Live? Laugh? Love?

It’s been a while, but I’ve had some more thoughts that might be worth writing down. There are of course greater things going on in the world that I could be discussing right now, but I lack the words or the perspective to do them justice. My current thoughts are in relation to the old topic of free speech, which I’ve discussed multiple times before, but more specifically about laughter, humour, offense and happiness.

The first thing to say, of course, is that humour is incredibly subjective; more so perhaps than any other area of expression. What one person finds funny, another finds utterly boring, or perhaps even offensive. Just within one individual, what they might find amusing in one mood is distinctly unfunny in another.

That caveat aside, I think there are some things worth saying. This is all brought about by the news stories in the last couple of weeks about former actor and failed politician Laurence Fox. While being interviewed on GB News, he made some extremely misogynistic remarks about a female journalist, and was roundly criticised from all sides.

He has, perhaps predictably, dug his feet in, complaining about his treatment and the imfringement of his free speech, and blamed the too-easily-offended and the world at large. One of the things he said though, struck me as revealing.

"I realise that the new woke world is low and laughter and high on offence..."

What this tells me is that Mr. Fox has failed to understand something; he has failed to understand that it is possible to laugh without laughing at someone. It is possible to tell a joke that doesn't have someone else as the butt of it. It is in fact possible to be happy without knowing that someone else is miserable, and possible to experience joy without making someone else sad.

Mr. Fox's words brought to mind a couple of lines from a poem I read years ago (and which a bit of Googling has informed me was written by Brian Jacques of ‘Redwall’ fame):

Bullies never smile, they sneer.

Bullies never laugh. They jeer.

In the case of Fox and the many people like him, they seem very apt. However, if anyone ever dares tell them that they are bullies they (someone ironically) become very offended and bewail modern peoples' lack of good humour.

There is this persistent idea that there is something humourless, po-faced and deeply un-fun about modern discourse. Individuals like Fox and certain tabloid newspapers complain of ‘politically correct kill-joys’ or ‘woke snowflakes’, the ‘professionally offended’ who can’t bear to hear anyone say anything mean about anyone without clutching their pearls and 'cancelling' people left and right (but mostly right).

I have said before that I believe nobody has the right not to be offended, but that everybody has the responsibility not to offend, or at least not without very good cause. Offense can be an important tool for shocking us out of our apathy, but that’s very different to being the butt of a mocking joke. Laughter is a blessing, but there is such a thing as cruel laughter, and cruelty is always to be opposed.

Sometimes one hears people complain that ‘you can’t joke about anything anymore’. This is patently untrue, but the idea that people are more humourless or more easily offended is, I think, incorrect.

Something has indeed changed, but it’s not that people are less inclined to laughter and more inclined to offense. People have always been offended, they’ve always been hurt, they’ve always felt insulted and belittled. What has changed is that they now have the confidence to say so. We have this idea that people ought to be kind to each other, and when they’re not, we express our disapproval through our words and our wallets.

It is, of course, possible to laugh at someone in a way that isn’t mean-spirited. One can (and should) laugh at oneself, and you can invite others to laugh with you. But that’s rather the point. You can join in the laughter when someone laughs at themselves, and do it in a way that is good-natured and kind. We can find humour in each other’s flaws and foibles without mocking or belittling them or the person themselves.

Humour is subjective, but if you can’t laugh without laughing at someone else, if your happiness is predicated on making others miserable to make yourself feel good, then you’re a poor excuse for a human being. I can only hope that one day the jeering is entirely drowned out by the warm laughter of those who take delight and joy in each other’s differences, not use them as an excuse for cruelty and mockery. The quality of the laughter will be better, and because we are all laughing together, there will be so much more of it to enjoy.

Rights, Responsiblities and Privileges

I’ve made asides to my views on the concept of rights before, and occasionally promised that I would one day expand on them.  That day has finally arrived.

Very simply put, I do not believe in rights.  I do not believe in human rights, fundamental rights, playwrights (no, wait…) or inalienable rights (even for aliens).  People very glibly talk about ‘human rights’ and what they are, especially their own and especially when they think that they ought to have something that they’re not getting.

We have written charters of human rights, right to a home, right to family, right to freedom of expression and freedom of religious and freedom of assembly, to clean water and food, clothing, education etc. etc. etc. and so on and so forth; a bill of interminable rights.  And to have these charters and bills is extremely praiseworthy, a laudable attempt to make sure that everyone has a good standard of life.  If you accept the concept as a given, then it all makes perfect sense.

However, I do not accept the base premise.  Why do we have any rights at all?  Where do they come from?  What are ‘rights’?  The dictionary tells us that a right is “A moral or legal entitlement to have or do something.”  The definition given by Wikipedia is better; “Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people, according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory.”

Perhaps I should restate my position slightly.  I do not object to the concept of rights per se, but to the conception of rights as it seems to be in the minds of many people.  People seem to think that rights are fundamental, built into the laws of physics, objective, self-evident and absolute.  I think that they are far more important than that.

I’ve seen a placard in a picture of a protest bearing the slogan ‘Education is a right, not a privilege’.  I disagree.  Education is a privilege, and being so, is much more important than a right.  Freedom is a privilege, family is a privilege, even food and water and life are privileges, and not everyone has them.  Now, please don’t think for a moment that I’m suggesting that some people ought not to have them; quite the opposite.  However, I think that if you assume that these things are inalienable rights that people ought to have ‘just because’, it’s far too easy to undervalue them.

Living in the UK, I am fortunate to live in a society that permits me these privileges.  I could very easily have been born in a place or a time period in which I do not have access to all or any of these privileges, and I am extremely grateful for the fact that I have been.  I’m not suggesting that we should live in a state of grovelling gratitude to our governments for supplying and enforcing these privileges, rather we should very carefully watch them to ensure that they continue to do so. 

But why should I care whether others have these privileges, as long as I do?  Well, ultimately it’s a case of ‘Do as you would be done by’.  I consider them to be a Good Thing, and it is right that all people should share these privileges; I continue to contend that this is not the same as them being ‘rights’.  Indeed, because it is right that people should have them, they stop being privileges, and become more important still; they become responsibilities.  I do not have the right to be free; I have the responsibility to use my freedom well, and to ensure the freedom of others.  I do not have the right to free speech; I have the responsibility to use my speech for good, and for ensuring that others can do so as well.  I do not have the right to life or happiness; I am responsible for my own, and for the life and happiness of everyone else, and they are responsible for mine.

The Conservative party has stated that they wish to scrap the EU Declaration of Human Rights.  I can't say that this strikes me as a wholly good idea, but if they do, I think that they could do worse than to replace it with a Declaration of Human Responsibilities.  If we held people accountable when they failed in their responsibilities, rather than simply allowing people to appeal when they feel they have not been accorded their rights, I think the world would be a much better place.

We seem to think very highly of our rights.  It would be a much better world if instead we thought as highly about our responsibilities, and were as grateful for our privileges.  It seems to me that we would be less eager to give them up, and less likely to abuse them or take them for granted.

But of course, you have every right to disagree, if you want to.