February 2015 – The Examined Life

“There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.” ― Harold Pinter

Has the postmodern era made us lose sight of what was originally meant by the freedom of speech, do we now see it as a licence to say whatever we please, insulting whomsoever we chose, in the most offensive and degrading ways possible, whenever and wherever we please, no longer appreciating the freedom of speech for the liberty it really is?

Even the most liberal defender of the freedom of speech recognizes the need to limit the very freedom for which they advocate. For example advertisements can’t be intentionally misleading, the freedom does not extend to state secrets, nor to the publishing of material of a sexual nature of children. All of these seem reasonable with perhaps one exception, who decides on what is and what isn’t a state secret? For a long time most western societies have operated comparable policies and approaches to the freedom of speech (perhaps with the exception of the former eastern bloc) and until recently with little call for concern, so what’s happened to upset the freedom of speech apple cart? Why is it that in recent times we have heard our producers of entertainment, especially comedy, offending various groups of people living within our societies? My answer may appear over simplistic but for me the growing pervasiveness of postmodernism in western thought has led to the boundaries of decency to be pushed and the bar for the bar to be lowered a forever deepening abyss of self loathing.as it takes just too much god damn effort to raise the bar, what is most commonly done is to find ever more redundant, purposeless, verging on nihilistic ways of ridiculing popular beliefs.

“The Postmodernists’ tyranny wears people down by boredom and semi-literate prose.”

If you could define postmodernism then it wouldn’t be postmodernism as one of its characteristics is it being undefinable, something that can’t be easily classified, labeled and put on a shelf to gather dust and eventually metastasizes into a benign lump of nihilistic tissue.

Postmodern humour responds to and references the fears, fixations, frameworks and technologies which underpin our postmodern existence.

BLAIR SCOTT FRANKLYN The University of Waikato 2006

Franklyn’s observation on the characteristics of postmodern humour are apt as it has been through humour that the freedom of speech has most commonly been put to the test in the age of postmodernism.

“I am simply not interested, at this point, in creating narrative scenes between characters.”

“Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery – celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from – it’s where you take them to.”

[MovieMaker Magazine #53 – Winter, January 22, 2004 ]”
― Jim Jarmusch

What postmodernism gives us instead is a multicultural defense for male violence – a defense for it wherever it is, which in effect is a pretty universal defense.


But What About the Chihuahuas?

: TurboRoo, Two-Legged Chihuahua, Gets New Wheels Thanks To A 3D Printer!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0L3i__PLTE0

Chihuahuas to remake the classic movie ‘The Usual Suspects’.

“The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation.”

On the other hand, it may be that Williams’ chronic depression — initially blamed — is what caused him to hang himself with a belt in his Tiburon, Calif., home in August.

chapelSUM_3195329c — The lives of three, bright, young people cut savagely short by one ‘red neck’ moron. Are our societies on the verge of collapse under the weight of their own ignorance?

This week my students were to film short movie projects, they’d done their storyboards, scripts and walked through their single shot films. They were well prepared and excited to produce a piece of work other than the standard written essay. The day before the first group were scheduled to film I was informed by an administrator that a parent had complained as the school had not been blessed by Buddhist monks. Having lived in Thailand for over 10 years I wasn’t surprised by this, at the same time I had no idea what relevance the failure of monks to give their blessing had on our project, but it was immediately clear to me that arguing with such a warped and perverse sense of logic would be futile, so I canceled the project and replaced it with a routine essay “Which is More Important: Freedom of speech and expression or Respecting Individual Beliefs”. Surprised to say the students were less than thrilled by this development, I told them that I had decided to respect the beliefs of an individual, when in truth I just couldn’t entertain the notion of partaking in a pseudo-theological discussion with a native about ghosts, perhaps that’s my failings as a teacher, but I can’t see the point in appealing to common sense where there is so clearly none to be appealed to.

It took a couple of days for the disappointment ebb out of the class and quickly they were asking questions “if we respect their belief not to make our movies shouldn’t they respect our wish to make a movie?” A simple yet brilliant question to which I responded with the nebulous “sometimes you’ve just got to take the high moral ground”.
For the next few days students wrestled with this question, most of them realizing that in all practicality a democratic society is like a drunken clown treading a fine line whilst simultaneously juggling the hand grenade of free speech and the chainsaw of individual liberty.

We looked at the Charlie Hebdo shootings and considered the innocence of the cartoonists in light of their frequent provocation. We considered whether 20 Parisiennes would still be alive today had the law detailed in the European Union Framework Decision for Combating Racism and Xenophobia (2007) had been enforced, which explicitly states:

Publicly inciting to violence or hatred , even by dissemination or distribution of tracts, pictures or other material, directed against a group of persons or a member of such a group defined by reference to race, colour, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin.

We questioned why was Charlie Hebdo allowed to repeatedly since 2006 print material inciting racial hatred, one of my students believed that had the cartoons been in any way anti-Semitic then they would have been shut down far sooner if ever printed at all.

We were in the midst of pondering such questions when a new story emerged, 3 young Muslim Americans had been killed and the story was not reported until Twitter uses shamed the media for their non coverage of the story. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan criticized President Obama for his silence on the issue. With the world aware that there had been little media coverage and the president not offering comment one could understand the frustration and anger that must have been developing throughout Muslim communities. President Erdogan stated:

“If you stay silent when faced with an incident like this, and don’t make a statement, the world will stay silent towards you”

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-31449973

As an ally in the fight against ISIS President Obama was woken from his slumber to declare with an instantly forgettable speech, that this was a tragedy that has no place in a civilized society blah, blah, blah.

Obama had to work on his 'lay ups' and 'three pointers' before he could be drawn in to passing comment on the Chapel Hill murders. — Obama had to work on his ‘lay ups’ and ‘three pointers’ before he could be drawn in to passing comment on the Chapel Hill murders.

The fact is the damage had already been done, what with the no mainstream news network covering the story and the President appearing to be too busy shooting hoops, moderate Muslims were quickly finding out just where they are ranked amongst the concerns of the west. If bombing Iraqi and Afghan children into becoming terrorists for since the turn of the centurys wasn’t bad enough, then a triple homicide of three Muslims going unnoticed in America is likely to provide food for though to your more moderate followers of Islam.

I am left thinking whether this is all by design, are we witnessing the unveiling of the true agendaa of western media, a device being used to stir up hatred against Musilms. When you couple this event with the recently released movie ‘American Sniper’. It reminds me of a joke I must have first heard just after 9/11.

The Saudi Ambassador to the UN has just finished giving a speech, and walks out into the lobby where he meets President Bush. They shake hands and as they walk the Saudi says, “You know, I have just one question about what I have seen in America.” President Bush says “Well your Excellency, anything I can do to help you, I will do.” The Saudi whispers “My son watches this show ‘Star Trek’ and in it there are
Russians, and Blacks, and Asians, but never any Arabs. He is very upset. He doesn’t understand why there are never any Arabs in Star Trek.” President Bush laughs and leans toward the Saudi, and whispers back, “It’s because it takes place in the future….”

To think I would ever include Fox News, but Geraldo identifies the doule standards inherent in the media.