If we don’t use freedom of expression, do we have it?

If we don’t use freedom of expression, do we have it?

Ron Bassilian

Isn’t that just typical ? I get this columnist job right after a
quarter of reading probably too much Nietzsche and a psychotic
roommmate that was sent to a mental institution against his
will.

What I’m trying to say is that if you’re looking for some
platitudes about how I found the beauty of it all or the joy of
camaraderie at some party or even just some funny quips, you’re not
going to get them from me.

I mean, look at our lives! You want to find harmony here? You
want to find justice or meaning? The reason these things are so
hard to find is because maybe they just don’t exist! I’m not just
talking about "life sucks and then you die. Snicker snicker." No,
no snicker snicker. This is no joke, this is my only life and I
want to deal with it.

I think a lot of you know what I’m talking about. Like when you
look at art that just makes you want to scream in ecstasy or horror
and you look around you and can’t share it with anyone. Or when you
read an amazing book about passionate people and then look around
and the most passionate conversation can get into is about your
lost shoe.

We all search for answers and then we look around and see
nothing but the fickleness, the emptiness, the meaninglessness
humdrum of a daily existence. Our existence. Our lives look as if
Dracula has sucked the town dry and now we’re his undead minions.
Our surroundings look like war zones where all we can do is carve
ourselves the most glorified prison cell possible and damn it, we
should like it.

I mean, wait a second! Isn’t anybody pissed off? Why isn’t
anyone screaming "raw deal!"? You’d think we’d be a little angry
about the fact that whether we like it or not, ultimately we’re
going to have to conform to some dull 40-hour work week and make
money if we’re to ever escape being alone, if we’re ever to have
some sense of security. And we’re the privileged ones!

You’d think people would be just a little pissed about the fact
there’s becoming almost no difference between George Orwell’s
"1984" and what we’re looking at today ­ the omnipresent
police and security guards, the literature telling you everywhere
that it’s some illness if you can’t be happy and how big brother is
really trying to keep us children together.

It seems so many people I know agree with me on these things. So
why isn’t anyone speaking out and saying anything about how messed
up the real world is, how messed up we are? Why is it the only
things I’m finding everywhere I go are either casual jokes or
pointless issues? For once, just for once, I’d like to see someone
say "Damn it, today we’re going to focus on the negative, because
it’s there and I’m through joking about it."

I think the answer lies in a quite interesting quip I read by
Mark Twain: "It is by the goodness of God that in our country we
have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech,
freedom of conscience and the prudence never to practice either of
them."

That’s an interesting thing to think about. What a great method
of social control. You have the freedom to speak your mind, but
nothing is on your mind, right? Well, here are some things to talk
about …

Look, let’s all admit it. Speaking out is about the scariest
thing around. Professors have an impossible time getting through to
us to speak out when there is anything we don’t understand.
Meyerhoff Park is barely ever used even though people know that
even Christian fundamentalists can draw a big crowd.

We’d like to think we’re more brave than that, but we’re not.
However, it’s not like our fear is unwarranted. For example, if we
say out loud that maybe we want more, there’s always someone who
labels us a by-product of Generation X marketing. How convenient,
especially since every single generation, when they’re in their
20s, is hating life. I’d like to think we’re at that age where we
can take a fresh look at life without being ground up in the
machinery.

When you say that hate and bitterness have become an integral
part of our lives, we get such harsh self-righteous lashes from
people that they only prove your point. Indeed, far from being each
other’s keepers, we’ve become each other’s jailers.

God forbid what happens when you say maybe society is the
problem, that maybe we live under a tyranny of property that we
have a right to destroy. Then you have every single God-fearing
patriot and intellectual after you.

This evil eye we have on ourselves is so complete it’s reduced
us into perfectly herdable creatures, quashing meaningful art and
making us all the butt of every modern philosopher’s contempt. And
while it makes us pliable objects, it has also scared our humanity
into nothing.

I mean, look at us. Reduced to trivial conversations, petty
topics, a passionless existence. Your style of clothing, your
music, your ideology, your interests, I bet, are all pre-approved
by the various ministries of culture if not simply force-fed to you
… that is, unless you’re a freak or something. It’s no wonder why
so many people withdraw and call everyone else generic.

But that’s the point of freedom of expression and freedom of
conscience. The point is having the freedom to speak your mind
without holding back, without thinking twice; having the freedom of
rage without the fear of being called the freak or the fringe, of
using your imagination and communicating it to others and not
worrying about being the heretic or outcast. And a public with an
evil eye can be just as tyrannical, nay even more so, than an armed
police and censor bureaucracy.

I’ll be here every other week, doing the usual kicking and
screaming, pointing out the myriad others who scream into the abyss
and try to get others to speak. If you don’t want to understand
what any of us have to say, well then, expect absolutely no pity
from me when you hit a mid-life crisis.

Bassilian is a junior mathematics student. His column will
appear on alternate Fridays.