2024-04-18 17:50:08
They feel like an endangered species. They shake their heads in disbelief at women’s emancipation, the protests of climate activists or the plight of the young generation. In the novel Heavy Souls, writer Iva Hadj Moussa delved into the thinking of aging white men who find the last island of freedom in metal. In the interview, he explains where their bitterness towards today’s society comes from and why they still deserve understanding.
As a woman, how do you manage to empathize with the heavy souls of aging white men?
I work as a therapist, so I should be able to empathize with everyone. So I didn’t have a problem with aging white men either. The questions they address are often universal. The topic of aging, for example, concerns both men and women. At a certain age, we all start to notice that we are no longer as fit as we were in our twenties. We can all worry about breakups, relationships with our own children or whether we feel enough recognition from society. I noticed a lot of things in my surroundings. I move among older metal players on my own. I go to metal festivals, go to pubs where they hang out and listen to what they talk about.
The narrator of the novel is Johanes, a young man in his fifties who still hasn’t gotten over his divorce from his wife, is looking for a way to see his teenage daughter and makes a living by cleaning apartments. His solace is playing in the metal band Heavy Souls, and he also relieves himself with a beer, where he and his buddies complain about vegans, feminists or political correctness. Don’t you ever get too whiny?
They will come. But generational conflict is natural. The young people always complained to each other about their parents’ rigidness, and the older people grumbled that their children were too progressive. The rising generation undoubtedly brings a lot of important topics to society today. It just sometimes opens them up in a way that we might find questionable. By this I mean, for example, activists who stick to works of art to draw attention to the problem of climate change.
Some would immediately sweep the lamentations of aging white men off the table. After all, we still see them in politics and in the media, they earn more than women and the planet will burn because of them, as his daughter reproaches the protagonist Johanes. Why should we try to understand them?
To say that aging white men are responsible for all the world’s problems seems unfair to me. I don’t like that label either, it seems very simplistic and I used it more as a provocation in the subtitle of the book. You are right that aging white men still influence a lot of things in today’s society. But I know a number of fifty-somethings who are much more open and sensitive than their dads. They are not so closed-minded and slowly change their opinions, often thanks to their children, who hold up a mirror for them.
Moreover, aging white men are not the only ones who gravitate towards eternal longing. I think our whole society is a bit whiny. It is of course important to draw attention to various grievances and injustices. But if we stylize ourselves in the role of the victim, it is not a completely healthy attitude, in my opinion. When a person is not satisfied with his life, he can always do something about it to a certain extent. The main character of my book will at least try to do that. He won’t just become an old man waving a stick at teenagers and shouting at the clouds. He decides to defy his dissatisfaction and revive the metal band from his youth.
Even Johanes and his friends from the band, however, often feel that there is no place for them in today’s world and that no one cares about them. Where does the hurt of aging white men come from?
I think they often feel lonely, they feel like they don’t have anyone who understands them. This frustration can manifest itself in anger towards young people and their topics. The heroes of my book are generally liars who had a decent foothold after the revolution, but for various reasons failed. That is why they are now bitter towards people who have succeeded, even though they may not have had such abilities. Or towards women, which in turn can be related to their messed up relationships.
Naturally, they need to vent their anger somewhere. Someone vents him with pub crap, which I think is the better option, and someone screams on social networks. For example, I often see hateful comments towards female politicians in internet discussions, and my 75-year-old dad recently told me that he hears swearing at Olga Richterová, Jana Černochová or Markéta Pekarová Adamová even in the pub. Once he said he couldn’t take it anymore and told the guys that they would never chase such women, and that’s why they criticize them.
“Each of us can fail in life. If we can change, we shouldn’t be condemned to walk the canal forever,” says Iva Hadj Moussa. | Photo: Honza Mudra
Speaking of his relationship with women, Johanes has a record of sexual harassment he once committed as a driving school instructor. Does he still deserve our sympathy?
Johanes clearly has himself to blame for his situation. The excuses that his pupil wore a short dress to the driving school and therefore sent clear signals do not hold up. Bold clothes and exposed skin do not have to be an invitation to sex, even if some guys still interpret it that way. Fortunately, the younger generation of men already has a different attitude towards it, also because sexual harassment is being talked about more.
I wrote the book so that it is clear that Johanes regrets his mistake and that he has learned from it. Sometimes, of course, he slips into self-pity. He tells himself that people do worse things and get away with it. But I wanted his thinking to seem authentic. All of us can fail in life. What matters is how we deal with our failure. If we can change, we shouldn’t be condemned to walk the canal forever.
So even men like Johanes should be given a second chance if they are capable of self-reflection.
I certainly do not want to trivialize the subject of sexual violence in any way. I think, on the contrary, our society should confront him. I consider the punishments you get for rape in the Czech Republic to be ridiculously low. You face a harsher sentence for growing marijuana in your garden, which is absurd.
However, Johanes does not rape anyone. When he sees that his pupil does not want him, he withdraws immediately. However, he will not escape punishment, nor should he. The case gets blurred in the media, which costs him his career. In addition, he worries about his sexual offense for years, it becomes such an intimate topic for him that he does not even talk about it with his closest friends for a long time. Aging men often curse at those around them, but they don’t go into their inner selves as much anymore, it’s quite difficult for them to express deeper emotions.
At the same time, Johanes is quite sensitive under his tough skin. He carries a number of traumas inside him, he just doesn’t share them with anyone. Then when his teenage daughter asks him for money for therapy, it seems to him that the young generation can’t stand anything. As a therapist, you work with children and teenagers. Do they seem more fragile than their parents?
Children and teenagers have always been more fragile. Compared to adults, they have not yet gone through as many life experiences, and therefore cannot work with emotions as much, they do not have as much developed self-control. Today’s teenagers are definitely talking more about mental health and seeking professional help more, which is only good. Adolescence is often difficult, and the sooner psychological problems are caught, the sooner you can start working on them, ideally with the whole family.
When young people tell me what they were told about their problems at home, they often mention belittling. The first reaction they encounter is usually: “But please, I have my worries too. And look what’s happening in the world. These are just crises.” Parents usually don’t mean it badly. But they nip the trust the children have shown them in the bud. Teenagers then feel abandoned and misunderstood. They are left alone with their situation.
“In metal, tremendous energy is concentrated. It can thus function as a valve for the anger and frustration that you have accumulated inside you,” the writer explains. | Photo: Honza Mudra
Maybe only parents, like Johanes, don’t know how to approach the topic of mental health, because no one talked about it with them either.
Yes, several generations of children have heard from their parents phrases like: “Stop crying now or I’ll give you a reason.” No one told them that all emotions, whether positive or negative, are okay. That it is necessary to ventilate them and at the same time gradually learn to manage them. Some parents are then surprised that children cannot calm down immediately, while admitting that they often cannot control themselves.
Johanes replaces therapy with listening to metal music. I’ll admit that metal is one of the few genres that I’ve never developed a taste for. What am I missing out on?
Just yesterday, one of my clients told me that when he is sad, he plays depressing songs by his favorite metal band, Tool, which have a cathartic effect for him. His emotions then multiply and can get out. Metal has different forms, some of its offshoots are more melodic, while in others the singers roar, scream or grunt. Even in that aggressive brawl, however, tremendous energy is concentrated. It can thus act as a valve for the anger and frustration that you have accumulated inside you.
Do you have any idea if an aging white man, ideally a metalhead, has already read your novel?
Yes, I have already received some feedback. I remember one Facebook discussant who wrote about the book that he was halfway through and didn’t understand at all how I could know his biography. Even in private messages, several readers contacted me who were personally touched or even moved by Johanes’ story. On the other hand, some reproached me for how a woman with a Muslim surname could write about Czech men and metal. But I accept similar reactions with a smile, I’m already used to it.
Video: Today’s children are victims, we have to stop it. We made the world ugly for them, says psychiatrist Horáček (April 11, 2024)
Spotlight Aktuálně.cz – Jiří Horáček | Video: The Spotlight Team