Whose blame is it anyway? Why internet censorship is not the answer
November 28th, 2011 § 16 Comments
What is wrong with internet censorship? Not an article on the rights and wrongs of suicide, and not a platform for debate on whether or not a person has the right to take his or her own life; instead, it is one that seeks to understand how and why we have come to arrive at a culture more focused on seeking to blame following tragedy, than preventing it.
An Essex mother has called for suicide help websites to be banned, after her 22-year old son was found to have taken his life. Stephen was said to have been found dead in the home that he shared with his father, after he allegedly consulted a suicide help site for ‘an unusual method of suicide’, by using a helium canister. I was first alerted to this story whilst watching Channel 5′s news program as I waited to have my hair done at the hairdressers. Following a factual report of her son’s tragic passing, Stephen’s mother expressed her belief that her son would still be here, had he not had access to instructions on how to commit suicide on the internet. I have issues with this line of reasoning. Firstly, people have been seeking to end, and more importantly, ending their lives, long before the invention of the internet, and often without ‘instruction’. Yes, it might help to know how others have gone about doing so successfully, with as little room for error and/or pain as possible, but it is generally something that can be achieved without instruction. What is also interesting is that the method Stephen used was an unusual one. The report remarks on the ‘unusual method’ Stephen used, as if to claim that idea of suicide itself was planted in his head by the website, and that without its influence, he would not have been able to achieve what he did. Might it just be that Stephen didn’t want his death to look like a suicide, was already certain of what he wished to end his life, with or without help, and that his research was purely for the sake of finding a way to eliminate all elements of suspicion surrounding it? It isn’t uncommon for people contemplating suicide to want to cover up how it is they died, especially when they’ve also been trying to conceal any signs of depression in the lead up to ending their lives. Understandably, Stephens parents were shocked by the whole ordeal and that say his suicide was unusual because he ‘seemed happy’. Let us not forget that it is not uncommon for depressed/suicidal people to try and cover up how they’re feeling. His ‘laughter and lighting up the room’, as described by his father, could have been an overt mask, one that helped to cover up how he truly felt.
We find it very difficult to talk about and confront mental illness – depression in particular. People diagnosed with depression are stigmatised for pretty much the rest of their lives, and receiving help is, in my opinion, more difficult than it could be. Support from family and friends is virtually non-existent for many, and the arrival of the internet, has brought with it a platform for vulnerable members of society to find and support each other. There are forums for drug users, forums for people who participate in obscure sexual activities, forums for people who want to discuss and further their eating disorders – it is now easier than ever to connect with the people who used to be leagues away, and no longer do people have to feel as if they are battling problems alone and living amongst people who cannot relate to them. This, I believe, is why suicide websites, websites that support people with eating disorders, carry so much appeal. They’re ‘answers’ to the societal problems we are too afraid to discuss, and explore, in an effort to come up with supportive, if not preventative measures for.
‘But isn’t Stephen’s mum’s call for a ban on suicide websites a preventative method?’ You may say. Not directly, no. What I believe is wrong with censorship, is that in many, if not most cases, it’s akin cutting off the limbs of a tree with diseased roots, hoping that the tree will be cured of all afflictions. This, coupled with the fact that the majority of cries for censorship, seem to be for materials on issues we, as a society, find hard to swallow, or admit are major problems in the first place. Take, for example, the calls in Turkey to censor pornographic websites - it is no secret that western society struggles to find a place, in itself, for finding comfort in discussing and embracing human sexuality. Or take the calls to censor sites related to Nazism and holocaust denial in France, again, topics seemingly still worthy of debate, but forever tiptoed around, for fear of offending the people directly and indirectly affected by them.
There are, then, of course automatic and unquestionable censors put in place, and these include censors on things like child-pornography, which, interestingly, is something that there is a majority agreement on the need for. It’s interesting because it’s one of those ‘yes-it should-be-censored-without-a-doubt’ areas, simply because it’s horrific. I don’t for a second doubt that it is, but wasn’t murder and brutal violence once abhorred in exactly the same way? One now only has to pop in a DVD with a little red circle in the right hand corner of the box to be in for a ‘thrilling’, and often said to be ‘exhilarating’, gruesome viewing experience. Surely this shift in what does and doesn’t qualify as viewing pleasure will happen with issues currently in the greyer areas of our moral spectrum?
Similar to suicide help websites, there are websites that help to support people with eating disorders. These are places where people with eating disorders can come and discuss successful methods of starvation, ways to combat the side-effects (for lack of a better word) of starvation, and how successful their weigh-ins have been for them, week by week, or month by month. Calls for a ban of these websites have been pushed with the same zeal as this Stephen’s mother’s call for a ban on suicide sites, and I cannot help but feel that it’s yet another example of society looking for someone to blame when it should be focusing on ways to support vulnerable people, or even encourage or positively subdue curiosity in the case of the young. Eating disorders, depression, suicidal thoughts – they’re never going to go away, particularly not if we keep shying from tackling them head on, instead of alienating the people who carry them. Treating them as and labelling them pathetic victims, and then fleeing for fear of becoming contaminated by them.
Finally, how long will it be before we stop looking for ‘agents’ to blame? In 2009, Daniel Petric was found guilty of shooting his parents because they wouldn’t let him play Halo 3, a first-person video game in which the player must shoot and kill enemies. The story was met with claims that such games are too graphic and violent, and influence children and young people to become so. It’s much more likely that there had been a relationship breakdown between Daniel and his parents, and that he was battling issues few could provide him with the support for. Is this, then an illustration of a shift in parental authority to state authority? Is it a sign that because we yield to and seek State authority where it should not be filling in for self-sufficiency, subsequently, parents seek to hand, or shall I say, cast their parental responsibility over to the State? Where things do go horribly wrong, rather than question parenting and support methods, instead censorship is enforced, and laws on entertainment are questioned. People call for a ban on things that very many people can enjoy without suffering ill-effects on their characters.
Ultimately, the sooner we stop looking for outlets to pin the blame on, and the sooner we realise that malicious people, the creators of these sites, are always going to exploit the vulnerable positions of those we are too fearful to help ourselves, we can perhaps work towards not being afraid to ask the questions we so clearly need answers to, in order arrive at conclusions that deal with the root of our problems. It is tragic that lives have been and will continue to be lost as we try to fight these problems head on, but at some point, we need to start digging for roots, rather than lopping off branches.
Choice: What of it?
November 9th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
How does anyone ever find out what would have happened had they not done what they did, thus causing what happened to happen? How does anyone ever find out what would have happened otherwise? Obviously, there are choices we have to make, and these choices are comprised of multiple actions, logically with multiple consequences. Or you could choose to do nothing, also with a consquence. Should, then, choosing to do nothing, be grouped with all of the other choices, as it IS a choice in itself, or should it be grouped, as it so has been, as a choice in itself, with an outcome of its own, as opposed to choosing to do something.
There is a bucket of water in front of me. To right of me, a small table is consumed in flames, and to the left of me a small chair is consumed in flames. The floor is made of stone, and nothing else in in the room. There is only enough water to extinguish either the table, or the chair – you needn’t know exactly how much, it is not important, it is only important that you know that there is ‘not enough’. I’d like to calculate how many choices I have, based on what they are. At first it seems that I have two choices: I can choose to do something, and I can choose to do nothing. Subseuqently, choosing to do something will provide a different outcome from choosing to do nothing. Or will it? Say, I choose to do something. I’ve chosen to pick up the bucket and douse the table with the water it contains, leaving the chair to perish. There then are outcomes that are either dependent on my action, or are dependent on the properties of the table. The latter are in no way influenced on my action and thus not of any concern to my enquiry. Let us then say that the outcome of my action (choosing to use the bucket of water on the table), is that the table’s fire is extinguished. The secondary outcome of this, then, the thing that happens as a result of my chosen action, but may or may not have been intended, nor necessary causally linked to my choice, is that the chair continues to burn. We can imagine the same situation happening, should we switch choosing to extinguish the chair, over choosing to extinguish the table.
Let us now look at what happens if I action my second choice: doing nothing, or, not acting. Leaving the bucket of water where it is, and remaining where I am, I wait. Within a few hours, both the table and the chair have burnt to the ground, and nothing in their place is suggestive of what existed before the fire. The outcome of this non-action is similar to the outcome of my previous action in that that fire has been extinguished. Also, we have a secondary-outcome, being the non-existence of the table and of the chair (we could also argue that a tertiary outcome would be the mess left behind). Would I have been certain of this outcome, had I chosen to act, instead of doing nothing? It’s fair to say that I could have (rightly) assumed that eventually, the fire would have ceased, and in knowing this, I have drawn on my knowledge, arguably born from experiences, on what happens to fires that have no way of spreading.
Now that we have explored my two main choices, let us quickly examine my sub-choices, they are – those choices I face once I have decided whether or not to act in the first place. Once deciding to act, let us take for example, my choosing to pick the bucket of water up, and pouring its contents over myself. Have I chosen to do something, or chosen to do nothing? If I have chosen to act, but not in accordance with, or in relation to my situation, am I doing something, or am I don’t nothing? Supposing you’re staring at your screen, wondering, first, why on earth someone would choose to do something so absurd at all, consider this. Consider that, instead of my weirdly choosing to pour the bucket of water on myself, because I know that the table and chair are my Aunt’s (whom I happen to resent), I take the bucket of water, and empty its contents out of a nearby window, ensuring that not only will I never be to extinguish the flames, but neither will anybody else, assuming that anybody else is alerted to the fire and may want to ‘help’. This would essentially give us the same outcome as my choosing to pour the bucket of water on myself – and depending on who you are, may make a little more sense. One could, however, argue, that my decision to pour the water out of the window was motivated by my resentment, whereas my decision to pour water on myself would have been a random one (using ‘random’ in the most everyday, non-technical way), and therefore less likely to happen in ANY situation, for it has no reason to, and just doesn’t make sense. What does that then say about the availability of the choices one has in a given situation? Is the maximum amount of choices we can make ever available to us in any situation, and what influences this availability? In this situation, as with the initial one, it is possible for me to know what would have happened had I chosen to pour the bucket of water outside the window instead of on myself: I know that had I poured the water on myself, not only would I have gotten wet, the fire would have carried on burning. But can’t I further assert that eventually, the fire would have burnt out, thus also knowing what would have happened had I chosen to do nothing at all? Again, drawing on knowledge and experience, I’ve been able to learn the outcome of a choice I’d neglected to take, in executing another. I’ve killed three birds with one stone.
So, can we only know what the outcome of a neglected action would have been? Only if it’s something that has come into our knowledge through experience. Once we have learnt (through observation and obviously not participation) that drinking the poison instead of handing it over to our fellow detainee to drink, will result in us dying – we can know that even though, on this occasion, we’ve chose instead to pour the poison out onto the floor, had we chosen to drink it, we definitely would have died.
The most quotable book on writing: a book every writer needs to read
October 20th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Title: The Agent
Author: Martin Wagner
Publisher: Pinter & Martin Ltd
Price: UK £6.99 | US $14.95
Pages: 65
Stephen: Can I ask you a question?
Alexander: Shoot
Stephen: Is it worth me going on? Should I just stop writing and get myself a normal job…?
Alexander: Are there any normal jobs?
Stephen: I need to know. You know, as a writer I get two kinds of responses: from friends and family, ‘Yeah you’re great and well done and why don’t those bastards publish you?’ And then there’s the rest of the world, the ones who just shit all over your work, not by reading it, you understand, but by ignoring it.
How very nice it is to meet you.
October 17th, 2011 § 1 Comment
There comes a point where, even on a printed page, all of the letters, those solitary ink-beings, begin to leak into one. Reading becomes skimming, and skimming becomes unconscious page-turning, as you fade in and out of the story before you, and the story that is your own. Have you ever caught yourself lost, not in the book before you, but instead, in your own head, reminiscing about some past event, or anticipating a future one? Only to then refocus on the words on the page, to find that you’ve advanced three pages, but not read three pages, and so nothing you’re reading connects with that which you were reading, and you have no choice but to turn back and read it all over again?
I’ve read this page four times now, and I’ve given up hoping to elicit its secrets, and so refuse to read it a fifth. I selected this book purely because its cover compelled me to, and I know that it is more often than necessary said that you should never judge a book by its cover, but I can’t help but feel that if that were honestly supposed to be the case, then so much work wouldn’t be put into them. This one is jacketed in plain, white matte. Its title is etched gold lettering, and it bears the signature of a man whose home is currently 10 million of the world’s bookshelves. Or so they said the last time his sales were counted. It is in books like these that I find it the hardest to find a home, and I often think it’s because it’s a home shared with a great portion of the rest of the world. Perhaps it’s too crowded in there, perhaps that horde of people is the reason I find it so hard to get up close, close enough to enjoy the show. I know this, yet I continue to pry. At present, 39 novels like these line my books shelves. They seek refuge in-between lesser known works, and their elaborate spines stifle the voices of more modest ones. Works, who probably haven’t had that hip new addition to the team of graphic designers in that colourful little office, the one with ‘character’, up on the 6th floor of the publishing house. They are, instead, the ones who are all content, and admittedly have not bothered so much with the side-show. None of this stops my impulse-buys, and thoughts of these facts refrain from screaming out to me as I load my shopping basket with that shiny, new bestseller positioned so cleverly above the chewing-gum. And it’s for this reason that I continue to read them.
As I marked the page for a 5th consultation at a later date, I scanned a row of books for a more satisfying read, and my eyes stopped at one that I’d forgotten I’d had, and the pains I went through to obtain it. The Sequel, by Felix F. Ocean, promised to satiate my thirst for the story of the days, months years that followed the emancipation of a man, who, in the in book that precluded, had been falsely accused of killing his wife. I remembered with clarity the sound of Ocean’s prose, and how I would, once finishing a distinctive section, read back over each and every word, lingering on every comma and resting at every full-stop. I would curl my tongue up and over Ls, and fix my lips rigidly around Os. It was this man’s mind that I love, and I wanted to be lost inside every forest he created, and die an evanescent death in amongst the rubble of every single building he tore down. At the end of each chapter, I remember longing for the man who had left me this masterpiece, the man who is now nothing more than the smoke that lingers long after his own flame has been extinguished.
When I read something extraordinary, I want nothing more than to converse with the author, to tell them what it is that I love, and how it is they managed to give it to me. To thank them for giving it to me, above all. Tears began to well in my eyes at the thought of how I’d been born a little too late for that.
At the end of the first paragraph, eyes heavy, I marked my page and laid my book down on my chest, and began to daydream my way into a sleep, and then one deeper still.
Now tell me that you are aware of the feeling of a presence in a room you know, beyond reason, should be empty. Having been alone in the house for almost a week now, I of course had to journey through the motions of telling myself that it was all in my head, and also remind myself that I had locked everything shut. But the feeling was still there, the hairs on my body still raised, as if willed in the direction of some magnetic force. You know what that feels like, don’t you?
Caught in the Act
August 20th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Hi,
The following requires that you are aware that I am currently reading Marcus Aurelius’ ‘Meditations’, courtesy of the ever facilitating ‘Penguin Classics’. So there, now you know, and possess enough information to understand my plight. Empathise at your discretion.
So far, I’ve kinda picked up that this guy feared death like no other, and was extremely careful never to neglect the present.
Be careful not to neglect the present.
It is at this point that I catch myself, cheating on my present self, with my future self (you are also present, and you are entertained.). Okay, not quite cheating, because my future self is playing hard to get (as they do), and flits about with an air of nonchalance, at such a frightening speed that I have yet to catch up with her. But she’s there, and I’ve been in hot pursuit of her, and taken my eye off of my present self. I have yet to hear her (present self) kick up a fuss over this neglect, I must say. Or maybe she has been, I just haven’t been paying attention.
What it is, is that I want the very best for myself, and have a successful end in view. This usually wouldn’t be a problem, but I seem to be peering out from such a high, solitary vantage point, that I’ve sort of left myself behind, clambering at the rocks at the very bottom. It’s wonderful to possess clear goals, and it’s equally wonderful to be in pursuit of them and steady on the track towards them; but I seem to have forgotten that they ARE only goals, and should, for the most part, be somewhere to the side, visible only in my peripheral vision. I seem to have forgotten that there is a me right here, right now.
Roughly four months ago, I set myself some serious hair growth goals, after wearing extensions for the best part of two years (not the same ones, I promise). Hair care is important to me, and careful styling imperative to maintaing a respectful appearance. When I started out, my hair was about 10 inches from my goal length, and now it’s probablt about 6. During this transition stage, I’ve successfully kept up the care side of my regime, but let my styling standards slip dramatically. I’m so hung-up on how far away from my goal, and so wishful that 6 inches of hair would just sprout from my scalp overnight, that I fail to acknowledge what I already have. I forget that there is not something, then nothing, then what I want, and that everything in between can be utilised.
Similarly, but more importantly, my current long-term career goal is to have advanced up into a respectable position within the book publishing industry. At present, I am a recent graduate, who has been lucky enough to nab a 6 month placement at a small publishing firm, learning the ropes and tying the knots. With my bit in, and my blinkers on, all I can see is the end result, and often wish I could sleep for the duration of the journey. It’s not that I don’t want to work for it, it’s just that I am often unable to place any value on the inbetween, more often that not because it takes too long. My watched pot does not boil, and so I look to the future, and wait for the steam to rise.
Perhaps, it’s my philosophy that is flawed. It’s almost as if I fail to realise that my future self, and my present self, are one and the same. I talk about what I want to be, as if I expect what I am now to vapourise, and for a new me to materialize in my place. I see myself as the seed which gives itself up to becomes the tulip that had been imprinted into its DNA; or the caterillar which takes on a completely new form to become a butterly. But those analogies don’t seem to serve the evolution of the human soul. We’re taught that it is just to remain constant in character, and that growth should not incite absolute change, because people are fearful of that which they once regonised in others, but no longer do.
I think it’s time for me stop stop trying to ditch myself, and waiting for myself to take a hint and stop tagging along, and instead embrace myself, show up at all my matches, no matter whether they are home, or away games, and ride along with myself all the way to the very end. Because if I continue to leave myself trailing behind, if I continue, as I am, on autopilot aggressively chasing a ghost holding my place in the line, it could all fall to pieces, and I fear I mightn’t even show up to my own party.
I’d like to think it possible to finish Marcus’ Meditations before the night is over but the internet wins at being the biggest and most successful distraction of all time.
Until next time.
xxx
When you think you have finished…
August 4th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
There’s nothing, for me, quite like the odd sensation, that sweeping feeling of the strangest form of relief, that is finishing a short story.
Not because when I started, I couldn’t see an end, and not because I wish to stop writing, but because of the fact that I didn’t stop writing when I thought that I had finished.
I often go to draw a story to a close, out of the fact that I secretly hate to redraft, through fear of spoiling what has come directly and undiluted from my mind. It’s not until I’ve worked my way back through a piece, stopped off at every single paragraph, and carried out essential maintenance word to expand them, that I realise how bare was the skeleton that I had before.
Goodbye.
August 4th, 2011 § 2 Comments
‘Write a story that begins with ‘The last time I saw my mother was 15 years ago’
The last time I saw my mother was 15 years ago. She helped to pack my bags, and she helped to load them, and me, onto the train. Although I resented her for it at the time, it was a resentment I later grew to realize, had been born from false reasoning.
In my home country, 15 years ago, to be a parent, was to protect your child from harm by forcing you and them apart. It was to know that wherever they were, they were in safer hands than they could ever have been with you, not through your own parental fault, but because of the destruction and the greed of others. I know now, what I could never have know then, and that is that my mother loved me before herself, and that it was harder for her to watch me leave, than it was for me to watch her disappear in a cloud of steam behind me. In the 15 years I have been without her, I have never lived through anything more painful than watching the woman who was the center of my life, dematerialize, and waft away, carried by a melancholic breeze to a damned eternity.
During that summer there was death. A lot of death. It didn’t discriminate between man, woman or child. It picked sides with neither the young, nor the old, the rich or the poor, or the just and the unjust. It never has, I guess, and it would have been naïve of anyone to expect otherwise, but that didn’t stem the bleeding of the shattered hearts it destroyed. People were desperately unhappy with living and working conditions, and had begun to grow hungry for change. It was impossible to keep a toll of those who sacrificed their lives for it, or died due to the necessity of it, but it was change and its elusiveness, that worked alongside death, in tearing my country apart.
In the hours before I boarded the train in the summer of ’21, my mother and I spoke very little. I look back and whilst studying the memories, learn that she had tried her best not to act out of the ordinary. She made no effort to dress up, or prepare a feast, and she gave me no grand speech, or divulged the wisdom and philosophy I would have needed to survive what I have since I watched her shrink to nothing that day. No fuss was made over our imminent separation, and the only snippet of sentiment I have left to cling to, is a cold goodbye. I think what made it harder for me, is that I had no one to compare notes with. The state of my world, back then, meant that I’d lost the few friends I had accumulated, to death by disease, death by starvation – or death by mankind. Of those who had been lucky enough to escape mortality, some had been shipped in a different direction, and some had stayed, with the hope that things would get better, and that they would come out the other end alive. I sat alone, by a window. In a cabin full of other abandoned souls, I was alone, and made no effort to find a friend in any of the children who were journeying with me to another life.
When I arrived at my destination, I couldn’t think through the hunger that clouded my thoughts. After being loaded into the back of wagon, pressed up against the children I’d travelled with, I day-dreamed and drifted in and out of consciousness, over what felt like one thousand miles, but was more like one hundred. The driver made no effort to converse with us, and bundled us in like we were sacks of grain, although I feel that he would have taken better care of his sacks of grain than he had of us. What is it about some adults that render them incapable of caring of offspring that isn’t theirs?
At last, as we neared the end of our journey, someone spoke, a small girl, who I later learned was named Jana, who seemed to have just regained orientation. She cried out for her mother, and all the other children could do was stare. Stares of disbelief, stares of pity, and stares of empathy, but no one rushed to console her was words. For the remainder of the journey and whilst we were being offloaded for the night, I don’t think anyone ever did. When I awoke the next morning, Jana was nowhere to be seen. As a matter of fact, I never did see her again.
15 years later, I have decided that if I could repack my suitcase, I would pack into it everything that was my mother. I don’t care if it isn’t what she is now. I would pack her yellow dress, the one sprinkled with daisies, which used to swing at her calves, just below her knees. I would pack a marmite sandwich, for when I go hungry, and nibble at it for the rest of my life. In it would go her favorite song, a copy I hadn’t scratched when I was younger, and didn’t care for the possessions my mother owned. I wouldn’t worry about who could open my case, and rummage through my scrapbook of joy, and I wouldn’t pack lightly, so as not to weigh myself down during the rest of my journey throughout life. I would take my case with my any, and everywhere I went, stop and open it up in on the darkest of nights, and extract from it comfort, for it would be my inventory of love.
Over the years, I have built up a resistance to the pain of being abandoned, and I have learnt not to shatter at the drop of a goodbye. Hope is not something I often cling to, and I stopped hoping to see my mother again, some time after I learned that the strength of your hope does not alter the likelihood of its deliverance. I am no slave to wonder, and am no longer consumed in thinking about where my mother is, and who my mother now loves. I owe this all, not to the men who destroyed my home, and not to the people who carried me away. I owe it to my mother, not for sending me away to survive, and not for failing to find me again, but for the way she said goodbye.
