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avevale_intelligencerFreedom of speech means you, and I, and all of us are free to speak.
It does not guarantee any of us an audience, a pulpit, a megaphone, lasers or dry ice. It does not mean that anyone else has a duty or a compulsion to amplify, transmit, write down, copy, print, or store anything that comes out of our mouths, or even to listen. It does not mean that what comes out of our mouths is true, or important, or worth paying attention to in any way. That part is up to us.
Words in themselves are important, and can be powerful. They can hurt, they can heal. They can change your view of the world--but only if you choose to let them in. They aren't viruses. Memes are an intellectual conceit, not an actual life form. The most seductively phrased piece of mental manipulation an advertiser can create is powerless if nobody is hearing it. The most addictive meme is nothing if you click past it.
To me, an important part of the freedom to speak is the freedom not to. This is because I have a thing in my head which tries to make me respond automatically when I see something with which I disagree, or which I agree with but think is badly expressed. It's got me into trouble before, many times. The thing is, that's not me being free, that's me obeying the compulsion in my head, which is a bit of a fine distinction but I think it's right. "Someone is wrong on the internet," says the cartoon, which is how I know I'm not the only one. There ought to be a twelve-step programme.
If someone exercises their freedom to speak and talks bigoted, hateful rubbish such as the Christian right are doing right now, what they are praying for (in that very special sense of praying used by those who lost the Christian God years ago) is that someone will obey that compulsion and argue. They want response, because response = attention, and negative is actually better. A hundred enthusiastic "Me too!"'s aren't worth one angry refutation. If someone argues, they get to say it again, and again. Rush Limbaugh became a voice on the radio because he got people's attention. How many people have argued with him over the years? Has it hurt him? Not in the least. He's still there.
Attention is currency in these times. We pay attention, and the payee is enriched thereby. We withhold attention and we are starving him. We invite other people to pay attention and we are, however unwillingly, shilling for him. We call on people to boycott something, and a percentage will go and look to see what we're boycotting. (That's a bit of a catch-22, but is it not true?)
I don't refrain from posting angry refutations to fundie outbursts because I agree with them, or think they might have a point. Part of it is that I do have a life apart from blogging, and I like to exercise my freedom to speak where I think it might actually be worthwhile, but part of it is also that the best way to drain the power from these people, I think, is really to ignore them. They won't go away--they have freedom to speak, like me--but the people who make money from people who pay attention to them will eventually take their megaphones and their pulpits away, and their supporters, no longer able to hear, will find somebody else to listen to, maybe somebody who talks a little more sense. I would love to see the day when Rush Limbaugh's audience is the same size as mine. When nobody listens to him, and nobody cares enough about what he thinks even to argue.
Maybe I'm up a gum tree on this. I don't know. What do you think?
It does not guarantee any of us an audience, a pulpit, a megaphone, lasers or dry ice. It does not mean that anyone else has a duty or a compulsion to amplify, transmit, write down, copy, print, or store anything that comes out of our mouths, or even to listen. It does not mean that what comes out of our mouths is true, or important, or worth paying attention to in any way. That part is up to us.
Words in themselves are important, and can be powerful. They can hurt, they can heal. They can change your view of the world--but only if you choose to let them in. They aren't viruses. Memes are an intellectual conceit, not an actual life form. The most seductively phrased piece of mental manipulation an advertiser can create is powerless if nobody is hearing it. The most addictive meme is nothing if you click past it.
To me, an important part of the freedom to speak is the freedom not to. This is because I have a thing in my head which tries to make me respond automatically when I see something with which I disagree, or which I agree with but think is badly expressed. It's got me into trouble before, many times. The thing is, that's not me being free, that's me obeying the compulsion in my head, which is a bit of a fine distinction but I think it's right. "Someone is wrong on the internet," says the cartoon, which is how I know I'm not the only one. There ought to be a twelve-step programme.
If someone exercises their freedom to speak and talks bigoted, hateful rubbish such as the Christian right are doing right now, what they are praying for (in that very special sense of praying used by those who lost the Christian God years ago) is that someone will obey that compulsion and argue. They want response, because response = attention, and negative is actually better. A hundred enthusiastic "Me too!"'s aren't worth one angry refutation. If someone argues, they get to say it again, and again. Rush Limbaugh became a voice on the radio because he got people's attention. How many people have argued with him over the years? Has it hurt him? Not in the least. He's still there.
Attention is currency in these times. We pay attention, and the payee is enriched thereby. We withhold attention and we are starving him. We invite other people to pay attention and we are, however unwillingly, shilling for him. We call on people to boycott something, and a percentage will go and look to see what we're boycotting. (That's a bit of a catch-22, but is it not true?)
I don't refrain from posting angry refutations to fundie outbursts because I agree with them, or think they might have a point. Part of it is that I do have a life apart from blogging, and I like to exercise my freedom to speak where I think it might actually be worthwhile, but part of it is also that the best way to drain the power from these people, I think, is really to ignore them. They won't go away--they have freedom to speak, like me--but the people who make money from people who pay attention to them will eventually take their megaphones and their pulpits away, and their supporters, no longer able to hear, will find somebody else to listen to, maybe somebody who talks a little more sense. I would love to see the day when Rush Limbaugh's audience is the same size as mine. When nobody listens to him, and nobody cares enough about what he thinks even to argue.
Maybe I'm up a gum tree on this. I don't know. What do you think?
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no subject
Date: 2012-03-14 04:39 pm (UTC)You've got a point. On the other hand, many people assume that silence = consent. It's hard to know where to draw the line.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-14 05:30 pm (UTC)Flamewar is not the answer, but sitting quietly and letting the extreme rightwingers monopolize public discourse ... isn't working.
It is a lovely thought, mind. And in a saner society - one where rationality prevails, and sound-bite-might didn't make right in the minds of the general public - that strategy might work. Here in dystopia sweet home, however, it demonstrably is not working.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-15 02:22 am (UTC)I get the "silence=consent" point, but I do not accept the notion that "the general public" is stupider than I am, either here or in America.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-19 02:16 pm (UTC)a) one rather suspects you score above average on the whole intelligence/stupidity scale
b) a mob mentality appears to have taken hold; mind are stupider than the sum of their parts and more easily led
c) the news media are not what they were - even leaving Fox aside: increasingly, they are dominated by megacorporations that treat news as just another commodity, like cheese or petrol, and purdue monopolies over large regions; this has led to elimination of a lot of the investigative journalism and fact-checking that used to help keep pols honest (parroting sound votes and chasing fire trucks is a lot cheaper); so we really no longer have that "free media" or resulting "well-informed populace".
d) no, the Web can't replace it; online media are prone to the same ills (and sure, there are lots of little local sites, sime reben providing vital services, but few pursue the sort of news-gathering in question)
e) in some ways, the Web exacerbates the problem, by making it easier for people to fall into an unvetted cocoon of opinion and misinformation that masquerades as news.
It's looking scary out there.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-14 06:08 pm (UTC)Get no attention and your argument will go un-noticed. This is why my general rule is "don't feed the trolls", as attention to an argument can often be worse than not responding at all.
Also:
"It does not guarantee any of us an audience, a pulpit, a megaphone, lasers or dry ice"
Clearly you have not seen my arguing technique. I find employing 1980's disco is always a winner as it blinds your opponent to all reason.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-14 06:34 pm (UTC)Since we get no referendum on the vast majority of legislation passed in Parliament (Westminster or Holyrood) if hateful and bigoted speech inspires unfair legislation that our so-called representatives pass, thinking that the echoing silence that greeted the hateful speech meant that their constituents agreed with it then we would be at fault for NOT speaking up against it!
no subject
Date: 2012-03-14 10:44 pm (UTC)Following on what
The Catch22 you mention is right on.
For the last several months I have been very very angry that the USA's Democratic Party machine has stifled all possible opposition to Obama in the coming election (they are holding no primaries at all) because the result is all the GOP drivel is going unchallenged by the other side of the aisle.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-15 07:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-15 04:54 pm (UTC)As on the occasion that I mentioned before it was with one of the street preachers in High Wycombe. I mostly just pass by and let it wash over me. I'll even take one of their tracts from the nice women handing them out because... Well, I like to be charitable.
But maybe my feet were aching too much or the idiocy got too dense for me and I was rude.
He was saying: "And now they are passing laws Against The Word Of God!" (I assume he was going on about the gay marriage thing.) "Has secularism made Britain a better place?"
And that question caused me to ring out with The Full Theatrical Projection (some people may have been woken up by it) "YES! IT HAS!"
And then I added, almost as loudly and because I am an agnostic not an atheist: "Thanks be to God!"
I didn't stay to argue and as I walked away I didn't hear him deviate from his planned spiel. I can't tell whether I was moved by the Spirit of the Lord or my own arrogance, whether I should be ashamed or pleased.
What I am saying is, I suppose, that there's only so much bullshit a man can take. A woman too, I shouldn't wonder.