A poem for Goffman

Goffman,on animals,was moved to say:
The frame explains when it's time to play.
That is, there's signals both before and aft
Which make it fine to dance and laugh.
What happens in this marked out time
Is neither serious nor a moral crime.

In zoos, he'd watch the otters sport,
Sometimes they played, sometimes they fought.
But they seemed to know when it was in fun
Less an all-in pagger than a quick dry run.
Quite why they did this, he never said.
But when it was play, none ended dead.

So thinking on the word play's pun
Is drama really just in fun?
A way to exorcise those thoughts
That otherwise end up in courts?
Think about the Greek theatre:
Does it make bad acts better?

By presenting people's inner fear,
From confusion making clear
How bad behaviour causes pain:
And make the watcher think again
About their need to kill a chum
Or put their penis up their mum.

Back to the frame, the context of art:
From daily life it's set apart
By the place it's watched, the time it needs
To plant a conscience's blooming seeds.
Like the otters when they have a fight
Plays train the mind for mental flight

From antics that might hurt the polis
(Not just the bastards in high office).
The use of kings, or the stuff of dreams
Suggests the plays' eternal themes.
A safer space to confront the scary?
It does make theatre necessary.

In Defence of The Shouting Snowflake

I loves me some freedom of expression. I'll defend the right of Dapper and Dappy to perform, mostly in the hope I can review their pitiful efforts at entertainment and have an intellectual wank by deconstructing their behaviour. So, yeah, I've been following the debates about University students banning stuff with utter delight.

The latest episode getting touted about the internet features a very angry young student shouting at an older academic man, telling him that he is supposed to be keeping the campus safe. On Spiked, a website which really digs freedom of speech, the student is described as a 'snowflake': a delicate person who can't bear to hear opinions that challenge their notions of wrong and right.

The snowflake has become a sign of student intolerance. The replaying of the video is the process whereby a myth has been created. The meaning of the myth is: look at how savage these young people are, look at how frightened they have become of other opinions.

I'm a little conflicted about this. First of all, on an analytical level, I'm not sure with whom I agree in this row. She is arguing that the teacher's attitude towards Halloween costumes has made her feel

unsafe and - well, unless you are a Molly dancer, I don't think blacking up is a cool move, bro. His appeal for tolerance - perhaps invoking the saturnalian aspect of guising - is also something I respect. She's shouting her head off, but am I going to say that the way an idea is expressed trumps the value of the idea itself. 

If I tell a racist to fuck off in a loud voice, does the racist have the right to say 'if you'd asked nicely, I would have left, but since you shouted, I am allowed to say the n-word'?

Yeah, I don't know. 

Anyway, back to the snowflake. Ignoring the dominant myth of the video, and acknowledging that diagnosing someone via media is a bit dubious, I don't see an intolerant student protesting an idea.

I see a student experiencing the emotional problems of having been triggered. She is upset, desperate to protect herself, defending herself by attacking, unable to control her passion. This isn't a theoretical triggering: it is the actual, physical manifestation of triggered emotions.

I don't know why she might have been triggered, but it strikes me that she isn't protesting a notional offence. She probably isn't a cosseted snowflake but a woman who has had negative experiences that have made her vulnerable.

To repeat - this kind of diagnosis is sketchy, at best: there's a habit of pathologising people through casual analysis (I think Nick Cohen discusses it). And, yeah, I don't consider this a shining example of campus conversation. 

But try reading below the line on these articles. How quickly do they become aggressive? Do MRAs suddenly appear? Is the language of violence, or racism, used? Is this the mainstream media highlighting a specific case to 'prove' a general trend? Are you using sound-bite politics because it agrees with your opinions, proves a point you already believe? Is it cool to circulate a video of a woman in anguish around the internet? 

Here's a video on the subject: I watched it and found my agreement shifted between different speakers at different times. Just the length of the debate makes it more detailed, but the personalities expose both their critical skills and their biases. 

In which I deconstruct my love for you...

There is no law, whether natural or not, which forbids talking about things.
Roland Barthes, Mythologies

Barthes says that myth is a type of speech, then goes on to explain what he means by speech (an image can be speech). Everything, pretty much, can be myth: this is where I got the idea that myth is a story with meaning (as opposed to being a bunch of nonsense, or a story for kids, or an easy way to dismiss anything that I don't accept).

Barthes uses red roses as an example: I use them to signify my passion. Then he breaks it down, to show how the roses have been   passionified.

Here are some lovely red roses, just for you. Barthes divides the experience of the roses (let's not get into whether ceci n'est pas une rose) into two parts: the experiential level and the analytical. The experiential part is being in the world and seeing the roses - and feeling the emotional rush that I hope they bring, smelling them, seeing them - and the analytical part, which is a bit like sitting in Morpheus' ship and watching the roses as information on a screen.

You know what, I've just remembered, I have given real roses to people and they have appeared not to know what I was trying to say. Because I consider giving someone roses (with a big shit-eating grin) to be telling a story, a myth. And that story is I love you. 

Barthes says the roses are a sign. He's obviously wrong about that - a sign has less flexible interpretations, and if my rose giving has been repeated read in different ways (ranging from he's a bit creepy to what a nice gesture), it can't have the weight that Barthes reckons a sign has. 


Wait, I think I'm getting lost in romantic bitterness, again.

Okay, I am giving you some roses, and this is a myth. The myth is communicated by the associations of the roses. Myth is about communicating. I am communicating the stirrings of my libido. Or maybe the love of which I speak is a yearning to share higher experiences with you, like Plato says. They are red, the colour of blood, of passion, of desire, of Eros...

I'm assuming that we share a language, a mode of speech, in which red is sexy and roses correspond to desire and if I had gone for white roses, the desire would mean something else, but red, look, it's libidinal, for Aphrodite's sake are you getting the message?

If these roses were to decay and we could see things as they are and not through a glass darkly then perhaps they would dissolve into remains of a physical object and a detritus of the passion promised by the myth, which is made by the shared mode of speech, implied in bud and colour and not existing except on that higher plain, the analytical one where Barthes sits and reads, sits and judges.

ROSES PLUS PASSION EQUAL A SIGN.

Well, I though it was nice gesture, and a bit easier than actually saying the words. No, I haven't got any wriggle room to back down, but I'm also saying I'm the kind of person who gives you roses, and wouldn't it be nice to hang out with that kind of person? I am weighting the roses with meaning. The rose is a sign that points to me. 

Whatever. Anyone want to buy some roses? I've got some going cheap.

Moon Knight Considers Expanding His Remit...

15 Seconds @ Hamilton Mausoleum