As a philosophy graduate, Gervais should understand that appeals to popularity and ad hominem attacks aren’t reasonable arguments
A couple of days ago I was sat in a room trying to talk to a bunch of people, when I was distracted by a continual tapping noise. I looked around and noticed that someone was rapping their pen on the table as they listened, which was pissing me off a bit. I asked if they’d stop and they did.
Many years ago, my neighbour’s daughter was learning to play the violin. It was a deeply unpleasant experience. Whenever she started to rehearse there was a noise that felt like a paper clip being pulled between the gaps in my teeth. I never asked her to stop playing.
The difference between the two was simple: one had an overall purpose that I had to endure because the other person had an absolute right to achieve that goal. The other was just annoying and unnecessary. However, that wasn’t an issue for me as both people did in fact have a right to do that. No one can be arrested for tapping a pen on the table, nor can they be arrested for playing violin (unless they’re creating a noise nuisance, but that’s another story). The point is that I’m willing to be tolerant because everyone has a right to do stuff that isn’t illegal. However, lacking a law banning something doesn’t mean you should do it anyway. Likewise, just because you want to stop someone from doing something of their own will, it doesn’t mean that you want to ban it.
What does this have to do with a band? (After all, this is a band blog so I should talk about music and that, shouldn’t I?) I’m a fan of banter*. When I’m on stage I have to tune my guitar a lot (folksy tunings mean I’m often skipping between standard and DADGAD, DGDGBD and the fabulous DADEAC#) so I end up chatting and making jokes, usually off the top of my head and about whatever I’m thinking about that point in time. Sometimes people laugh (see the recent Flapper gig where people enjoyed my upset at Steve’s increasing popularity over mine) and sometimes they don’t (see my gig in London where people don’t laugh at anything but Jack Whitehall). However, I’ve known fully well that sometimes I’ve made a joke that has missed the mark because people don’t know my sense of humour and I’m being either 1) too dry or 2) too obnoxious. Some readers may remember the joy that was our old drummer Paul telling a joke in a pretty full room at Katie Fitzgeralds, which I won’t repeat, but which would have had us arrested under obscenity laws a few years ago. I had to apologise. The private crossed into the public.
I’m no saint at all. I laugh at some pretty foul things and have said some disgusting shit in the past which I either now regret or still giggle at (and feel slightly proud that I came up with it, in the way the inventors of medieval torture devices must have had a slight sense of smugness in their darkest moments). Readers of my twitter feed (http://www.twitter.com/manfrommandm) will know I’m happy to tell the odd joke that’s a bit….grim. However, I think that in public quarters there is a mark, a line or a standard.
Take, for example, Morrissey. A few months back, in the week that tens of innocent young people were shot down by an insane gunman in Norway, he went on stage to explain that the violence committed there was no worse than the daily atrocities committed by KFC every day. Some people booed, some applauded, some basically let him off because he’s Morrissey and an otherwise career ending statement slipped under the radar to coos of “tsk, what is he like, eh?” I got upset by this. I didn’t demand that his records should be banned, that he should never be allowed to speak or that such comments should be banned. My exact comment, I think, was that he was a cunt.
I think it’s the best word for it. In a sense, I value his input. I think it’s a valid point about animal cruelty: we only get upset when humans get killed, but why not cry for the suffering of animals? Perfectly good point. However, using those deaths as a platform for your own view is a bit sick. Making that point on a stage in front of thousands is also a bit insensitive. Making that point on stage when you know you’re famous enough to get attention from global press is just being a massive cunt. Why? Because there’s such a thing as tact. We’ve forgotten what that is. Nowadays democracy means “I just say what I feel and if you don’t like it, tough”. Gone are the days of people taking responsibility for what they say. Sadly, the Jeremy Kyle generation (audience as much as guests) has adopted the belief that having rights means that 1) we all have freedom to think and say what we like and 2) any attempt to disagree with us is fascism/political correctness gone mad. Actually, it isn’t. You can say what you like, but you have to expect people to attempt to change your mind, disagree with you and ask you to change your view/behaviour.
Hence the guy in the room tapping his pen not getting arrested. I don’t want to ban people from tapping their pens, but I’d prefer it if they didn’t. His response to me was “OK, sorry”. If he’d have replied “no, you can’t stop me” I couldn’t call the police (nor would I) but I’d be in a position to make a moral judgement. If he could explain that he needed to do it for some reason (maybe he has OCD and can’t help it) then I’d be more tolerant. As it stood it was OK, but if he said “no, I won’t stop” then I’d be within my rights to think “what a cunt” and try to explain that he was annoying me and it would be great if he chose to stop.
Or, in another example, if I told a joke when I used the word “mong” and someone said “actually loads of people find that word offensive, so when you use it you are actually upsetting a lot of people. Not sensitive people either, just disabled people who haven’t really done anything to deserve being offended” I’d think “oops, better not do that” and stop. If I shrugged and went “well, I don’t think it is offensive, so those people will just have to put up with it” then I’d expect to be called a cunt.
And if I went on stage when I knew fully well that my words would offend and upset people who had lost loved ones within the last few days, that my message would be missed because of the way that I delivered it, and that there was no way I could say what I was trying to at that point in time without hurting people, then I wouldn’t say it at that point in time at the risk of being called a cunt.
See, my accusations of cuntery here are purely moral, not legal. I’m not charging anyone with a crime or suggesting we ban freedom of speech. I’m just explaining that sometimes you say things that really upset people and that’s not great. And it’s not even as if you’re offending people in a way that challenges anything. There are some great comedians out there who make me grit my teeth and feel a bit sick, but I appreciate the fact that they’re challenging my own prejudices (Stewart Lee, Richard Herring, Doug Stanhope, Jerry Sadowitz to some degree) and others that don’t. Frankie Boyle has done some interesting stuff on race, especially concerning the Iraq War, but is mostly just going “yeah, I said Baby P”. Gervais has the cheek to put himself into the former category rather than the latter. His best comedy is where he’s focussing the abuse back on himself (Brent, Andy, the wittier moments of his stand-up) not at others. His recent tweets have involved quotes from Stanhope and Sadowitz defending our right to be offensive, but missing the point either deliberately or unintentionally. Defending our right to offend is there to protect our right to question authority and prejudice, not to bully and degrade innocent people. Gervais studied philosophy so he should remember his Mill: you can’t legislate against offence because you can’t guarantee who you’ll offend at any time, and offence is sometimes needed in order to challenge the tyranny of the majority.
If Mill saw someone using that to make jokes about people who don’t deserve it for the attention of people who only want to laugh at the misfortune of others then I’m sure he’d join me in the following: I do not agree with what you say, but I defend your right to say it….although you are a massive cunt.
*[edit] At the time of writing this the word “banter” hadn’t been revealed as the euphemism for rape jokes and glee at domestic violence that it is currently being used as. For the sake of authenticity I kept the original word. For my use of the word read “patter”, “humorous discourse”, “pushing the envelope” or “cheekiness”. Do not read “implicitly condoning date rape”.
The Man From Mitch and Murray 