This week’s column is about this week’s column: the privilege that I have the right to write it, and that you have the right to read it or not. Our freedoms of independent thought and independent expression are precious.
With the fear of fascism prowling once again from dark corners across these islands, the mere ability to exercise these freedoms through a mainstream daily newspaper should be loudly celebrated. Because it is something that simply can’t happen in scores of other societies on this planet, places where thoughts are imprisoned and voices are silenced.
In writing opinion columns, often the easiest path is to lazily parrot partial labels and trot out old tropes, to cynically or simplistically write and speak in the same superficial commentary at every turn, thereby delivering a pre-designed package. That’s common.
But the key question is whether that role fulfils one’s wider responsibility, as a citizen. After all, the press are part of the people. And the media is a privileged space where ideas of progress (not just strong analysis) can be nourished and nurtured for wider society.
In fairness, news and newspapers often need styles that easily slot into time constraints and editorial patterns. That, of course, is the business of media commerce - to be sustainable. And at times, the pressures of print can constrain issues on which whole books may eventually be written. (I get 700 words.)
And yet in this day and age, with the enormous emerging threats to civilisation’s stability – environmental, economic, political, social, democratic – surely it is the job of media to give the public something more than a cheap seat at the political colosseum, distracted by ‘bread and circuses’?
Surely the writer’s purpose in publishing opinions is as relevant as their product that the readers consume? Surely the processes of power that shape our writing matter? Are we arrogant and offensive in our all-knowing certainty? Are we willing to challenge ourselves, as much as we challenge readers and others?
There are times when those of us who work with words, know that we’ve hit a decent seam of writing, where thoughts flow, where prose is fluent, where rhythm resonates with clarity, where readers become engaged. It’s very rewarding.
And then there are other periods, days, weeks, sometimes months, where – at least in my case - thoughts can get overwhelmed by theory, where prose runs away with its own metaphors, where the whirlpools of personal and public pressures collide, where ideas that need to be subtle (usually to protect the background) become too cloudy.
Sometimes people don’t want to translate these columns like scholars; sometimes they just want to be told short and sharp opinions - like students. To agree or disagree. And that’s okay. Newspapers shouldn’t read like the Harvard Law Review.
And yet, writing consistently well, with a confident and personal style, is not an easy task: at least, it’s not easy when you’re trying to invoke the kind of writing that might inspire real transformations in the dignity and discourse of the public square.
As years pass, I’m increasingly convinced by the power of public words to improve society. Just as a state can be talked into recession, so too can a society be talked into crisis. But the opposite is also true.
The alternative to critical, evidenced, independent thought in regulated mainstream media is either the diktat of dogma or the abyss of anarchy. (See social media.) Neither benefits dignity or democracy.
It is the very ability to think and communicate as individuals – independently, personally and without coercion – that demonstrates the extent of our ongoing evolution and organisation as a species. From talking about feelings of deepest personal love, to politically opposing structures of extremist social hate.
With free speech and fair comment under growing threat, we must strongly protect and project our independence of thoughts and words. So dump dogma. Don’t parrot propaganda. Reject reactionaries. Think for ourselves, with evidence and empathy. Use words wisely, with positive purpose. And celebrate this privilege, with style. At least today.
