I've seemed to have the writing bug all day today and it seems such a shame to waste it.
Recently I've written a couple of things about sharing and over-sharing and how I know that my opinions will be made obvious even if I don't want them to because the space between the lines in my books is very readable. It's not an issue, per se, but there's a good reason that I don't explicitly write about my political opinion or large pieces about controversial current affairs and that is quite simply because I don't need the hassle.
If someone doesn't like my novels, there's not much I can do about that and it's each to their own. I don't understand people's love of certain writers, big one being George Orwell - I mean, yes, 1984 is an amazing novel for what it predicts but it's a bit of a dull read and if I ever think about reading Down and Out in Paris and London again I have friends that know I will need to be sectioned post haste because once was truly bad enough - but when you start weighing in on these issues, and it can be anything and I'm not going to provide examples because even that would get me into trouble, people start throwing around words like it's their right to label you and tell you your opinion is wrong because it doesn't match with theirs. I like to point out, if I ever get into these conversations face to face, we're not playing a game of snap. You can't just announce you're right and expect to mount some ivory pedestal and not have to defend your arguments, and by that same logic, I would have to defend my views.
I'm not saying that I can't defend my views - far from it actually, I have a degree in being argumentative (no, really, it's Philosophy and Ethics...) - I just know the internet. Everything gets distorted and there are always sides and, oh, I just can't be bothered with it. So, for now, at least, anyway, I'm keeping out of it. I will write what I write influenced by life, but I'm not getting involved with the drama. Or rather, see if I can get away from it.
Showing posts with label 1984. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1984. Show all posts
15 Apr 2014
Oh Dear,
Sometimes, I start reading things for essays - particularly opinions or articles posted on the internet, and the only thing I can think is, oh dear, just oooooh dear. This essay is proving to be worse than most.
I'm writing about 'hate speech' and whether or not it would be a threat to our freedom of speech to restrict it. It seems like it ought to be simple to answer - surely anything which dictates what we can or cannot say is a restriction on our freedom of speech, but then again, that is dependent upon a few other factors.
Freedom of speech doesn't actually define speech as flapping skin, bone and muscle to form intelligent (or unintelligent) noises which other people can understand (or try to), neither does it simply refer to this and the written (or typed, in this day and age) word. When you read 'freedom of speech', your brain should instead insert a phrase such as 'freedom of expression in any auditory, visual or physical form that is not more harming to others than the restrictions would be to the person who wishes to express in such a format', but that's a bit of a handful to write or type at once, and textbooks are large enough as it is.
Now, why do we define the 'speech' part of freedom of speech in this way? Probably because we like to protest pretty loudly, and actions apparently 'speak' louder than words. If one person who disapproved of the war in Irak and Arghanistan spoke up, we wouldn't hear it, if ten spoke up, we still wouldn't hear it, but if hundreds marched along the streets of London, we would begin to hear it. The loudest shout from this was of course the burning of poppies, which caused public outrage
BUT...
restrictions on freedom of expression etc. must be neutral, so we can't say that burning poppies is not okay, we'd have to say that burning all symbols is not okay, but then we would need to define symbols. There's also the problem that it could be seen as restricting protests against the government, even though most would see the action as a disrespect to the military.
Freedom of speech is one of the those tricky ones, because I would love to say that Nick Eriksen wasn't allowed to say that any kind of rape is much like chocolate cake, but if that was a law, he'd possibly be holding political office as well as his controversial views. We could also be talking in the language of 1984 saying this band is double plus good, whereas war is double plus ungood.
Whilst it's true that the Westboro Baptist Church upset grieving families at funerals across America, as well as other activists of an opposing view, the fact is that their idiocy sparks a debate that can only be a good thing. Of course we know it is nothing more than assertions of someone who is completely ignorant and deluded to say that soldiers deaths are caused by America's lax attitude to homosexuality, but then again, we only know that because the debate is there and the thought is there. That line of thinking has changed people's views, whether we want to admit it or not.
Still, watching the Louis Theroux documentaries about the Westboro Baptist Church, My Hometown Fanatics by Stacey Dooley and reading both The Londonist and Daily Mail's take on the Eriksen blog, I can't help but thinking it would be at least double good if people couldn't say all these horrible things to each other, because in the end, we just trade insult for insult and inadvertently teach children that it's an okay situation to be a part of.
I'm writing about 'hate speech' and whether or not it would be a threat to our freedom of speech to restrict it. It seems like it ought to be simple to answer - surely anything which dictates what we can or cannot say is a restriction on our freedom of speech, but then again, that is dependent upon a few other factors.
Freedom of speech doesn't actually define speech as flapping skin, bone and muscle to form intelligent (or unintelligent) noises which other people can understand (or try to), neither does it simply refer to this and the written (or typed, in this day and age) word. When you read 'freedom of speech', your brain should instead insert a phrase such as 'freedom of expression in any auditory, visual or physical form that is not more harming to others than the restrictions would be to the person who wishes to express in such a format', but that's a bit of a handful to write or type at once, and textbooks are large enough as it is.
Now, why do we define the 'speech' part of freedom of speech in this way? Probably because we like to protest pretty loudly, and actions apparently 'speak' louder than words. If one person who disapproved of the war in Irak and Arghanistan spoke up, we wouldn't hear it, if ten spoke up, we still wouldn't hear it, but if hundreds marched along the streets of London, we would begin to hear it. The loudest shout from this was of course the burning of poppies, which caused public outrage
BUT...
restrictions on freedom of expression etc. must be neutral, so we can't say that burning poppies is not okay, we'd have to say that burning all symbols is not okay, but then we would need to define symbols. There's also the problem that it could be seen as restricting protests against the government, even though most would see the action as a disrespect to the military.
Freedom of speech is one of the those tricky ones, because I would love to say that Nick Eriksen wasn't allowed to say that any kind of rape is much like chocolate cake, but if that was a law, he'd possibly be holding political office as well as his controversial views. We could also be talking in the language of 1984 saying this band is double plus good, whereas war is double plus ungood.
Whilst it's true that the Westboro Baptist Church upset grieving families at funerals across America, as well as other activists of an opposing view, the fact is that their idiocy sparks a debate that can only be a good thing. Of course we know it is nothing more than assertions of someone who is completely ignorant and deluded to say that soldiers deaths are caused by America's lax attitude to homosexuality, but then again, we only know that because the debate is there and the thought is there. That line of thinking has changed people's views, whether we want to admit it or not.
Still, watching the Louis Theroux documentaries about the Westboro Baptist Church, My Hometown Fanatics by Stacey Dooley and reading both The Londonist and Daily Mail's take on the Eriksen blog, I can't help but thinking it would be at least double good if people couldn't say all these horrible things to each other, because in the end, we just trade insult for insult and inadvertently teach children that it's an okay situation to be a part of.
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