“The world has become so serious that humour is a risky profession.”
'In ancient Greece the term parrhesia was used to describe a practice which stipulated that a citizen should not only exercise free speech but should also speak the truth even at personal risk... in the
manner, for example, of Socrates who famously paid with his life for being outspoken.' The Development of Free Speech by John Roberts PHD
Free speech has been a hard won fight in many countries and it was introduced as a vehicle of truth. The satire regularly expressed in Charlie Hebdo bitingly illustrates this right and tragically also highlights the fear and hatred also associated with free speech. The massacre of those 10 journalists and two police officers solidifies my belief that the human race is not as 'evolved' as we like to believe. The primitive fear which breeds the need to control and silence is far too pervasive in most of society, no matter how 'civilised' we pretend to be. When humour is seen as a threat to be snuffed out we truly are living in a world that is too broken and too scared of its own shadow.
It is so, so sad that people who were intellectually challenging the hypocrisies of governments, religions and royalties had to be targeted so brutally.
We must always cherish our right to free speech because we haven't actually had the right for very long, even though it is an ancient idea. To cherish it though means we have to understand it and not abuse it. Free speech was fought with blood to enable truth to be spoken; free speech empowered the vulnerable; free speech challenged the powerful and corrupt. Free speech is not a vehicle of hate and ignorance but should be a carrier of thoughtful truths and ideas.
Let us not, in the smoke of sadness and disgust, believe free speech can now be a means to spout racist, xenophobic, ignorant and hateful vitriol. Free speech is not a right to spit lies and disdain but rather a right to express enlightened concepts. Saying or writing lies and ignorance because that's my right isn't what many people died for.
Let's honour those at Charlie Hebdo by condemning those foul 'humans' who murdered them because surely the gunman are actually the caricatures the journalists regularly drew in their cartoons. It is utterly devastating the caricatures came to life.
Peace. x
Humor is not a mood but a way of looking at the world. So if it is correct to say that humor was stamped out in Nazi Germany, that does not mean that people were not in good spirits, or anything of that sort, but something much deeper and more important. (Wittgenstein)
ReplyDeleteInteresting. I think that's why satire can be so powerful because it connects at a much deeper level of the human psyche than simply to achieve a snigger.
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