GUEST BLOG by Brian John Spencer
They make grand claims and wield arbitrary power over a moderate majority and you can do absolutely nothing about it. Nothing. You have to shut up and put up. Less you be a snob. Less you be seriously assaulted.
Upon this equation the progressive majority have long-time been silenced. They are the muzzled moderate. This is the worst kind of censorship: Self-censorship and prior-restraint. Silence is enforced by two means. First, by the charge of being a "snob". Second, by the use of fear and intimidation. Let's look at each in turn.
Firstly, being the "snob". This is the standard charge laid against myself and others who speak against the worst elements within loyalism. And it comes from two sources, liberals and loyalists.
You get it from liberals like Ed Simpson who err towards indulging and nurturing those who commit promiscuous violence. You can be accused of being snobbish, elitist or intolerant for simply saying criticising the most extreme within the working-classes.
History will surely judge this an abject failure. A failure on the part of liberals for their inability to stand by their principles and fight movements, which are sectarian, homophobic and racist. This “liberal formula” is an illiberal bar on free expression. This “liberal formula” is not a recipe for pluralism or multiculturalism. To the contrary, this formula is the exploitation of pluralism for use against this very concept. This is a victory for bigotry, the anti-plural and anti-multicultural.
Then you get it from loyalists like Jamie Bryson who want to whitewash their responsibility by smearing people like me as a "snob" and in one swipe render my view and my voice worthless. For as Newton Emerson said: "ever since the Good Friday Agreement, [snobbery] seems to be the only crime you can commit in Northern Ireland." Alex Massie spoke in equal terms here, that being offensive has become "the greatest sin imaginable."
Upon this first formula we must not hurt the feelings of the vandal. This is horrendous. This is what Christopher Hitchens calls "multicultural masochism". Upon this formula, the violent vandal has the whip-hand over the muzzled moderate, and you can say nothing.
Secondly, fear and intimidation as a means to shut out criticism and unwelcome views. The whole history of Northern Ireland has been of a very violent minority who racketeer, blackmail and extort the progressive moderate. By this equation, the whole history of Northern Ireland has been of the best leaving as social and economic emigrants, or staying and speaking out against deviants and feeling the heavy hand of intimidation and violent attack.
Think Edgar Graham. As Alex Kane said, "All we need to know, and remember, is that was killed because he was an enemy of all paramilitarism." Upon this second formula, the worst in society are beyond reproach. The best are hostage to news-talk and fear. This is abhorrent and a perversion.
What are we to do? Loyalists and other extremists are not beyond reproach. They do not hold a special privilege in society. There is no specialist branch of ethics known as loyalist exceptionalism. They have committed and continue to conduct unpardonable behaviour and must be held to account. For too long extremists have been long-nurtured, never checked. For too long we have bent the knee to madness for fear of being a “snob” and for fear of violence.
Having experienced the absolute absence of opportunity in Northern Ireland and felt the searing of indifference of politicians to that absence, I have made it my mission to speak boldly, openly and freely to call out hypocrisy, corruption and mismanagement wherever I see it. And this applies to loyalists and other extremists who hope, wish and intend to turn Northern Ireland into a bucket shop. I in turn hope, wish and intend their containment and call to account.
I want to utterly expose their absolute absence of ideas or alternatives. This means speaking plain English. It means calling a spade a spade. A violent vandal, a vandal. A racketeering gangster, a racketeering gangster. It also requires you to be provocative. As Peter Tatchell said, dismantling hidebound orthodoxies requires people to be contentious, disputatious, uncivil and even rude.
Change does not come by the moderate’s tradition of speech that is staid, dull and conformist and terrified of offending people. This is cowardly, shameful and masochistic. You cannot tolerate intolerant bigots and vandals. Those who play nicey-nice and stand indifferent are approvers, colluders and sustainers of delinquency (albeit tacit).
The muzzled moderate needs to become the unmuzzled-muscular-moderate. The aggressive progressive. They need to abandon their habit of neutered speech, cleansed of anything even slightly contentious, colourful or offensive. As Tom Hickey said here, the young and the moderates need to adopt the skills of contestation. As The Quilliam Foundation said in their policy document here, the moderate needs to adopt the doctrine of ‘civil intolerance’.
“Ideas and ideologies that sow division, bigotry and hatred such as those that may eventually lead to terrorism should not and cannot be left unchallenged in our society. Here, a doctrine of ‘civil intolerance’ is encouraged.”I’m on board with civil intolerance and contestation. I ask: are you with me?
Next to glaciers and rising sea levels, language could be said to be the most powerful force that exists in the world. Cultural theorists of the twentieth century taught us that language is a system of communication based on shifting significance: 'love' and 'hate' mean different things to different people. The same can be said for 'respect' and 'culture'. Anyone involved with politics knows how to use this shifting quality of language to their advantage and even Edwin Poots must be aware that when he uses words like 'subversives' he's embracing the division between people who agree with him and people who disagree with him. There is another way of looking at it, of course, and it doesn't take a keen mind to see through this kind of trolling. Yes, it is trolling: he's setting a trap and waiting for a reaction that outweighs the original statement, therefore proving – in his mind – his point that his political and cultural ideology is the correct view and that anyone who doesn't agree, or toe the line, are dissidents (both in our recent idiomatic appropriation of the word and in the original sense). The ability to perpetuate division is an effective political move in an arena that's noted for binary constructs.
ReplyDeleteI recently asked a group of students to discuss the words 'spide' and 'hipster'. The responses were exactly as expected: a spide was someone who wears a tracksuit and is dependent on benefits, a hipster was someone who tries too hard to be cool. The point of this was to attempt to initiate a distrust in the murkier areas of language: my suggestion was that the word 'spide' has an innate dehumanising quality and to call someone a spide is to make a broad gesture towards a cultural stereotype that reinforces class structures. The word hipster is based on ideas of cultural capital and cultural appropriation. In other words, 'you're a hipster' is a statement that really means 'my cultural outlook and interests are rightfully earned and therefore more meaningful than yours'. Both words are reductive and strengthen social hierarchies. So what impact does this have on the way that our society works?
Well, George Orwell says it much better than I ever will:
[The English language] becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier to have foolish thoughts.
If we are to understand how this applies to current affairs then we must attempt to define the use of the word 'ugly' here. In my view, it has absolutely nothing to do with spelling, grammar or punctuation. Any suggestion that it does is rooted in an inherently conservative ideology based on standards of education. Ugliness in language, for me, is based on Orwell's idea of inaccuracy and links back to the thought that cultural signifiers like 'spide' and 'hipster' have a dehumanising effect. If you're even vaguely aware of recent posts on various forms of social media then you'll know that a word that appears regularly is 'scum'. If there's anything that unites supposedly disparate social groups, supposedly at odds with each other, is the use of the word 'scum'. It's a shorthand term that has a particularly sinister quality: by likening people with hopes, fears and aspirations to literal filth allows for a logical progression towards violence. It removes individuality, dignity and can lead to a disregard for the value of human life. I don't feel that I need to labour this point any further.
ReplyDeleteA slovenliness, as Orwell put it, in language usage makes it easier to have foolish thoughts. We don't need to look very closely at Jamie Bryson's output to understand how this manifests itself. Jamie's rhetoric is one that delights in stock phrases: 'the core truth of the matter', 'to be frank'. It adopts a register of authority that masquerades as meaningful: to those who are sympathetic with his views it's a convincing act and lends a gravitas to his more outlandish claims. For Jamie, it appears that grandiosity is an asset and phrases like 'political agenda' almost appear to be anything other than vague and therefore meaningless. This, in turn, makes it much easier for Jamie to rally support for alleged 'bullying'. It is important for any of us who wish to oppose political extremism
in all forms to be able to deconstruct empty rhetoric. It is also important for any of us who wish to oppose political extremism to be able to empathise with an impulse to resort to lowest common denominator language use. We mustn't allow grandiose, and often foolish, claims to detract from what can only be legitimate fears: if we are to attempt to alleviate fears of 'cultural erosion' (another vague signifier) then we must do so with an acute awareness of the shifting nature of language. The jargon that surrounds any form of nationalism has an anaesthetic quality. Confusing jargon with original thoughts can be as dangerous as the jargon itself. (Perhaps it's interesting to note that Orwell also writes that 'the words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice, have each of them several different meaning which cannot be reconciled with one another.')
If we are going to attempt to quells the fears of people with extreme political views, and it's my opinion that extreme views are the product of fear and confusion created by those in power to perpetuate division and retain their positions of power, then we must be very careful about our own use of language. In an article for the Huffington Post you (Brian) wrote that 'it is they, the loyalists, who are the bullies. It is they, the loyalists, who are the sectarians. It is they, the loyalists, who are the law-breakers.' I have a problem with the alienating effect of 'the loyalists': it is the same kind of reductive statement that labels entire ethno-religious groups as 'scum'. In its context, a less problematic phrasing would be 'these loyalists'. There is a fundamental difference between making a point about specific actions and using words that suggest (we hope, and assume, unintentionally) the culpability of an entire community. Language, being the powerful and slippery force that it is, must be used in a manner that avoids abstractions whenever possible. When there are real possibilities of violence from political extremists of all persuasions it is our duty not to alienate those who could resort to violence. This brings us to some thoughts on parody and satire.
ReplyDeleteAn example of what has led to allegations of 'bullying' and 'snobbery' on the part of Loyalists Against Democracy is the slogan 'Respect Are Culture'. I've mentioned that we have different opinions of what 'respect' and 'culture' mean: the obvious (and effective) irony of the slogan is that a demand for cultural respect was being made in the midst of public violence. Satire can only exist if it's not from a position of privilege and also undermines hierarchical structures. To parody violence and violent intentions takes the power away from the aggressors and undermines that power structure. However, there is something dangerous about the misuse of 'are' for 'our'. Confusion between the two levels on which the joke works is unhelpful: as soon as it becomes about poor standards of literacy it's making the wrong point. To parody a lack of education reinforces class structures and has an alienating effect that counteracts any good that the original parody has achieved.