I don’t like treating this particular venue as a “personal” blog per se. Obviously it is authored using my opinions, but I like to think I keep it thought-provoking, or at the very least comical. Then again, I once wrote about a Middle Earth IKEA, so who knows. Point notwithstanding, I would like to discuss my genuine blogger-opinionated view on something I think is pretty important. In fact, it’s one of the principles that ARE COUNTRY was founded on: Freedom of Speech. Now I am sure many of you are already rolling your eyes at this now clichéd and overwrought subject. I don’t blame you; I roll my eyes constantly. I look like one of those googly-eyed, paper plate turkeys irl. But I feel this is still a relevant issue looming over the nation’s head1.
I begin with an Exhibit A of sorts, this photo. I present it to you, like so:
That is a real thing. It is a thing that a person made, entirely in good faith and unironically 2. This sign was created and displayed at a college, as part of a movement that has been categorized in the popular media as a student movement. In particular, this poster belonged to a protester participating in a student movement at Amherst College, but I think there are elements at schools and other places where trendy, cool young people go that endorse this message.
Now, students do dumb shit. In college I once jumped off a roof and shattered my arm and leg because I wanted to sneak onto a football field (thanks mom and dad for all that tuition, suckers!!!!). But this sort of thing can’t just be set aside as isolated shenanigans because students are also voting adults with political clout. We live in the age of information and social media. News like this sticks around longer, because it is no longer isolated to a single event. People, inevitably, find out about it en masse. I refuse to believe these particular students are exclusively idiots. I just can’t see it. Every group and age and generation has had dumb, bad ideas. 3 There has to be a reason for this. Let’s start with the sign itself.
So this poster asks for something that is prima facie acceptable, but in truth quite devious. I would like to add that I do not accuse the creator of deviousness, only that I would instead encourage him to actually finish a history course without getting super high beforehand and then texting and playing that weird game where you seduce cats into your yard and it’s all in Japanese4. What the poster asks for is condemnation of free speech when it “hurts other people’s feelings”. I feel like LeBron receiving an alley-oop and gliding in to land a fucking sick reverse dunk. Anyone who has actually finished a college, any college really, knows how problematic it is to say “Don’t do things that hurt people’s feelings.” Not because we struggle with that in life (although I do :sadface:), but because any educated person knows it’s impossible to not hurt ALL other people’s feelings. That is the universal quantifier implied in the statement. It isn’t “people you know” it is people, like, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. It’s impossible to say anything that you can be certain won’t hurt anyone’s feelings. “Let’s eat.” Seems promising until you remember people with feeding tubes. “I breathe.” That’s great until it triggers the husband or wife of one of those nutjobs who believes they can live off air and sunshine. Even the philosophical Holy of Holies, the Cogito ergo sum offends my mortal enemies who wish me dead (and who continue to lurk in the shadows…).
So from a thoughtful perspective this second part is untenable. More intriguing, though, is the first half of the statement. “WE CONDEMN free speech…” is defining the parameters of the claim. ‘We’, meaning not just the author, but a group, and ‘condemn’, which is to publicly censure, sentence, or disapprove of something. A single man, wanting for power, cannot condemn, not really – he is taken as a farce, like old men and crazy homeless people.
A body with power, even if it’s just a small group, can condemn, because it is taken seriously. By saying “We condemn…”, the poster is actually answering the prior problem before stating it. The Condemners are going to be the ones who decide what is hurting feelings, and what should be censured, which, of course, is a form of fascist socialism – an elite group of “right-thinkers” forcing their moral policy equally on all women and men everywhere.
Now I don’t think college kids are Hitlers. In fact, a lot of this comes from the prior generation doing something good – fighting racism. Many anti-free speech movements vocally endorse the notion that free speech enables racism. This still falls under the purveyance of my argument above, but it is at least a laudable thing to fight. I just think that they aren’t really considering what they are actually saying, for they are too wrapped up in the goal (Classically known as the ends do not justify the means). I also don’t think it’s their fault. They are already biased to a different, collective way of thinking.
In this case I blame Tumblr, and all the social media like it (as dumb and old-manish as this may sound). As good as social media has been for our world in terms of globalization and unification, it has also been responsible for what many refer to as the Echo Chamber. I prefer the Trapperkeeper Complex. For those unaware, In the show South Park there is a Trapperkeeper episode that is an homage to Star Trek’s borg concept with an eye towards social conformity. Cartman, in a time where all the other kids have trapperkeepers, wants to conform. So he buys the best trapperkeeper to show he is the best conformist. The trapperkeeper is so good at fostering conformity that it takes Cartman, other people, and eventually anything into itself, assimilating it all into a single, likeminded entity. “We are trapperkeeper, we are one,” it utters.
This is Tumblr, more or less. The internet, in its immensity has the force of thousands upon thousands of minds, who unite into groups that foster causes. These groups can be good and benign, or malicious and cruel, and this was usually attributed to the constitution of the members who joined. But now, whole generations are being born into a world with highly established groupings in a digital realm. When a child, adolescent, or even misguided adult comes across a group with vocal pieces all over the internet, videos from countless supporters, and mentions in the mainstream media, it is a very different experience from when you were a teen and joined the somethingawful forums to bully people. When a group of thousands encounters a single person, now they assimilate, which is to say they use group bullying and belonging dynamics. These already worked pretty well in real life, and the goal is to absolutely force a change of view in the individual (especially the younger, impressionable people) through repetition and support of the collective. Even the older, strong-willed individual must at least yield, if not be assimilated outright. Or get off the internet I guess, but people are willing to do that less frequently than I think any of us will admit.
The younger members of our generation are heavily biased towards virtual space as a legitimate source of social knowledge and cues– we are now an electronic society focused on phone/computer use and this will necessarily drive them towards inclusion in digital groups, even at a preference over real life groups. As a result, it must feel very natural to many students to think this way – to be taken up with the notion that everyone is/becomes like-minded and in so doing becomes harmless. Tumblr is that way – you just tell people they are triggering you, and under the weight of the gaze of countless supporters they apologize, and we all become ‘friends’. Otherwise the call resounds among thousands, echoing over and over until you are driven away entirely, or conform and, perhaps, apologize profusely. I think, probably, a dictatorship of the proletariat is classically Marxist socialism. I guess we could abolish personal ethics and have the Tumblr people dictate our values through pseudo-democratic consensus and establish a new age of Marxist moral dogma. Fortunately, that sounds retarded and dumb5. But we will have stupid movements like the ‘anti-free speech movement’, ‘brony support therapy’, and ‘everyone agree this person is now a multi-colored dragon and if you don’t respect that you are a bad, prejudiced person. Also you can’t say person. It’s slurm now.’
So I guess what do we do now? Knowing that they maintain a logically preposterous position with respect to free speech helps us to deny it without feeling like bigoted shitheads. In truth, I never thought it would really become a national issue; at least not yet. Most of us are generally smart and independent; we innately recognize that a fundamental right at the core of our nation ethos is threatened when we try to abolish free speech. Really, I just don’t want younger people to have a shitty college/technical school/coming of age experience where they are afraid of saying anything hurtful. They should be vibrant, creative, intelligent, and independent. That is what I want for America when I am interred in the ground as a disgusting, rotting bag of flesh and viscera – a bright future driven by intelligent, free-thinking people. Growing up isn’t about being hyper-triggered from micro-aggressions; it’s about getting drunk and receiving nigh unlimited mulligans on being an adult. I hope the next time I find myself on a college campus, the only poster I see is something like this banner:
God Bless This Mess.
Notes
- Not the nation’s toilet.
- Maybe I have been bamboozled. I am sorry if I was hoodwinked. If it is all flim-flam.
- Sorry about perpetuating slavery in an Industrial Revolution society. Signed, The 19th Century.
- It is called Neko Atsume, and it is all the rage.
- Though it is pretty cool how this all developed spontaneously.