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Freedom of expression of a "Pantyless" | Visual © David Noir

"Freedom of Expression" and Repugnance

Ah, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine...

I don't want to be a pisces or spit in the soup, far from it. What soup? The soup of national solidarity.

Especially as I think about them from morning to night, about my dear fellow citizens.nes; by writing these articles, in burning reaction to current events, which serve no purpose or at least which the world and my neighborhood can well do without like everything else, I feel like I'm participating in this momentum, while I'm supposed to be in the midst of the final preparation of my creation project, all alone with my little arms and that I'd better get down to it, especially in the end to add holes to my belt rather than to ease my relative comfort, I know that in advance. But here's the thing: everything I've been thinking about "our" subject for years is so central to it that I can't help but be thrown out of bed like a Zebulon (yes, you remember, an alternation of toutnicoti and tournicoton that is fiercely reminiscent of our species' behaviour) to throw myself avidly at the keyboard, post-it, notebook, loose-leaf, anything that allows me to unload this cerebral and physical tension mixed with emotion, annoyance, anger, urgency, finally ending in exhaustion. For me too, it looks like war, but it is not a war because, used to itself, declared for so long, it is only what we call "revolt".

Well, having already wasted the time of a useless prologue, I'll make up for it by synthesizing as tightly as possible what I have to say (aren't they called mood posts), writing as badly as a journalist, making as many mistakes as a stupid blogger like there are so many of them.

So the subject of my irritation: Please, let's stop using expressions wrongly and in an imbecilic copy and paste, let's stop summarizing in slogans thoughts and concepts whose scope is beyond us ... etc ... etc.

There is so much to say and it is so much the perpetual subject that has been with me for so many years: the cowardice, the followership, the dishonesty, the spinelessness... that I am going to try to keep some of it to myself so that I have something to say for show. Nevertheless, as far as I'm concerned, after the feeling of horror, or perhaps still fanned by this feeling, my pot boils, overflows, screws up its lid.

The French discover a new slogan

"Freedom of speech"!

That's great! And I'm going to spread it on you, I'm going to gargle with a mouthful of roboratif and teeth. A real magic potion for Asterix.

No, there is no such thing as "freedom of expression", just as there are limits to freedom, it is called the law. So let's talk about the law, our laws; it will help to define them in order to respond to kids under ten, caught up in the turmoil and to whom teachers seem to have difficulty responding. There is no "freedom of expression" in a state of law, any more than there is freedom of action, otherwise there would be no need to define "the law". One might retort that one should say more precisely: "there is no total freedom "So I add, yes, that's it: total freedom is not conceivable in a state of law and acting or speaking with impunity is not allowed. Let it be understood here, my point is not to find it right or wrong, but simply to say so. I'm talking about "words", our words and the way we choose them, all of us, the media, the politicians. At this point, I have to break down some open doors; I do so without pride or shame since we still seem to be there, at least, in our daily written and oral reactions. Unfortunately, we are not philosophizing every day when we think we are debating. In order to do so, we would have to redefine "words", which are so important, even and especially for speakers of the same language who assume that they understand each other by using them. Well, the proof is that they do not. It is written in the law that it is an offence to glorify (i.e. publicly express in a more or less proselytizing way): hatred (I don't know if the texts specify "racial" or not), terrorism, anti-Semitism... So many things that I find in itself very logical for the cohesion of the famous "vivre ensemble" (another fashionable expression whose cliché taken up again and again makes me puke, but hey...). Once again, don't let anyone tell me that I'm advocating anything here, other than a thought that I would like to be healthy, or that these few lines are biased; that would be a bad trial. Since there is freedom of expression, I use it here to say that there is such a thing, but that it is not total, but relative, and that it is therefore inappropriate and extremely reductive and dangerous to designate "The" freedom of expression. There is "A" certain freedom of expression in our country; undoubtedly sufficient; undoubtedly necessary; undoubtedly the freest in the world, but not "The".

Why does it seem so important to me to nitpick on this small point ? First of all, because our society seems to be finally starting to think on a global scale, which I think is great in itself if everyone really gets involved in it beyond the coffee shop. Phew! At last, since 1968, the collegiate head has been forced to think and to shake up its neurons, but this is really only a small beginning, so desperately did our skulls and bodies seem to be sclerotic with egotistical moroseness until now. One can only be saddened, even if there is little chance that we will learn from it, that it takes murders on our doorstep to awaken our consciences. In any case, as we know, nothing is won. It is even now, from the point of view of the reflections to be maintained and carried out, that it is going to become really hard.

Then, and still to answer why I need to nitpick on words: well, because in this real emotional and reflexive agitation, the royal road of the beaufitude of the mind is traced with clichés and manipulations of ideas like so many crude construction shovels. Shit! Don't we know somewhere in high places and in the official mass media that thought is a fragile and malleable landscape? Yes, of course, since communication exists, we know that only too well.

So let's get back to this story, which is that it is an offence to use words, to write, to call, to incite or to make puns that are deemed to be tendentious and to have a deleterious influence. It should be noted that for a long time, it seemed to us that only acts were liable to effective condemnation. Anyone could, for example, sue someone for insulting him or her or for defamation, but it was up to the individual or group of individuals concerned to file a complaint. It was not, in such cases, the state that interfered in matters considered private. But since then, the web has appeared. And there, everything circulates on sight. This is even its interest and its danger. A permanent parade, a bubbling of infamous bullshit as much as of particular and exceptional knowledge. As a result, more openly than usual, the State's thinking is getting involved. It should be noted that until now, this knowledge also existed in books and that one only had to obtain them to access it. That is not what is new. The real novelty of the Internet is the forum and the hot commentary. A keyboard, a mouse click and the sublime as well as the stupid expresses itself and is thrown into the mass (the trap should I say). The thing is done; it is imprinted immediately on the reader's mind; it is irretrievable. Curiously, the description I have just given of the basic gesture of the active Internet user is very similar to the one that Don Basil jubilantly praises in The Barber of Seville: slander. Once released, it runs, it runs... it swells and explodes in a thunderclap in full view of everyone.

So there is not "The", but "A" freedom, A democracy. All relative. We should not therefore speak of absolutes, but of points of view. Before a ban becomes a ban, it is a point of view. What difference does it make to say so? Well, just about everything. Why does it change? Because by claiming the arbitrariness or the relative nature of a law, one also openly assumes what it may present as unjust or unequal (the famous double standards which seems to nag at some children, and rightly so, about the treatment of each other's opinions according to their background, culture and beliefs). By doing this, one becomes credible, including with regard to those who do not agree, rather than wanting to enfarinate (a humiliating feeling that is the source of the worst violence) the opponents, the unbelievers, those frustrated by such a barrier to their conscience. This is called authority.

True authority - by which I mean that which is exercised not for the sole purpose of repression, but to guide - has the duty to always fully assume that it is imposed because it believes that it is the right direction to take. It must therefore endorse the criticism and discontent it arouses, but always give a plausible, accessible and rational explanation for its origin. In my opinion, this is the definition of a responsible parent who must not allow himself to be overwhelmed, while guiding towards greater security an existence that is conducive to development, to blossoming and, above all, to the elaboration of an autonomous conscience.

I don't have children, neither in my life nor in my classes, and it is undoubtedly easier to say than to do, nevertheless it seems to me quite feasible with the heart, the adapted words and the method. A state is still a necessary parent for a civil society as infantile as ours: I am Charlie, right? And the next day, you, who would never have given more than a scornful glance, judging by the coarseness of its content, to this sad duck at the end of its life, you rush like on the first day of the sales to acquire this already mythical copy! And, here again, the backhanded words come out: you have the nerve to justify this opportunistic and grotesque reversal by calling it show of solidarity ?!

Freedom of expression of a "Pantyless" | Visual © David Noir
Freedom of expression of a "Sans-culotte" | Visual © David Noir

So listen to me, my friend Charlie of the last hour, I'm telling you, I've never been one and I don't need to be one to be two hundred thousand times Charlie in my own way since I've been crying and mocking the mediocrity of my species: All you want at this moment, even without knowing it, is to be a part of history, to have your own little piece of it, just to hang it on the wall, to put it in a drawer and to be able to say, "I was there. Cadaver or not - and it's much worse - as usual, you just shudder at the risk you'd take of not being fashionable, of having missed the place (not too far from home anyway) where you absolutely have to be.

Dear friend, there are no words to express the revulsion I feel for you. You don't deserve any of the comfort that was meant to free your mind and your hand, that brought you down from the tree and surrounds your present life, so much you don't know how to do anything with it. I sincerely vomit you and yet, I, who am not a terrorist, pity you and your mediocrity so much you afflict me, so much you hurt me by being so superficial, so agreed, so stupid.

I blame you for the cowardice of your opinion, which, to make matters worse, is currently being sold to us as a courage. My god what a use of words !

Such a job, I imagine, would make a medieval knight, a grognard of the Empire, perhaps even a professional soldier of our contemporary history, shudder. A little decency, once again, for pity's sake. Whether we like their drawings or not, the cartoonists who signed their caricatures and those who still sign them were and are, perhaps unconscious, certainly provocative, but above all they have shown and still show an exceptional audacity and endurance in the face of threats. The same goes for the police officers who have no illusions, I imagine, about the risks that their profession imposes on them, and the same goes for certain hostages whose incredible courage forces my admiration. But you, vulgar peasant, unbearable weathervane, grotesque consumer, you are nothing, deserve nothing, neither to benefit from a technology that others have developed and now impose on you, nor to be the champion of ideas that you have never taken the risk of having for yourself. Quite the opposite of what people say about you today, you are a collaborator at heart. You deserve Petain, Mao Tse Tung and the others, period. You've already proven that. Sadly, I say you will prove it again. Because such is man in his rightly fearful animality and I would not dream of reproaching him if he did not have the pretension of being Human. No, for sure, in my eyes, you don't deserve the violent and arbitrary death of a jihadist scum to punish you for being a jihadist yourself. You share me, human being. You've been cutting me in half, desperately, ever since I met you. Worse, since I became aware that I too belong to your group. You divide me incessantly between the desire to kill you without batting an eyelid for your filthy reversals, for your compromises with the integrity you claim for yourself, for the harm you do to yourself and the world. But the moment I raise my arm to strike down my rage on your revolting carcass, which would be pissing itself with fear at this moment, I let it fall back, collapse on myself and cry over your weakness and mine, because you touch me in spite of myself in my flesh, beyond sexes, social conventions and even intelligences. I say to myself that even if I have to spare you, I would like to come to love you, to feel less alone; to have comrades to laugh with. But, like the scalded creature born at the hands of Baron Frankenstein, I know that it would be an illusion from now on to bet more than a glance exchanged on the deep empathy that could unite us. I simply know that you are fickle and that effort is not your friend. You only think emotion, reason emotion, believe emotion, value emotion. Except that your beautiful emotion, poor narcissistic shit, so inescapable that it should be constantly heard and respected, we all know except you, that it will change tomorrow, if the sun is beautiful, if the rain ravines us. Unfortunate being of flesh, you are only that and your misfortune of being animal is doubled by the calamity of a weak conscience. All over the world then, rulers, soldiers, assassins, terrorists, all of you who like to arm your arms beyond reason... will you ever think of giving up your favorite toy, of sparing the flesh, this one that suffers so much? Take care of your neurosis, you are made of the same wood as the victims. And they will swear, I am sure, with a few exceptions, to wisely shut their mouths when the day comes, because they have not taken the time to think introspectively and to meditate. And how can you blame them, right? How can you not understand them? Yes, all the rest of the time. Not when they pretend to give themselves wings on an illusion in the mirror one morning. Not when they shout "To arms citizens! "only to find that they don't know the difference between lining up for Justin Bieber or Celine Dion and wishing to show support or offer themselves a symbol of freedom at the door of a stationery store. It would have been a shame if a bomb had gone off in front of a newsstand. These terrorists are so stupid! An idea every 14 years. Oh, good. That's good.

There is no such thing as a univocal personality, only multiple, ambiguous, contradictory and profound dualities, depending on the circumstances, caught between visceral fears, protectionism of the clan that protects, submission and erasure of individual speech in exchange for a roof over one's head and a life saved.

The terrible Jeckyll and his Mr Hyde will always be the fierce enemy of the utopian and pathetic Frankenstein monster. It is very sad and it is so. But don't tell me that I should give up my hatred - I will never use anything but words to express it - because it would suddenly be a dishonourable feeling when it is only one component among others of our being. Don't tell me that my hatred is not good, that I don't have the right to it, when it is vital for me to feel it towards a species that lies so much about its reality. Don't tell me that there are good feelings and bad feelings in all circumstances, unless we exchange all our philosophy libraries for Walt Disney's Reader's Digest. Are you serious? Do you really believe that amputating one of our natural vital components would make us grow? Morality is not nature. Just as with the law, let's assume that it is a necessary deprivation so that we can live together without posing it as an ethical postulate that appeared out of thin air like the Virgin Mary's pregnancy. When I hear the political and media discourse, when I read the reactions on the internet, I feel like shouting at Richard III, to the rescue ! Give me an adult for my kingdom!

The national impulse and solidarity do not require following a collective movement in order to be brought together, but rather to be oneself individually more than ever before, in order to inject some complexity - some would say "richness" - into the cogs of the machine's engine.

Shit, more free energy that won't make me eat, nor pay my rent. I had sworn to myself to keep it short. I really had something else to do. Too bad, but this time I won't correct the mistakes. It's true that nobody asked me anything.

David Noir

David Noir, performer, actor, author, director, singer, visual artist, video maker, sound designer, teacher... carries his polymorphous nudity and his costumed childhood under the eyes and ears of anyone who wants to see and hear.

This Post Has 2 Comments

  1. Sylviane

    Hello David!

    I really enjoyed your previous 2 articles, I have prepared a response in draft,
    the days go by and I run out of time...
    I hope to get my text in soon!

    I haven't read this 3rd article yet, I just printed it out to read at my leisure.

    Thanks to you for writing, your first article warmed my heart,
    I felt sick, even nauseous,
    I felt a little lonely not wanting to protest,
    I have since met other people who are a bit like me...

    Sylviane, explorer-funambulist,
    who doesn't pay his rent but still manages to eat!

  2. Jean

    Thank you for putting the right words to my consciously ill-defined but physically deep anger; it was worth as much relief as the mudras of my friend Luc.
    Jean, a boulangiste palavering in the West of Paris while waiting to find a summit (or a hole) in the Massif Central, the only place known to escape a little from all this...

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