A Mess of Thoughts on Jokes and Freedom and Context
Robin Ince's Blog“You can’t say anything anymore,” say the people who seem to be saying everything.
The free speech squabbles have become dominated by people who celebrate bullying and spite or just people who don’t seem to realise that some people don’t need to wait for your joke at their expense to feel the sting of derision and dismissal, they may also be getting it from the moment they leave the front door. It’s much easier to say, “a joke’s a joke” if you don’t live a life being dismissed as a joke or unwanted outsider or freak.
There are also people who seem addicted to being affronted. The problem with being in a constantly updated present of opinion delivered to your screen is that you can fail to check context or pause to reflect or research. It is making it harder to have a conversation, they get shut down at the first hint of deviating from the prescribed ethics of righteousness. We are also very good at laughing along and defending the right to joke until it crosses our specific line, then our subjective judgement becomes an objective certainty of what is good and proper and what is sick and profane.
When I first saw the abbreviated news story of Mark Meechan and his “sieg heil” pug, he sounded like a toy Nazi idiot.
Then, I watched it all and I saw that it was meant to be silliness that teeters into grotesquerie by crossing over into taboo, like an excessive outtake from Mel Brooks’ The Producers. Then, with legal action, the murk was stirred and everything became muddier and Meechan became a vessel for those with an agenda to sail.
The problem became context.
You are removing the context of a wind up directed at your girlfriend at the moment of making it public.
You are removing your friends’ knowledge that you are a decent liberal guy. You are now someone sat opposite a dog saying “gas the Jews” for a laugh. To this new audience, you may no longer be the man you know you are.
You are in an arena filled with anti-semitic abuse and heavy with holocaust denial.
I do not believe this was intended as hate speech and I do not believe he deserves to be imprisoned. I also don’t think this whole thing should have dragged on for so long. [Though since I first wrote that, the more I have seen, the more I think Meechan was knowingly creating something to wind people and seeing the people he has allied himself with, I worry I have fallen too far on the side of believing in “an innocent who went too far in error”]
The problem with words and the meaning is that they are in the ear of the beholder. It seems to be taking people longer than I imagined to get used to the internet as place to spread jokes and ideas, to think about the incendiary nature of language whatever your intentions. Talking to a psychotherapist of the issue of people who are social anxious , she told me, “people forget that we judge everyone else on their exterior and we judge ourselves on our interior.” This seems to play a part in what is being discussed, your internal intention may not be what is comprehended when it is shifted into the exterior world. And many in the outside world will make different interpretations from their own biases and background. This is a lesson to think carefully about how and where we are using language and the possibility that, out of the circle of those who know you, things can be very different. Our context and the way we are interpreted can change in each situation. When something as intricate and diverse as complex language evolves, then there will be ramifications. What this case may well demonstrate is that our legal system is not yet fully prepared for the all-immersive, culture defining world of the internet which for many is now more real than reality. That a joke about a pug’s mindless obedience has become a rallying cry for the “free speech warriors” seems utterly ridiculous.
Some of the far right seem to have picked up this case which makes the matter even murkier. Some of these free speech warriors are the same ones who seem quite happy to encourage rape and death threats to women who voice opinions they have decided they don’t like, but hey, it’s all free speech, isn’t it? Sometimes I am not sure if we are evolved enough to deal with the amount of meaning delivered to us out of its original context, it makes us very cross and confused, tribal and dogmatic.
I was going to go on about those who offend with delight and, I think, frequently without empathy, but I will save that for another time. My starting point may well be that the dismissal of anyone who is offended as “that old easily offended brigade, fuck them” means no one learns anything and it may well be that some have a story to tell which may make us think a stance or two, but I would say that, bloody bleeding heart liberal…
Free speech used to seem to be something promoted in the hope of advancing civilised existence, now it seems to be promoted by some in the hope of dragging us away from it.
Please feel free to leave your comments under this. I have not followed the case intensively so you may want to pick me up or lead me into some other area.
I am on tour across the UK – Wolverhampton, Exeter, Lyme Regis, Birmingham and Soho Theatre and lots lots more. Dates here
Robin Ince is a multi-award winning comedian, writer and broadcaster. As well as spending decades as one the UK’s most respected stand-ups, Robin is perhaps best known for co-hosting The Infinite Monkey Cage radio show with Brian Cox. For his work on projects like Cosmic Shambles he was made an Honorary Doctor of Science by Royal Holloway, University of London.
As someone who delights in comedy that is on the edge of taste, Jerry Sadowiz, and my tweets have been “close to the edge” whatever that edge might be. Probably my own. I still think that the holocaust is a subject that should have a special place, an untouched sanctity so we don’t diminish it’s effect as the generations go by. And also as a matter of judgement it is too strong a magnet for the worst kind of people and I’d be very aware and very wary about making jokes about that.
If only he’d not used the phrase “Gas the Jews” he’d probably not have got into this kind of trouble. It seems, however, he was quite keen on Proscribing Antifa and other Left Wing groups, thus depriving their “Free Speech”. Context is everything.
I think perhaps the context here is that these were racist jokes made by a man who describes himself as being a nationalist. It’s harder to belive that these are just jokes when he is either an actual neo-nazi or at least identifies with the beliefs of racists.
This no longer seems to me like a case of “free speech” but more a case of “consequences for hate speech”.
“Nationalist” means something different in Scotland. Scottish Nationalists aren’t Nazis, they are (in general) people who believe that Scotland should be an independent country.
Not defending this guy. But, as Robin said, context is key.
I understand what “nationalist” means in Scotland as I am Scottish. However this chap labels himself as being anti-SNP which to me says that their brand of nationalism isn’t strong enough for him amd he is, most likely, subscribing to the normally accepted meaning of the word. Which xeniphobia and racism.
Also he’s been hanging about with mad EDL guys since his conviction so the view that he’s not a racist is a bit hard to defend.
Not suggesting that he isn’t a racist 😀
Just suggesting that him being a Scottish Nationalist does not equate with him being a racist. As I said, not defending him, or what he did in the slightest.
Also for context – I consider myself a Scottish Nationalist, and am not SNP. There are a fair few of us! Obv we’d rather not count him in there, but still heh
Ok, I was being a bit heavy handed with my views on nationalists, they’re not all racists. I apologise for that.
To get back to the original point though, I agree with Robin that context is important in cases like this however I disagree that the context is that this was just a joke. If you spend even a small amount of time going back through Dankula’s Twitter presence you can see that his beliefs align with those of racists. That’s who he identifies with and retweets and likes. He’s a racist and therefore any racist jokes he makes are mired in his beliefs and aren’t “just jokes”.
I’m not sure he’s that much of a liberal to be honest. He was, after all, saying an obscenely offensive phrase over and over, which liberal thinkers tend not to do. The Seig Heil would have been sufficient for the joke. He also got Tommy ‘the well known fascist leader’ Robinson to support him.
I don’t accept his assertion that it was a private joke. He had a youtube channel he was promoting, instead of just showing her and must have realised it would attract attention from fascists and other anti-semitic types.
Imagine if he’d taken this dog out on the street busking this act in public. The fact it was a quiet street (at first) is no defence. If he had been showing the dog’s act to his girlfriend and, unbeknown to him, someone had filmed it and made it public, then fair enough.
No one should not be judged by the political motives of others who promote something that you have said, to justify their own agendas. Similarly, the “Guilt by association” narrative – being used by other political commentators of the opposite persuasion to deny the right to freely make a personal statement (albeit in a less than subtle way) is making the exact point that suppression of those who do not share your own ‘morality’ is the way ‘fascism’ actually entrenches itself in a society. Ratty is inclined to point to the excellent podcast by Ricky Gervais and David Baddiel discussing the “Nazi Saluting Pug” (many examples on google/youtube etc) – Cheers, Ratty (ps will be see you in Lyme Regis ! )
An interesting comparison in Scotland is the Offensive behaviour at Football law which was overturned last week – it sought to criminalise “offensive” behaviour in the context of football matches. This proved next to impossible because of the inherent subjectivity of the concept of offence. The Nazi Pug prosecution took place under the Communications Act ( A UK wide law) which criminalises “grossly” offensive behaviour – not sure adding an adjective helps with definition. Remember racist, homophobic, anti-semitic language can be prosecuted under much stronger legislation. I wrote a thing about the Football law and problems of “offensive-ness” as a crime earlier in week. https://theconversation.com/why-scotlands-football-bigotry-law-was-shown-the-red-card-93528
PS Great show in Glasgow!