Ranjona Banerji | 2 Ways To Kill Free Speech: ‘Kindness’ & Brute Force

How does one choose what to write? Like now. Here.

I have just deleted paragraphs on environmental damage, on democratically elected evil despots, on genocide and denial. I do not want to be drawn into an endless spiral on how being liberal means to allow every clueless witless bigot their chance to raise hell, and then attacking people and backpedalling on that supposed-inalienable right when someone else questions hatred or endorses simple ethical, conscientious thinking. Or even makes fun of you.

This seems connected to the current trend to be kind to everyone who says something you like and yet to label and cut down everyone who disagrees with you.

Both kindness and free speech in the liberal world mean that the right to decide what someone else can say is only for those who give themselves that right.

But conversely, I pondered over the other trend to say whatever hurtful things you want about other people because you have free speech but get full of rage and violence if anything hurtful is said to you because free speech is not for everyone.

Which means both sides of the spectrum believe that they and only they are right. Both will use democracy to claim that right. One will destroy democracy with open brute force. So will the other, but under the garb of kindness.

I am tired of the defence that genocide is forgivable today because once you were a tribe that was treated badly, killed, punished and tortured for no fault of your own. I cannot find the logic that states that because you were badly treated, you have the right to treat others badly as well. Of course, not all others but only others that come in your way.

I thought about writing on Artificial Intelligence, about which I know nothing and have not been tempted to delve into. I recoil with horror when people ask if I use AI to do my writing for me. It seems abominable. And yet, who am I to judge? Others may find themselves and their talent blossoming when a computer programme takes over their thinking and does it for them. I don’t even know if “computer programme” is the right term to use for however AI works. Apart from being insulted by random people, everything I know about AI comes from science fiction. A lifetime terrorised by the idea of HAL. Now figure that out for yourself or watch a movie or even, gasp, read a book. I can give you two hints — Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C Clarke. I would also throw Isaac Asimov into the mix, because that’s where you get the rules for robots. Or maybe Will Smith. You should be able to tell from this that I am both old and also very old.

I thought about sciency-wiency stuff in the Universe, in which I am interested but have no domain knowledge and definitely no education beyond school-level stuff. Since Mathematics decided to break bonds with me at about age 14, even my school science is just up to whatever they taught you in Class X in the last century. I think half the stuff we know today was not even discovered when I was in school. But then I realised I am in a tiny minority when it comes to this subject and it will seem like I’m showing off (not that I’m really averse to showing off) but what is worse is that I’m showing off about something I don’t know that much about. I know. Right now, my serpent’s head is biting my serpent’s tail, clarity-wise.

I have long been fascinated by mythology. But I have lost the courage to discuss those marvellous tales of morality and human weirdness, because wherever you look there are rabid religionists waiting to chop your head off. And not only with their mythical weaponry. When I was younger, I did have the courage, but I do believe that I was quite stupid then. Like most people, I had a lot of that youthful arrogance.

I also thought about my current bugbear or amazement or wonderment or acceptance of growing older and being old. I always have lots to say about that and I’ve said it any number of times too. The Internet is full of discussions on all these generations negotiating with each other. And since we’re all on the Internet, you can’t be marooned on some remote old age island any more. Unless of course you are in that demonic WhatsApp Forward universe, in which case you should ideally be lost forever. But whenever I want to laugh at young ’uns, I feel a little bad and sad. Helicopter parenting, mobile phone surveillance, constant monitoring… we never had to deal with that. With freedom came, well, freedom. You just have to listen to our music to know the difference.

I don’t want to write about books I’ve read — I haven’t read THAT book yet — or movies I’ve seen. There are so many people who do the movie thing better. Especially the very brave people who review Bollywood for a living. That takes inordinate patience and gumption of a variety I do not possess. It’s important to know your limitations.

Please note that I haven’t even mentioned politics. Because, for one that would put me straight back on the beaten track. For another, it’s a track I often take. I haven’t mentioned anything joyful or delightful because I’m not really in the mood. Nothing around me seems very joyful though I hope that in enough people’s lives there’s a bit of joy and delight to keep them going.

In the same way, I’ve avoided delving into misery if only for the opposite reason that I haven’t ventured into joy: There’s too much misery around for me to add to it.

So now that I’ve gone through this list of whatever I can’t write about, perhaps you could help me with what I should?