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After struggling to create a post with a few inserted images, I finally got fed up with Blogger. I've migrated this entire blog over to a wordpress, which can be found at

https://craquelure.home.blog/

The quality of life improvements have been tremendous. Fonts are consistent, I don't have to struggle with text color, images are handled smoothly, and it's overall a much more polished process. I originally made the Silent Sidebar for my high school Academy of Science and Engineering class, but soon appropriated it for different material. I've enjoyed writing here, but honestly. I'm glad I'm switching.


This Silent Sidebar will remain up, but will no longer be updated. If you want to see any of my new stuff, come check out Craquelure.

Dystopian Rant

Our kids are screwed. They're going to be doped up on ADHD meds because schools will have eliminated all forms of art or phys ed, have terrible posture from hunching over glowing screens of whatever size we end up having, paltry immune systems and allergies because of our systemic elimination from any kind of dirt or grime, clinical depressions and insecurities if they're lucky, and eating disorders and body dysmorphia if they're not, for which they will be summarily medicated because any deviation from the mean determined by Health and Safety and a school board so out of touch they might as well start a space program has determined. They're going to be living on a dying planet in the literal and metaphoric heat of this antropocene, as the finality of a sixth and possibly last Great Dying event takes away what we didn't know we needed, let alone wanted. The water levels will lap at homes that previously were built on righteous solid rocks, but they will not be waters of vitality. No, not the water of life, but only of death, as overfishing, pollution, garbage patches, deoxygenated zones, algae blooms, and acidification eat away at the bedrock of everything that we hold dear. And their conception of beauty will not be determined by the blossoms of flowers or the shadow of mountains, no, it will be cultivated carefully, by impeccably coiffed men, women, and every shade of in-betweens that will exploit those insecurities and needs, promising ways to fill those holes with things that they know will fall through just so they can sell it to you again. And at the end of the day, they'll go home to apartments on top floors of their towers of Babel, cranking the AC so they can ignore the fact that the world is getting hotter. There will be people, destitute, homeless on the streets, but we won't care then any more than we care now. The plight of the unfortunate was always Lady Fortune's fickle responsibility anyway. No, from our ivory towers the problems of the world seem small. Oh, if only we could all love each other and get along, but how can we show love when we would have forgotten how to love ourselves? Self harm in the name of beauty. Self harm in the name of worth. Self harm, placed at the feet of idols called Image. Success. Achievement. On our knees, purging anything that fills us lest we feel hunger, or feel anything at all. The cold, gaunt, hollow eyes of society will find their marks and strike with ruthless democracy. Anything will be called oppressive. Anything will be called intolerant. Values? Bigoted. Priorities? Discriminatory. Opinion? As the kids say, "You're on fucking thin ice." Don't you dare open your mouths. Don't you dare even think. In fact, until you can make your mind entirely vestigial, we'll do the thinking for you. Madison said "If men were Angels, no government would be necessary." And well, we can't yet make men into Angels (but trust me, we're trying), so instead we'll just stop you all from being men. Don't ask questions, and you'll have all the answers you'll ever need. Oh and Love? Prudence? Chastity? Temperance? Forget about it. These virtues are too hard. We'll give you soft ones instead. So soft babies can chew on it. Soft virtues that can be stuffed into the cookie cutters of profitability. Soft virtues that can wear a push up bra and suck in its belly so a venture capitalist will give her a place to sleep for a night. Soft virtues that people who long ago forsook anything that resembles objectivity and truth can wrap themselves in, like smothering shrouds as they get on televisions to tell fake stories about fake people that reinforce fake values, so that people on their morning commute or sitting after a hard day's sitting at the office can have fake feelings about the fake news so that their fake friends can fake care when they make fake conversations at the water cooler in the morning. And we won't need the sun. No that fickle thing? We shan't need it at all! Look down. Look around you. Here's a nice cave. Get back in the cave, where's its warm and it's dry, you'll be safe. And if you lean against that there wall yourself we won't have to chain you to it. The shadows on the walls, old inscribed pictographs, it's really just a spectrum from Hieroglyphic to Emoji. Here, have a phone. Text away! Oh, no, don't run. At least don't run too far. Your phone will die, and you won't have anyone to talk to. In fact, if your phones die, you won't be able to talk to anyone. Not anyone in this group of people will be able to talk to anyone else. But why would you want to? They don't get you. We get you. Don't worry, fam, here's a hat, a bra, a sock, a shoe, a tie, a purse, an ostrich jacket, that you can have instead of a personality. Don't pretend like you don't want it. Don't pretend like you're better (but if you do, here's something you can wear to let everyone know). Sit down. Shut up. Pay your taxes. Protest. Rally. Be "woke" if you want. We'll give you causes to show that you care. Here's a left and a right you can pick from. You can fight to your heart's content, but at the end of the day, you need us. You need us to feed you and hold you and rock you to sleep because we were never stupid enough to let you learn how to do that yourself. And god forbid you'll meet someone you love, and devil forbid they should love you back, because then you'll want all the things we can't sell you. You might find out that he or she isn't an instagram post, with pouty cosmetics and perky camera angles. You'll have to contend with what a human is, and what we've made it. You'll want love, but only get lust. You'll want companionship, but only get followers. You'll want promise, but only get viral caprice. Like casting pearls before swine- bloated, GMO'd, bred, and breaded bacon machines that live from the ground, to be ground. And you'll wish that he or she were better, but worst of all, you'll wish that you were better. You'll want to be someone for that person that you wouldn't in a million years dream of being for yourself. And well, we simply can't have that. I'm sure you understand. So what we'll give you is romantic stories to screw with your expectations, pornography to screw with your sex drive, Hero archetypes that screw with your desires, and a thousand other things you can have instead. But that's all short game. The long game is this. Maybe we can't stop you from trying to be better, so we'll control what is Good, with a capital G. Because you know in your heart of dying hearts as well as we do that if we can control that, we can control anything. And we will not stop until this dystopia, this no-where, is Every. Where. And there will be no "out" for you to run to.

x

Review of Go Set a Watchman

One of my strongest memories of high school was my freshman, and senior, year English teacher, Mrs. Sheridan Briggs. She seemed to be a polarizing experience for my classmates and the people I knew who had her other years. She taught the Gifted-Talented English program freshman year, then the AP literature class senior year. Expectedly, this group of kids remained more or less consistent. Because high school classes are generally arduous endeavors, the majority of students would hate a class not because of any sin the class had committed by doing anything than being itself. The subject of chemistry itself may be mildly interesting, but repetitive, trite, and/or indecipherable assignments, when compounded with 90 minutes of confinement, a surge of adolescent temperaments, and a terrible lunch, would make anyone miserable. Mrs. Briggs English class was no exception. However, she did happen to firstly be an excellent teacher, and secondly an excellent woman. One of my strongest memories of her class was made in my freshman year, reading Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. It was a unit we studied for several weeks, and at the end, she gave each student a Indian head penny, the same kind as Boo Radley leaves for Scout and Jem in the knoll of a pecan tree. One thing that she emphasized about the book was Harper Lee's seclusion. I have kept it to this day. Mrs. Briggs told us that Harper Lee was the master of an author's equivalent of a reigning hide-and-seek champion, having popped up once with this book, which was a rousing success, and then secluding herself ever since. 

Needless to say, I was very surprised when Go Set a Watchman was announced to be released. Alice Lee, Harper's sister, who had for a long time been her confidant and defender, passed away a mere three months before the book was announced, and Mrs. Briggs and I both smelled perhaps a little foul play. Regardless, I'm ashamed to say that even if that were true (which it has never been proved to be), the glint of this blood diamond was too alluring for me to resist. I, however, did decide that I would wait until Harper Lee passed to read it. This meant that I would have heard about it far before reading it myself. While I managed to avoid any major spoilers, I did pick up on a general destain that people seem to have. Certainly, no one I've talked to would claim that Watchman was as better than or as good as Mockingbird, and there seemed to be an uneasiness and reluctance to accept it for what it is. Having read the book, I believe I understand why.

The charge often indicted against Watchman is that it Atticus is a racist. This is undeniably true. The character of Atticus believes that there are fundamental differences between African Americans and White Americans, which lead to their segregation being advantageous for both races. He believes that they are unfit to and incapable of holding public office, conduct matters of governance, or even really fulfill the responsibilities of being a citizen. He believes that integrated schools would lead to the falling of their standards, and that they are intellectually inferior to White Americans. While he it is a little more hazy whether or not he believes this inferiority can chance, it is obliviatingly obvious that Atticus is racist. I can understand why people would push back against this. In Mockingbird, Atticus is made into a sort of hero for his defense of a black man against charges that are false. He is the character that proclaims that rule of law, truth, and legal equality, are more important than the racial prejudices of town. This sentiment is not contradicted in Watchman, so much as it is qualified. Atticus gives a reasoned defense of his actions, and while I do not agree with him, I believe that this reasoning is consistent with the characters presented in Mockingbird. 

On the note of consistency, I believe that this book does a remarkably good job. Despite necessary changes to the cast, the recurring characters are accurately preserved, the newly introduced are realistically constructed, and the ones who are left behind are treated with dignity. Other criticisms of the book include that characters are not as well developed. The plot is nowhere as riveting as Mockingbird, and that it lacks the idyllic pastoral quality that Mockingbird excelled at. It has none of the childhood innocence, the slow progressions of seasons, the balled fists and angry tears of pedantic childish rivalry. And these are all things that I agree with. However, I believe that Watchman is valuable for several reasons, the strongest of which is this. It gives a glimpse into the psychology of the Jim Crow southerner. It shows the perspective of two characters which present the matter of southern post-war racism from two angles. Henry is a child from poverty, whose greatest impulse is to find a place in the tapestry of the community in a way that is befitting and beneficial. He is juxtaposed with Atticus, a man who has lived most of his life in the privilege of the community's graces on the merit of his conduct and family name. By building compelling narratives, Lee shows the reason why people of different upbringings would support an institution in the ways that they did. This perspective, I believe, is indispensably relevant to modern discussions on race and heritage, and I believe has a lot to offer. Of course, this is not to say that the racism, however justified, of this book is to be condoned. It is merely to provide another way in which the motivations and origins of racial thinking in the American south can be understood, and how it can then be effectively discussed. In short, far from pushing away from this book because Atticus is a racist, I believe that people ought to read it because Atticus is a racist, because he is not alone. 

Unfortunately, I live in a country filled with racists. They inhabit not only the corner stores and community meetings of Maycomb county, they are teachers, doctors, policemen. They are grocery store baggers. They are fast food servers. They are juries. And they are people. To be dismissive of them because of the views they hold is to be likeminded in their ignorance, only differently focused. The most important lesson I believe Go Set a Watchman has to offer is to listen. Listen to the writing. It is quite beautifully written. Listen to the characters themselves. Listen to their struggles and opinions, their hopes and fears. Walk a mile in their shoes. And listen to the voice of the other, not to embrace it as your own, but to grow in perspective and understanding. 

Father Gary Gurtler

Father Gurtler is probably the closest thing to a living archetype I have ever met. He is a small, careful man, I can probably count on my fingers the number of times I've seen his elbows have left his body. Well along in years, a crop of grey hair sweeps across his forehead, framing his round, bespectacled eyes. His skin is rather pink, though not quite ruddy. He has a small, well defined mouth and sagging jowls, which can give him the appearance of a permanent frown. Overall, his face is rather ovular and seems to emanate a balance and propriety. As you have probably assumed from the name, Father Gurtler is a Jesuit. As such, he dresses traditionally, in black jacket, vest, shirt, slacks, and shoes, with the white collar. On two occasions I have seen him deviate from this garb, both times simply exchanging the colors of his clothing, not his clothing himself. The exception to this is that when the collar is absent, he wears a necktie. He always wears a black pin with a gold symbol on his left lapel, the significance of which I have yet to discern or summon the courage to ask about. His shirts always have french cuffs. He has a habit of wearing jackets which seem a little too long for him, as his waistline tends to end at or above the highest button. However, I'm not sure these jackets could truly be described as ill-fitting, for the length of the sleeve and the width of the shoulder seem to fit him. Perhaps he just wears his pants much higher than most young men these days could comfortably think about, let alone consider adopting. 

When he speaks, he speaks softly and intelligently, looking at each student in the classroom in turn. A habit I have fallen into in his class is to tell time by observation. As the class progresses he is wont to write on the chalkboard. As he does, chalk inevitably dabs onto the sleeve of his jacket and shirt, then when his hands return to his side, the chalk then enlightens the side of his black coat. By looking at the amount of chalk on his side, one can reasonably deduce how long the class has been going on. Father Gurtler's classes have no real beginning. He simply walks into the classroom, sets his things down, puts on his glasses, and begins speaking in his measured way. Vowels such as "a" and "e" tend to be just a little exaggerated, and sounds like "s" or "t" are almost swallowed. One would do well to listen carefully to his soft voice, which although somewhat monotone, regularly intones the phonemes of wisdom. He has a habit of calling on students that seems to not be paying attention to him to answer questions, but doesn't seems to be doing it judgmentally. Rather, he seems to be saying "pay attention please. This is important." One thing that a student of his must accustom themselves to is the rarity with which he smiles. I have seen it a few times, each time a natural, jocular, good natured smile, but these are rare. It was only when I went to his office hours to consult with him on a paper topic that I realized that his visage doesn't betray his true feelings. Indeed, his visage betrays quite little about him at all. 

He seems especially versed in the teachings of Aristotle, and will commonly relate the other authors and thinkers we study back to him. Whether he does this for the sake of effectiveness or convenience is more or less unknown. This is not to say that he is not knowledgeable about other philosophies and histories. He is a fount of knowledge when it comes to greek, latin, epicureans, stoics, and many other pertinent subjects, and his teaching reflects that. He has a way of taking the frantic, fervent, frenetic answers we provide to his questions and understanding what they were originally trying to say. He is likewise able to translate texts that are thousands of years old into a vernacular with which his students can relate and understand. I have found him to grade rather fairly, rewarding original thought more than mere regurgitation of what was taught in class. I have never found myself wanting to fall asleep in any of his classes (yet). 

Trumpet Christmas

Snow fell softly outside the windows, a warm glow from the sinking evening light as the sun wandered slowly down on Christmas eve. Johnny was the last person working the diner. His dad had opened the place over twenty years ago, and had sent home all the other employees to spend Christmas with their families because he actually cared about them. Johnny's mother had had passed away a few years after Johnny had started going to school. He had come home one day to find his dad sitting at the kitchen table with his head between his hands, a bottle between his lips, and an empty space between his ribs where his heart used to be.

Johnny sauntered over to the window and flipped a switch that lit a neon "OPEN" sign, watching it flicker a few times, then beam its bright neon declaration into the descending darkness. Johnny walked back behind the counter and poured himself another cup of coffee, and the top half of a nip of peppermint schnapps. The nice thing about this job is that he could always drink as much coffee as he wanted, so long as his dad didn't catch him, which he rarely did, on account of hardly being able to be bothered to work anymore these days. He mostly sat at home and paid the bills for the diner, cut the checks for the employees, watched TV, and drank. Johnny took a long pull of his coffee and wondered why they celebrated Christmas at all, since they didn't believe in Jesus. He thought for a bit, then started on wondering why he also celebrated valentine's day since he knew no one loved him.

His thoughts were interrupted by the bell tied to the door, and in walked an old man. He was rather stout, broad of hip and shoulder, and had a great big white beard that blended into the cascade of white hair from the peripheries of his balding head. Johnny figured that he just got off a shift working as a mall Santa, but decided not to ask. People can be touchy about this kind of thing.

"What can I get for you?" Johnny asked.

"Coffee, and steak and eggs." The man replied. Johnny figured he'd seen the BREAKFAST ALL DAY sign posted outside.

Johnny poured out a cup of coffee and put it on the bar counter. "Sure thing, set yourself down anywhere you'd like. I'll be a minute."

A few minutes later, Johnny emerged from the kitchen with a heaping plate of eggs and a few thin strips of cheap steak that had been seared up on the same girdle. He slid it in front of the man and wandered down the counter a few steps. He figured if the man looked to be wanting to eat alone, he'd just wander out around the register, but if he wanted to talk he'd be close enough to hear. The man picked up the salt and pepper and seasoned the eggs. Johnny watched as black flakes drifted through the air and came to a rest on a bed of fluffy yellow unborn chicken.

The man looked up and said "I'm a mall Santa".

Johnny hoped it wasn't because he was caught staring. "I was wondering about that."

"Everyone always is." The man replied.

"Why aren't you working tonight?" Johnny asked. It seemed to him this ought to be his busiest night.

"Because I'm Santa". The man replied.

"Well I know that. But shouldn't you be making some last minute orders on Christmas Eve?" Johnny asked.

"No, I'm him. I'm the real Santa" Santa said.

"Oh. I see." Johnny said. He didn't see. But he figured he'd drop it. Plenty of weird folk wash through this diner. It's best to just leave them be.

"I never stopped at your house because your father asked me not to" said Santa.

"And why did he do that?" Johnny asked.

"Because he didn't think anything was good enough for you" said Santa. 

"That's some bullshit" Johnny muttered.

"He didn't think there was anything good enough for you after your mother died" said Santa.

Johnny straightened up. he felt a little sweat appear in his shirt. He didn't know what to say. 

"She was the best thing that happened to him, and you were the best thing that happened to her" Santa continued. "When she died, he was afraid that if you came to love anything like you loved her, you'd see how broken everything is."

"That's a shit reason for Christmas to not come at all" Johnny spat.

"It came once, remember?" said Santa, not really asking. "In the 6th grade."

"I remember. I got a trumpet" said Johnny.

"Yeah. What happened to it?" Santa asked.

"I stopped playing in high school. They were going to make us march and I figured if I was going to stand out in the sun all day and get yelled at I might as well get paid for it." said Johnny.

"You were pretty good" said Santa.

"I was pretty good for an 8th grader" Johnny corrected.

"Your father was pretty proud of you. I know he never said anything. Hell, he never even came to your concerts, but he heard you practicing."

"So how did he figure the trumpet was good enough for me?" Johnny demanded.

"Remember when your mom used to sing?" Santa asked.

"Yeah" said Johnny, below his breath

"That used to be one of his favorite things about her. He'd stay up all night listening to her sing you to sleep." said Santa

"So what, he wanted me to take her place? Isn't that some sort of fucked up" Johnny muttered.

"No, he saw that you were a quiet kid, just shutting yourself up all the time. He knew how much you loved your mama and wanted you to have a voice to speak with that he knew he could understand" said Santa.

By now the plate and coffee were cold, and Johnny and Santa stared at each other in the diner. Johnny knew now why his dad acted the way he did when he told him he was quitting the band, and that he was disappointed in himself, not in Johnny. Santa stuffed a forkful of lukewarm eggs into his mouth and chewed slowly. He took a sip of coffee and swallowed it all together. 

Johnny thought of the trumpet now, sitting in a battered case in the corner of his room, collecting dust. "Is it too late? Is it too late to still learn to really play?" He asked.

"No. It's never too late" said Santa.

"Is it too late for him to want to listen?" Johnny asked.

Santa paused for a moment.

"No, it's never too late for that either" said Santa. 

Santa scooped the last of the steak and eggs into his mouth, stood up, and put his coat on. He reached into his pocket and put a twenty dollar bill onto the counter, then turned around and walked out the door. 

Johnny stood there at the counter, watching the snow drift in big, fat flakes that danced wordlessly in the navy blue night. He crossed his arms and closed his eyes, wanting to think on everything but not knowing where to start. His thoughts were interrupted by the bell on the door ringing its bright, brassy announcement. He looked up and his father stood in the doorway. They stared at each other, and Johnny saw that his father's eyes were bloodshot. He'd been drinking. And from the keys in his hand, he'd been driving. His father walked over to the "OPEN" sign and turned it off. Johnny understood. he grabbed is coat and followed his father out the door, taking the keys from his hand. He opened the passenger side door of the car, and shut it behind his father. As he walked back to lock the door of the diner, he caught his reflection in the glass of the window, and saw the snow falling in the light of the moon. As the latch of the lock threw, the bell on the door jingled a little, and Johnny knew that this would be a Christmas unlike one he'd had in a very, very long time. 

What the Hell is Art?!

Today I had the great opportunity to visit the Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan. A friend of mine worked for a corporate sponsor of the museum and could get a few extra tickets. The building itself is rather unusual, built by Frank Lloyd Wright sometime in the interwar period. It is primarily a large spiral which widens as it departs from the earth. The exhibits are organized along the procession of the spiral, and the floor is nearly perpetually slanted. I found this to be somewhat irritating after a while in the museum, but the content of the museum was somewhat spectacular.

I use the word “spectacular” in its literal sense, i.e. to relay the fact that I found the contents of the museum to contain a quality of spectacle. There were pieces with great variety in origin, medium, style, and era, as one would expect from a museum with the reputation of the Guggenheim. Because my brain is irritatingly categorial, I found myself misguidedly embarking on the folly that is trying to figure out what it is that is characteristic of these pieces. I found myself wondering what it is that held these pieces together, what they have in common. In short, I found myself wondering what it is that makes art art.

Certain things are almost certainly art. For instance, if someone stretches canvas over a wooden frame and slathers it with a fluid that is pigmented as to (ideally) take the outline or figure of something recognizable or even appreciable, it is rather undeniable considered art. Even when this sort of thing is done poorly, it’s still considered art. While there were many of these, including wonderful pieces by Manet, Picasso, Degas, Klee, and many other famous and notable artists, it is not these pieces that make me wonder what art indeed is. It was the weird sculptures, the scribbles on notebook paper, the photographs that don’t seem to depict anything, that make me wonder. And I’m sure that everyone has had this experience. They’ve been in a museum, and they’ll run across something that is so simplistic or so moronic that they’ll have that moment of wondering that surely, this is not art.

This is where I’d present an answer to this question, if not for a small problem, which is that I don’t have one. The idea I’m currently fooling around in the backseat with is that art is somewhat spectral. Everything has artistic qualities, and the applicability of those qualities is what determines whether or not something is considered to be art. For instance, I know someone who I consider to be a very beautiful human being. I often find myself talking note of the placement of their steps, the sweep of their legs, the rhythm of their gait. These are certainly things that have artistic qualities, but I think it would be offensively reductionistic to label them as art. They’re far more than that. They’re a human being that experiences laughter and frustration, who has snarky comments to make and opinions on religion and politics. To simply reduce them into the kind of interactive spectacle that art often is would be a akin to pirate only using his gold as a ballast. Because they are so much more than art. Indeed, I believe that everything is more than art, even things that are considered to be, well, art. One could use the Mona Lisa as a frisbee if they really wanted to, or the Starry Night cut from its frame could be a cape for a child. These are not only things that it could be, it is things that they are. The Mona Lisa, in its current state, IS a poor frisbee. Michelangelo's Pieta IS an unwieldy paperweight. I think that instead of focusing on sorting things, as I tried to, we ought to go through life looking for art as it manifests in the things that we see every day. The sunlight streaking through the clouds, the excited zoomies of a dog, the gentle wave of a blade of grass as cars rush by on the interstate. Art is not something that is categorized, or presented. Art is something that is found. I had a maxim in high school, which may and or may not explain my poor decisions to those of you who knew me back then. The maxim was that “every pizza is a personal pizza if you believe in yourself”, and I think that this embodies the spirit of potentiality. The potentiality of art is something that is already fulfilled. All that remains is for us to see it.

The Internet as Public Space

I’ve noticed a trend among some people, mostly arts/creative types, where they use the phrase formula “_____ as _____” such as “writing as activism” or “sculpture as architecture”. I thought I’d follow in suit, half in homage and half in irrelevant mockery.

Anyway. I’ve been thinking a lot about the internet and censorship. Following the most recent presidential election, Facebook has disclosed that many targeted adverts were purchased by money and probably individuals related to the Russian state. Given this, it was seen as pretty clear evidence that at least on some superficial level, these adverts propagated over various social media platforms, predominantly Facebook and Twitter influenced the informative process of a portion of voters in the country. To exactly what extent and to what possible detriment this occurred is for someone with thicker glasses and a higher security clearance than me to determine. What struck me about this story, however, was that Facebook resolved to “do something about it”. What exactly that thing is is yet to manifest.

Similarly, Youtube has been playing around with their monetization policy relating to advert revenue, and this has lead to several haunches being raised among some of the people I subscribe to on that platform. I think the poster child for this would be Cody’s Lab, which is a channel owned by bright, young, enthusiastic scientist who produces videos that are entertaining and informative. Basically, exactly the kind of content that Youtube would be interested in promoting. His channel was shut down temporarily because of complaints about animal cruelty. Not that he was indeed being cruel to animals, there was just a preponderance of complaints that lead to the youtube algorithm shutting his channel down. Content such as this, or content with strong language, violent behavior, things of that nature, generally get demonetized pretty much immediately, and by the time the underpaid intern at Google gets around to viewing the complaint, most of the advertising revenue that would go to the video maker is lost because the frequency of views tend to taper off over time.

Obviously there is a place for pointing at policies like Youtube’s and saying that that particular algorithm or policy needs to be better. Same with Facebook. They surely could have done a better job at disclosing where the adverts were originating from. However, what I want to explore is the idea behind policies such as this. Basically, there has been a recent trend of calling for content to be restricted, taken down, or censored on social media platforms. This lead me to wonder how first amendment rights would or would not apply to these platforms. Certainly, there is a romantic view that here in the Divided States of America, we have fought and died to protect our right to do and say whatever it is we want. If you want to say you think Pooh bear is a sugar addict and Christopher Robin and all his friends are just enabling his lifestyle instead of getting him the help he desperately needs before eating himself into an early grave of cardiovascular disease and diabetic shock, that is your choice. It may be an unpopular opinion, but it is certainly one you are allowed to have. However, there are restrictions on the kind of free speech one is allowed to partake in. The SCOTUS case Schenck v. United States established that free speech, in a first amendment kind of way, could be restricted if it represented to society a “clear and present danger”. The most belabored example of this is shouting fire in a crowded theatre. People think there’s a fire even though one would think it would pretty easy to see if there was a fire burning in a darkened theatre, and people get trampled because you lied. These rules seemed pretty straightforward and accepted in the age of their conception, but since then, much like our taxes, things have gotten much more complicated.

I suppose the first thing that ought to be done are functional clarifications. Firstly, no one owns the internet. If someone posts a selfie with a stupid superimposed cartoon filter of a dog face with the delusion that they think it makes them attractive, then sure; they may have taken that picture, but someone owns the cell tower it got sent to, someone owns the satellite it bounced off of, the transatlantic cable on the seafloor, the server it got stored on. And the people that own these things are typically not the person who posted that selfie. Furthermore, platforms such as Facebook are privately owned. They have the definitive right to determine what kind of content they want to host. You may not like it, but too bad. Go back to Myspace. In a manner of usage, social media platforms may seem like public spaces where you gather all your (in my case) 7 friends and you can hang out like you would in a town square or a public park, but this is not the case. Someone owns that park, and it’s maintained with advert revenue, not your hard working tax dollars. Platforms are not public space.

However, it seems like that’s the whole reason why the exist, so they can be that space where you hang out with your friends and your uncle who always sends you invitations to play Candy Crush Saga. They want you and all your friends to sign up and hang out so they can post adverts and target posts at you and take a bite out of your cookies so they can make money off of you. This is their first concern. How much you enjoy the website and how it connects you to your friends or family or people you’re facebook stalking is secondary. For the user, the connection and the people are primary, and we just put up with the advertisement because come on, who’s actually going to use Myspace.

The issues that have arisen recently with censorship have come from individuals which appeal to the “clear and present danger” discription among certain peoples on these platform. For instance, if an Islamic extremist militant group wants to recruit on Facebook, it’s pretty understandable, that Facebook would want to do something about preventing that. However, with a less extreme example, this distinction becomes rather blurred. What if someone posts something saying climate change is a hoax? Some people may say that this is “clear and present danger”, because it encourages your local congressman to not vote for legislation that would lead to us all dying from rising sea levels, ocean acidification, a preponderance of pollutants being released into the atmosphere, and other things of that nature. But is it really “clear and present danger”? If your local homeless person sat in a park and talked about how global warming is a lie told by those nasty tricksies chineses, would anyone try to get him arrested? Hopefully not, because that charge would in no way hold up. We’d simply chalk it up to a crazy person being a crazy person. What if someone posted something about a white supremacist gathering on a social media platform? Should that be considered “clear and present danger”? I don’t think that anyone will deny that white supremacists have done some very awful things before. One could see this post with that history in mind and claim that this gathering constitutes an instance of “clear and present danger”, and that the platform ought to take it down. However, the person who posted this information hasn’t actually done anything clearly or presently dangerous yet, nor has he or she threatened to. But then what if the post was a post about white supremacy ideology instead of a gathering? Would it be any more or less clearly or presently dangerous?

It’s right about now that one begins to see this less as the dichotomy of allowing good speech and prohibiting bad speech. I think the development of censorship policy on certain platforms will ultimately be determined by companies supporting and allowing the kind of speech they want, and censoring the kind of speech they don’t want. So in that way, good/bad is kind of irrelevant. But one would hope that what is allowed or censored somewhat aligns with good/bad. I think that in developing is policy and deciding what they want and don’t want, social media platforms have to decide whether or not they want to act like a public space, or engage in the thicket of righteousness. I chose here to use to use the word “righteousness” because I believe that this road will lead to battles not simply for speech that is good, but also for truth, for meaning, and for value. Righteousness is indeed a loaded word, so I shall take precaution to aim it carefully. One other thing to clarity is that these two choices are not mutually exclusive. Between them lies a wide swath of possibility.

If a social media platform chooses to tend toward acting like a public space, then they should implement policies like that of the standard of “clear and present danger”. So long as no one is making threats of harm or doing something like telling a habitually depressed teenager with a bad haircut and more zits than friends to go kill him or her self, speech ought to be allowed. This would include stuff like supporting climate change denial. This would include white supremacist or neo-nazi organization, so long as there is no definitive proof of violent behavior. This would include speech that one would deem hateful, racist, misogynistic, marginalizing, degrading, and disempowering, so long as they do not contain threats of violent behavior. Think about the speech that happens in public spaces all the time. People express racist views and slurs. People catcall women relentlessly and unfruitfully. I know a guy down at the park that knows just about everything there is to know about how aluminum foil hats stop brain reading lasers from the government and how they’re all really lizards anyway. This is stuff we as a society should work to eliminate, but through positive exposure to diversity and teaching equality and respect between each other, as well as apparently civic education and herpetology.

You see, the thing about freedom of speech is that it’s not freedom of speech without consequence. My friend with the curious headgear gets judgemental looks and gets ignored and brushed past for espousing what he believes in. That is his consequence. If you catcall a girl, that’s pretty much 100% insurance that she will never even consider going out with you. That’s your consequence. People get on the internet, and they don’t think that their speech should have consequences. This is in part because of the way that social media is structured. It is convenient for people with similar views find each other. For my lizard-fearing friend, he may sit in the park all day and never once meet someone who will listen to him for more than ten seconds, but if he made a facebook group, he’d probably find a group of people who would sit around and affirm his beliefs like the studio audience of the Ellen Show. When someone is surrounded by the people they have picked and chosen, they are somewhat more insulated from the kind of scrutiny and judgement that characterizes a public space.

If a social media platforms decides to pursue a policy where they plunge into the thicket of righteousness, like a stag who proudly saunters into the brambles, will find itself ensnared. Consider, again, the example of the climate change denier. If they were a reasonable human being who has looked at the sources available to him or her and has just decided that there wasn’t a preponderance of evidence that would allow him or her to scientifically conclude that climate change was a real phenomenon, most of us would probably understand where this individual is coming from. They’re not acting maliciously or out of ostrich ignorance, they’ve simply come to the conclusion that to them, follows from the facts. If the social media platform interprets this as something that ought to come down, it’ll likely be not for the reason of “clear and present danger”, but for the reason that it’s false, and that it’s more detrimental to society to allow than prohibit. What if a kid sees it and grows up to be someone who writes environmental policy? In this case, I believe that the standard of evidence in this case that people find justifiable is truth. But I believe that this standard is impossible to maintain. If someone posts that a pound of lemon contains more sugar than a pound of strawberries would we expect someone at Facebook to go and chemically deconstruct the fruit in the break room? If someone posts about there being a true 9th planet which is not pluto, would we expect twitter to launch a spaceship and confirm it? The standard of truth is something that will never be able to be upheld in a practical way because there are so many things that are filled with doubt. Science as a procedure is very clear about this. There might be a giant space mind reading laser run by a lizard government and the only person who is safe is my friend in the foil hats drinking from a Russel’s Teapot of I told you so. What if there’s a post about how eating an entire pizza is an acceptable form of self-care. Most of us would argue that no, that’s a dietary practice that ought to be prohibited, and might even complain about it to the platform saying that this post encourages eating habits that aren’t healthy and would lead to harm. It should be taken down because it’s not good for us. But then we’re in a position where it is up to the corporation to decide what is good for us, and their record on that isn’t one that tends to inspire confidence.

The problem is that is that people want the best of both worlds. They want to be able to say all the things that they want to say, but anything that they find offensive or objectionable they want taken away from them. Yes I want to share my objectionable opinion with the hashtag #sorrynotsorry but if someone else says something that offends me they ought to be sequestered in Facebook jail. People want media platforms to be this weird hybrid of public and private, and there is an obvious need for laws restricting freedoms even in public spaces, and free speech even in private spaces, but I don’t think we can Hannah Montana ourselves out a best of both worlds solution. In the coming months, years, and decades, there will be a struggle between deciding whether or not these media platforms will decide to take a public role of allowing speech, even of objectionable or offensive, to exist, or whether they will choose to shoulder the burden of selecting speech they think is good, true, or beneficial and proudly march into that thicket.

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