead on writing a memorable tune. From here, events take a dark turn that makes for uncomfortable viewing, but the question remains: does posterity remember kindness?

By coincidence, the script uses the century when Quakerism emerged as a benchmark (it’s the century previous to Mozart, of course, but that’s a plot point). The question posed is not a challenge to Quaker principles of mutual concern and neighbourliness. Rather, it seems to ask whether these, alone, are enough to constitute a fulfilled life.

A glib answer is that we remember kindness through Quaker testimonies – Elizabeth Fry’s prison ministry is one example. But that privileges those with both the means to escape mere subsistence, and the literate friends to record their acts. It also runs the risk of writing a variant of the ‘great man’ theory of history, focussed on a few influential characters. We need a more universal application.

In a sense we are all remembered beyond death, if our genes continue through our children. But humans are social organisms, and genes do not cover ties between individuals who are not related. The evolutionary biologist Edward O Wilson argues that human evolution can be explained by ‘natural selection for social interaction’. This is achieved with our large brains, which accentuate the capability to ‘communicate, recognise, evaluate, bond, cooperate [and] compete’. From these, Wilson suggests, arises ‘the deep warm pleasure of belonging to your own special group’. These attributes can be learned, and thus passed on irrespective of genetic ties.

This might be one way that kindness is remembered across generations. Few of us will achieve the enduring fame of Mozart, but we all have the capacity to influence others, through quiet virtue and example. Our children learn from watching us. We support friends and neighbours through one-to-one interactions and in informal networks. Our direct influence may only span a single generation, but the principles will be picked up and transmitted onwards by others. In the New Testament, Paul the apostle often uses athletes as metaphors, but perhaps we should see ourselves not as runners striving for the finishing line (2 Timothy 4:7) but as relay racers, passing on a baton that others will take forward. That is how Quakers attain eternal life.


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