Pouring My Art Out

Freedom of speech. It seems like such a simple and obvious thing, at least in some countries. But it isn’t simple at all. Yes, you have the freedom to say anything, within a few well-established guidelines. You can’t yell “FIRE” in a crowded theatre. You can be sued for libel or slander if what you say about a particular person is an outright lie. When you really get to the heart of it, the right to say anything, which we hold so dear, is based on a social contract. We have all, more or less, agreed to conform to at least a certain, minimal level of socially acceptable language, falling under the generic category of political correctness.

You have the right to use racial slurs, but you will be labeled a racist and a bigot. You certainly are allowed to say stupid and inane things, but don’t blame the rest of us if we start calling you an ignoramus. What it boils down to is that you are judged by your words. Freedom of speech is basically us giving each other enough rope… or tongue… with which to hang ourselves, should we so choose.

On my blog, I insult people all the time. I tell myself that I am doing it for good reasons, because I mostly insult people whom I find obnoxious, people who disagree with me about fundamental issues. I insult terrorists and racists and people who want Americans to be able to collect a basement full of automatic weapons. I insult politicians and climate change deniers. I insult the haters and the ignorant. And I comfort myself with the fact that my freedom to type these words is protected under the laws of this country. But in the end, while I might have the right to say these things, I am also well aware that there are risks to expressing such ideas. Because one of those gun-totting racist bigots could come to my house and use one of his stockpile of automatic weapons to shoot me. I admit that I might be overinflating my importance in the vast scale of things. Maybe I haven’t actually insulted terrorists and religious extremists to the point where they have declared jihad on me, but then again, when the cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo were using humor to poke fun at fundamentalists, did it really occur to them that they were putting their lives in danger? Salman Rushdie knew he was putting his life on the line when he wrote The Satanic Verses. I am not in any way comparing what I do with any of that. I am just pointing out that freedom of speech is a complex issue. Just because you can say something, it doesn’t necessarily follow that you should say it.

As the author of a humor blog and some books that I like to think contain some humor, I understand the inherent need of anyone trying to express what is funny about the world in words, to push the envelope. Comedians and humorists are constantly trying to find the edge of the abyss and walk along it. Because humor is the weapon that some of us choose with which to battle all that is wrong with the world. Humor always serves some other purpose. It means nothing if it doesn’t strive to force people to think about things, to look into the dim corners and hidden recesses of the human condition and pull the stuff piled there out into the light to be examined. And often, the things that hide in the darkness do not want to have the light shone upon them.