“Rolf, I am going slightly insane here,” Tibi said through her fingers, which were pressed against her face in exasperation.
“Never mind that now, I’ve almost made it to the point where I can actually make my point,” Rolf replied. “Now… where was I?”
“At your point, I can only assume,” Tibi replied, sighing. “Or, I can only hope.” She rubbed her eyelids with her fingers and tried to concentrate.
“Oh, yes, my point. Well, my point was…” Rolf trailed off, and Tibi gestured for him to continue. Rolf sat still, posed to begin gesticulation at any moment, but the thoughts didn’t come. He sat back in his chair, confused and disappointed.
“How did we even get onto this topic?” he asked.
Tibi shrugged. “You started talking and I started listening? It doesn’t really take much.”
“I need to use the ‘back’ button in my brain, like in a web browser.”
“Yes, you go use that hypothetical button. I’m going to sit here and try and recover the precious minutes of my life I just wasted on you talking until you could get to a point where you could actually talk.”
“Um, guys, this is great and all, but you’re kind of having a conversation now,” a voice interjected. The pair of quarrelers looked up, to find the group staring at them. They had forgotten they were not the only ones in the room.
“In that case, does anyone else have a point they’d like to make? A point they could actually make now, without using the group’s time to formulate the structure of the point they have to make in the first place?” Tibi shifted onto the edge of her seat.
“You mean, with a point already formulated?” asked Rolf.
“Yes.”
Den put up his hand. “Does that mean we can’t contribute if we haven’t previously outlined what we want to contribute?”
“Yes,” responded Tibi.
“No,” responded Maif, who hadn’t spoken for awhile. “You can’t previously outline a response to something someone else says before you have heard them say it. Before you even know that they’re going to say it.”
“I agree,” said Rolf. “I propose, we are allowed to respond to other people’s points, as they make them.”
“That wasn’t the point of what I just said. I said, people shouldn’t make POINTS without having thought about them previously. This isn’t a sounding board for your own ideological rhetoric – this is a group of people trying to organize themselves. Respond all you want – but by that same token, don’t respond to somebody else’s point by attempting to formulate your own point in rebuttal, right on the spot as you’re speaking.”
“Hold on, hold on,” interrupted Cheese. “You seem to be imposing on the terms ‘free speech’ a lot – how can we have an open air discussion, where people can freely discuss their ideas, if we impose limitations on the word ‘freedom’?”
“I am imposing on the logistics of facilitation of a discussion with no structure and no actual facilitation.”
“I agree,” said Pod. “Some of us came here to have a meeting. Some of us came here to wax lyrical. The people who came for a meeting don’t want to listen to ill thought out ideological banter. The people who came here to have others validate their ill thought out ideological banter don’t really want to participate in a structured meeting, because it is imposing on their ability to ramble freely.”
“If this isn’t a place for people to share their ideological theories, then where is?” asked Cheese. “I don’t mean to be obstructive here, but this is a meeting about a movement governed BY ideology, and if we can’t talk about that, then what is the point of being here?”
“The POINT of being here is to have a meeting. Let me just point that out right now.” Tibi tilted the brim of her hat down over her eyes and leant back into the comforting softness of the chair. “Do you honestly think I wouldn’t rather just have a chat? But this isn’t the medium for it – this is a structured meeting. We have protocol and regulations in place, specifically to prevent conversations like this.”
“It all sounds so bourgeois,” said Rolf, also leaning back, and sighing. “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could trust each other enough to just facilitate the discussion ourselves, independently of rules and regulation and structure? If we could just have an orderly but in-depth discussion without it descending into chaos?”
“I think chaos is inherent in human nature,” said Pod.
“If chaos were inherent in human nature, we would have scrabbled around in the dirt until we became extinct. Civilization wasn’t built on chaos,” Rolf replied.
“Yeah, and civilization also wasn’t build on each person’s individual ideology and rhetoric. Humans wouldn’t have survived if they had acted as individuals – this is about getting past everyone’s own individual bullshit to get to a point of identification of common goals, followed by organization of ourselves to make whatever kind of stand we choose to make.”
“But how are we ever going to get past people’s rhetoric if we don’t let them talk about it?” asked Rolf. “How can we get people to a point where they can agree on something concrete if they can’t explore their own ideas for long enough?”
“Exploration of your ideas is fine, and necessary,” interrupted Tibi, “but it can be done in one’s own time. The idea is, you know what you’re going to say before you say it, because you’ve thought about it before, which shows respect for the group whose time you are commandeering, and in turn makes the group respect you because you are exhibiting your own capacity for critical analysis and logical thought.”
Frog put his hand up, looking dejected. “Um, I’m really sorry, guys, but… what were we talking about again? I’m sorry, it’s just hard to follow the train of conversation.”
“Active participation kind of helps that, man. I don’t want to corner you, but if you don’t really participate then chances are you aren’t listening properly, then for every time someone needs something explained again or needs clarification, if that takes five minutes, all those occasions add up and then we wonder why people leave before the meetings are over. No disrespect,” Pod finished quickly, holding his hands up as if in surrender.
“It also frustrates the people who are paying attention to no end, so they get cranky quickly and impatient and they aren’t polite about having to explain the same thing five times, then the people who need the explanations get upset and offended at other people’s attitudes towards them, and it becomes a case of us versus them, which makes the entire point of us being here in the first place totally redundant.” Tibi covered her face with her hands. “If our enemies tried to invent a ploy to disassemble us from the inside, they couldn’t come up with a better one if they tried.”
Pod nodded. “It seems like any situation where humans try to get together and discuss things and reach answers just has a self-deploying ‘self-destruct’ button, set to an unknown timer, built into it.”
“You know what I think it is?” Tibi asked. “I think that, the natural human state is complacency. So when we do anything but be complacent, it immediately feels strange, and we genuinely do not know how to comport ourselves once in that unfamiliar state. And we aren’t used to other people being anything but complacent, so it just confuses us to see others also not being complacent.”
“And this is because we have been robbed of our humanity by society,” Pod interjected.
“So, nothing too serious, then?” Rolf raised his eyebrow at him.
“Nope. Of course not,” he replied, vaguely, pulling at the material of his sleeve. “I’m sorry, what were we actually talking about again?”
“We were talking about whether or not we can talk about anything,” replied Den.
“…and how did we get onto that?”
“Hmm, I wonder!” Tibi was finding it hard to control her frustration, but at the same time finding it hard to channel it into anything that wasn’t just reductive. “No, seriously, I do wonder. I just don’t mention it because it halts progress.”
“It’s too dangerous to get used to other people validating your existence for you, anyway,” said Pod. “You get to a point where you can’t live independently of other devices through which others can validate you. You can’t just have a thought and be satisfied with that – other people have to praise you for it before you can give the thought any practical application.”
“But what if your thought is a suggestion that you think might benefit others?” asked Rolf.
“This is your fault anyway, Rolf. Your little speech got us into this mess.”
“Yeah, well, you were supposed to cut me off after 3 minutes.”
“How is that any less of an infringement on your freedom of speech than us wanting you to stick to the topic at hand? Only moments ago you were all so adamant that any infringements on freedom of speech in this sort of setting would only be reductive. Now suddenly this descent into madness and folly is our fault, for NOT infringing on your freedom of speech.”
Leon timidly raised his hand. Tibi pointed to him. He cleared his throat, and said, “Um, can I just ask, what happens with the people who aren’t at this meeting?”
“What do you mean?” asked Pod.
“Well, we can’t exactly make any decisions unless everyone is present to have a say. Right? Isn’t that democracy? Or is democracy just the rule of the majority?”
“We can’t cater to people who don’t attend meetings. If they aren’t present, then whatever, we have to continue the momentum in their absence and part of that is making concrete decisions at every meeting, so we can actually DO things. Rather than just talking about ideology.”
“Just putting it out there, a discussion about everyone’s own individual ideologies would be a lot more interesting than this current conversation!” Maif said, and held her hands up in a similar fashion to Pod’s earlier maneuver – the universal signal of surrender. The thing you do when you don’t want the gun pointed at you, no matter how strongly you feel about something.
“You’re right, nobody wants the gun pointed at them, but it has to be said, this conversation isn’t any more productive than us talking about our beliefs,” Rolf said, rolling his eyes slightly and then settling them in a sideways direction. “And, to be honest, listening to people’s personal beliefs WOULD be a lot more interesting, I agree.”
“I am dissenting to that,” said Pod, folding his arms across his chest and one leg over the other.
“Dissenting to what?”
“Dissenting to the proposal that discussing people’s personal beliefs would be more interesting and as productive as this discussion right now.”
“Nobody put forward a proposal.”
“That was clearly a proposal. And I am dissenting.”
“So, you think this current conversation is more interesting than a discussion about people’s beliefs would be?” asked Rolf.
“What I think about this current discussion is irrelevant, the proposal was that a conversation about people’s beliefs would be MORE interesting and useful than this current discussion. Regardless of what I think about the current discussion, I am dissenting to the proposal that listening to everybody’s monologues about ideological rhetoric would be MORE useful and interesting.”
“Well, should we amend the proposal, since there seems to be some dissent?” Maif asked.
“No, we shouldn’t amend that proposal – that proposal wasn’t even actually proposed!” Rolf said. “Pod’s just being reactionary.”
“Excuse me, but how am I being reactionary?”
“You’re being reactionary because you’re being close-minded – you don’t even want to listen to other people speak about why they are here in the first place. That doesn’t exactly indicate a lot of respect for this group of people.”
“I just have a keen interest in the Socratic notion that not all opinions are actually worth listening to, and just because the majority might prefer something, that doesn’t automatically make it ‘right’.”
“But how is that even related to democracy, if some people automatically aren’t entitled to opinions on things and to have their opinions be heard? And who gets to decide whose opinion is worthwhile enough to hear, and whose isn’t? That’s just senselessness!” Rolf realized he had gradually been raising his voice, and he sat back in silence.
Tibi and Pod looked at each other. She pointed at him. “And, go,” she said.
Pod sighed. “This notion that everybody is automatically entitled to opinions on things they know NOTHING about is the senseless thing. If everybody were as equally insightful and educated and analytical as everybody else, then this system could work. But this isn’t the case. You’re assuming a LOT of probably untrue prior knowledge of a person when you legitimize their opinion on something by actively listening to it. The issue is that if everyone is entitled to an opinion, and entitled to express that opinion, but no further demands are made of them, like the demand to actually research and understand the issue before forming an opinion on it and sharing that opinion, then every time we allow open air discussion, our time is wasted by people with no knowledge on topics and nothing to actually offer. You can’t debate a theory if you don’t have any knowledge of what the theory actually is, for example. But this doesn’t stop people. And, I’m sorry, but I refuse to dignify arguments with no actual content and no actual point with any sort of legitimization.”
“But then, how can you ever include the majority? How can you include people who might not have the same level of education as other members of the group, or who aren’t as like-minded and not focused on the same issues generally?”
“The majority can still be included, this is the thing,” Pod replied, “but in a system where there is a silent acknowledgement of the idea that, if you don’t know what you’re talking about, you don’t talk about it. You listen to others who DO know what they are talking about, and through that process, you learn, and build upon your own education and knowledge, and through this, then you start to formulate an opinion actually worth listening to. The problem is that everybody just wants to talk, talk, talk, mostly because these people probably are quite alienated in their daily lives, and they come along to occasions like this expecting that the people here will somehow be more tolerant. But tolerant of what? Of their lack of knowledge and critical analysis on issues? What they actually get is a roomful of extremely frustrated people, who spend quite a lot of independent time thinking and discussing these issues and theories, and they are sick to death of having to listen to people who don’t know what they are talking about but who either think they do, or who think that because of this abstract concept of ‘democracy’, they should still be vocalizing their opinions, when they actually don’t really have one based on anything substantial, in case they themselves cause the decisions of the group to become undemocratic.”
Rolf paused. “I can’t tell if that is reactionary or a genuinely intelligent analysis of the dynamic of these situations. I also can’t tell if I am supposed to agree with you or not – what am I committing to by agreeing with you on this?”
“Educated people who are sick of dumbing themselves down and constantly compromising their intelligence and comportment for the benefit of the less educated are always going to seem reactionary. Almost fascistic. Doesn’t mean they aren’t more or less hitting the nail on the head. If it wasn’t for this idiotic neo-liberal idea of ‘personal choice’ and ‘individuality’, we might not live inside a system where ignorant people end up being hero worshipped specifically for their own brands of personal ignorance. Note how my implication is also never that anyone is inherently less intelligent than other people – until I am proved otherwise I will continue to optimistically assume that it is a direct result of socialization and the failings of the education system. But the fact still remains that people with no education in and no knowledge of certain areas are therefore ignorant of them, and will probably have ideas that are of no use to us, if they aren’t just downright stupid ideas. And if productivity is what you’re after, it would be much more productive if those who already knew things talked and those who didn’t, listened, rather than breaking the flow of everyone else’s productive discussion with their jagged inputs.”
“Yes, but we, as the educated ones, aren’t allowed to vocalize this opinion,” said Tibi, leaning forward, “because then we get blamed for alienating other people. Our choice is either, to be alienated ourselves, or to steamroller over their arguments anyway, but that takes so much time and effort. Constantly having to explain yourself to other people is exhausting and I would be happy if I never had to do it again.”
“What if you were in the other person’s shoes, though?” asked Den. “What if you were the one without the education but you didn’t want to be alienated either?”
“Personally, I find the idea of speaking on topics I know nothing about more alienating than the idea of sitting quietly and actively listening to the insights of other, more qualified, people.”
“But, here it is again!” Rolf exclaimed. “Shouldn’t we give people credit for just giving something a try? And who gets to decide who is more qualified to speak?”
“Thousands of years of anthropology and human evolution, for a start,” Tibi said, resting her chin in her hand.
“The system in which we currently live decides who is more qualified to speak. It controls who is told what, who sees what, and it also controls what these people can do with what they’ve got, within these limitations it imposes on them – for example, the system decides who doesn’t get to have a university education, and then the system decides what jobs they will be qualified for, for the rest of their lives. So, it is perfectly understandable that people get fucking pissed off about not being listened to, and about society’s general message that nobody cares what they have to say, ever. But this is less about us not caring what others have to say, and more about our objection to our productivity as a group constantly meeting the barriers of ill thought out ideological banter, which takes place when we are trying to agree on specific details of totally unrelated things.” Pod was out of breath, and this debate was exhausting and frustrating him, so he stopped talking and rested his forehead in his hand.
“I… see what you’re saying,” Rolf said, slowly, “and the only thing stopping me from agreeing with you one hundred percent on this is just the factor of the sheer unfairness in all of this. People don’t ask to be less educated or even less naturally intelligent. They come to these groups in good faith, hoping that for once they will be recognized and heard and not marginalized. But, you’re right – they could choose to stop talking and listen. They could choose to be more analytical. And when I say unfairness, I mean on both sides – it isn’t fair that the intelligent, insightful and educated are perpetually unable to actually act without restrictions put upon them, restrictions necessary only for the benefit of other people, restrictions to facilitate inclusiveness. It isn’t fair that educated and intelligent people get marginalized, either, and in this world that tends to reward ignorance and blind faith, they do get marginalized more often, and feel alienated more often, at least in these developed societies. Maybe in other places too, I don’t know. And the idea that, if scenarios like this are one of the only places where these people can congregate and stand in solidarity with each other and support each other, then these people are getting a raw fucking deal, because even in these scenarios they aren’t limitless – they are restricted in every aspect of their lives, and then are criticized when they express any desire to put limitations on the ideas of inclusiveness and freedom of expression. It is no fucking wonder that anybody in this society would become cynical – look at our fucking lives. This is all we get to fucking work with, and it just doesn’t work and will never work, and we will be kept down by the soles of other people’s boots for the rest of our lives, no matter who we are, where we are, what we think – whatever. Unless of course, you’re the one with your boot on someone else’s back – and that’s an even worse life! Your own existence relying on the repression of others for validation? Pass. I’d rather be trodden on for the rest of my life than be the one who willingly treads on someone else.” He fell silent.
The group sat silently, awkwardly, some looking at the floor, some at the window. Some fiddled with their clothes, and some ran their hands through their hair. Tibi quietly sighed, and closed her eyes.
Pod sighed too. “Ok, guys, seriously – what movie are we going to see? This is just getting ridiculous now.”
