Not only irrelevant music but….

…no right to free speech or free expression

What am I talking about then?

Well, the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) of course.

The rules clearly state that the lyrics must not be offensive, must not contain swearing, and must not contain poltiics in any shape or form (in other words no free speech) .  Added to that is the rule that limits each performance to a maximum of six people on stage (in other words no free expression) and the rule preventing political manifestations, symbols and uniforms means that the  ESC is not only irrelevant from a sociopolitical viewpoint but also from a cultural viewpoint.

And it is thus reduced to a collection of songs for Europe supervised by a committee that still wants to see Europe (and the rest of the world presumably) through rose tinted glasses, ignoring all the sociopolitical strife and upheaval going on all around us and pretending that everything is all hunky-dorey,  peace & love and hugs & kisses and everyone’s happy!   All one big happy family from the west coasts of Iceland and Ireland to the Urals and the Caucases! RUBBISH! 

And why do I think the music is culturally irrelevant? Well, because all music is based on the culture it is created in, and a large part of any culture is the sociopolitical situation of that culture’s homeland. So for example, if you prevent that which is a huge part of, for example, Irish or Serbian or Israeli culture, in other words a long history of sociopolitical problems, you are in turn preventing a huge part of the cultural make-up of Ireland or Israel or Serbia from being represented in song. Thus making the songs as about as irrelevant as it is possible to make songs.

Whether you like the music or not or whether or not you think the music and the whole show is good or bad is I’m afraid yet another irrelevance.

     

 

 

 

Status quo protection v free expression

At what level of management, leadership, supervision do you think an individual starts worrying about protecting the status quo, in other words, protecting his/her job, wage, reputation, lifestyle, and overly worrying what others think about them rather than defending strongly held personal opinions?  And to what level will they sink in order to protect it?

I have in the past, as have most people, encountered many individuals who clearly follow the party line or their company’s policies or preferred opinions regarding certain socio-political, gender, cultural workplace issues that they obviously don’t agree with, and would rather prefer not to support.

And that is quite normal in the workplace even for managers on the lowest rung of the ladder.  And usually they don’t have any leverage or tools to support their position if  someone should express a view contrary to the workplace views or policies in force.

Yet they continue in that role year after year, simply to protect the status quo, their position, their livelihood, and occasionally being hated for it by workers under their supervision.

Middle managers of course, in this battle between the status quo and freedom of expression and thought, do have tools at their disposal. For example, they can withhold benefits, time off, holidays, pay rises. And worst of all influence the co-workers of the free speaker/free thinker by even resorting to bullying, or “abuse of authority” as it is called in polite legal terms.

Then at the top of the pile we have those who have the most to lose should they express something they really feel or think rather than defending the status quo and their own jobs and reputations when spouting the party/workplace line in conflict with a normal worker who is ironically expressing support of something the top dog him/herself secretly agrees with.

And that can’t be healthy for the top dog, be s/he a Director General, CEO, MD, Colonel, Mayor, Commissioner etc.    

In fact, it must be mentally tiring, defending the socio-political, gender, cultural views that your workplace encourages but which you don’t agree with when in conflict with someone saying something you do secretly agree with.  Or defending them to such an extent that you must clearly realise that you are infringing on the rights of the worker expressing the contrary.

And so the level of status quo protection here includes all forms of management bullying, peer group pressure, making the individual look stupid or basically trying to shut them up with threats that are not the reserve of top managers but rather 12-year-old children in the school playground.    

 

    

 

 

  

              

 

   

 

 

 

 

Free speech is not free expression

However, one should never confuse the right to free speech with the ability to express one’s self freely as a result of free thinking. The two are only similar semantically.     

More on this next week, until then something to consider and digest (no pun inteded)  as an example.

Free speech: kill all abortion doctors   -  The very contradictory rallying cry of “pro-life” activists outside abortion clinics. “Pro-life? but you’re advocating murder, do you know what the word hypocrite means?”

Free thinking and subsequent free expression of a thought : use aborted foetuses to provide nutrition rich food for new mothers  - Why not? Many cultures eat the placenta so why not aborted foetuses?

Being a free thinker

One often hears people using the phrase, “I’m a free thinker”. What they are in fact doing when they say that is marking the fact that they don’t consider themselves to be like anyone else. Well, let me ask you, who in their right individual mind does consider themselves to be like anyone else? Everyone, who is  mentally healthy, should consider themselves to be unique to some degree, and in various ways large and small.

No, people who say that are usually far from free thinkers,  they simply want others to know that they generally don’t agree with one or more commonly held views, for example, racism is wrong.  So many racists, rather than say, “No it isn’t”  fall back on their standard phrase, “Well, I’m a free thinker” rather than defend racism.  The “I’m a free thinker” crowd nearly always use the phrase as a get-out clause.  And truth be told the one thing they are most frightened of is free thinking. They want to be part of the status quo but they also want to be viewed as different to Joe Bloggs.  And that’s a dilemma most of them can never work their way out of.

That’s just an example of the misuse of the phrase “free thinker”.  

With this blog, I want people to consider what free thinking and free expression really are. Thinking freely devoid of influence from society as a whole, being able to express your innermost thoughts, ideas, desires and so on, devoid of what your family, friends, colleagues and neighbours might say if you express something, some desire, some wish, some need outside the norm.  Devoid of influence from the accepted norms, ethics, standards and morals of modern society.

Free thinking and expression is about analysisng what you personally feel, not what your employer, your superior officer, your parents, your spouse, your church, your political party or your pensions advisor says you should feel.

It’s about using your intelligence and your emotions to think and form opinions for yourself. To decide what you really want, not on some nonsensical, abstract, Oprah level about “life’s goals” and other such pseudo-spiritual  rubbish.

But about what you want on a daily basis with regard to work, food, sex, money, clothing, sports, hobbies and so on. And about not being afraid to freely express your innermost thoughts, opinions,desires, hates and so on.

For example, free thinking and free expression is me being able to openly say that, before I die and while I’m still relatively young I would really love to have homosexual sex,  just to know what it feels like, just to then be able to say “I’ve done that” Just to be able to know.    

Free thinking and free expression is also being able to say that, no, I don’t buy into that oft repeated platitude ”all races are equal”. And I don’t think all peoples are equally as developed and intelligent as each other. And I don’t think everyone thinks the same the world over and I know that not everyone shares the same ethics, standards and morals.  And I know that not every naitonality values life equally.  A simple look at the conflicts currently ongoing around the world will tell any sane person all of the above. But saying all that doesn’t make me a racist or even the same as the racist, who simply falls back on “I’m a free thinker” without any explanation. I’m simply an acute observer of people’s behaviour the world over, behaviour and values that differ so greatly from my own! 

So don’t tell me I’m the same as a Saudi Arabian executioner cutting off a person’s head in public, because  I could never contemplate killing someone, I’ve never even felt like I really want to.

Being a free thinker does mean of course that you will have to defend your views more often than not. But if that frigthens you off, if you let society, colleagues, family tell you that your thoughts, views, emotions are wrong then you are not a free thinker.