We often hear that speech is a power of domination. But we do not see often enough any description of speech as being the means of liberation. An introduction to direct democratic speech may be the occasion to point out how speech is the core of our empowerment.
The first problem we have to face is the way our culture treats communication. We often hear that we live in the era of communication. The philosopher Philippe Breton uses the word “manipulation”. Yes, of course, when I say this word, you might react and think about conspiracy theories. But my purpose is not to speak about conspiracy. We have an even bigger problem with the way we share opinions, the way we judge the truth of an opinion; a problem of which conspiracy is just a symptom.
The problem is that we interact with a very large range of opinions - this accessibility has never been so wide. The way we interact with those opinions, for instance on the Internet, but more and more frequently in traditional media that have to adapt to the Internet, is based upon the concept of “buzz”. We are opinion-consumers. We select opinions as we select a fancy object in stores in order to be considered cool. We can show that we have done everything needed to have access to it. The thing is that opinions are becoming objects of consumption. I hope some of us are frightened by the mere idea.
Let us take a look at these opinions. We can see something like “Hugo Chavez believes that the USA is inoculating South-American presidents with cancer.” Just as we consider that every opinion is admissible, because of so-called free speech, and because of relativism, we also consider opinions without giving importance to the facts they are related to; even worse, we consider these opinions not at all in terms of them carrying adequate proofs to justify themselves, but in terms of them being more or less “spectacular”. It is good to be reacting to opinions. But it is not enough to react by answering “I believe” or “I don’t believe” – or worse, “I like”, or “I don’t like”. It is not enough to be a believer in conspiracy just because this makes you a cool activist.
The first tool for critical thinking is to make the effort of never considering an opinion for itself, but as a configuration of certain facts, namely, a representation, which includes a certain set of causes, consequences, comparisons, etc., which have to be put under inquiry one by one. One frightening thing is to see that we put more emphasis on the spectacular aspect of opinions than on investigating in order to know whether each and every fact related to them is true or false; another (apparent) complexity we most often refuse to face is how accurate and precise are the relationships from cause to effect presented. Another thing is that we give more importance, in our daily discussions, to opinions about very broad or very long term aggregations of facts, which are by far too complicated to be the objects of a true/false evaluation, than to smaller sets of facts for which we need emergency judgement and reaction. The context about which I am speaking is political efficiency, in the domain of an emerging direct democratic speech. I am not saying that there are not boundaries for public speaking. I am just saying that we have to search for boundaries that we can all agree to be disruptive of political public speaking in a context where political action is needed, and threatened by extreme forms of speaking. Let me take an example. Is it more important to argue whether Third World War is going to happen, or whether the Illuminati are controlling the world[1], than to judge and define counter arguments and concrete actions or reactions to a governmental decision that is certainly going to worsen the socio-economic situation of your country?
Conspiracy theories, one more time. I cannot promise it will be the last... The important thing is not to know whether these theories are true or false. Opinions can be true or false, partly true or partly false, but there is nothing inside the opinions themselves which can show whether they are true or false. The problem is that we put more importance on the belief than on the reasons we have for believing. This may be why we do not give speech enough strength to give rise to concrete action. And this may be also why we are totally satisfied with this truly unsatisfactory use of speech, because it puts a label on the oppressor and gives a name to Evil. It thereby fulfils a set of emotional needs that hinder us from a more profound effectiveness of speech in our day to day lives. What Nietzsche called resentment is the most comfortable spiritual energy we use to replace the will to live, the will for empowerment, or even more, the will for change.
We should enter the gloomy landscape of proofs. There are different types of proofs. You can find a list of them in any good manual of argumentation. My concern is in something that I will call the improvisational sharing of opinions in a context where clear collective action is needed, i.e. in the context of civil society being bound together by local meetings, in order to define autonomous change of concrete situations.
This will be the subject of my next post, based on the analysis of the functioning of GAs in Occupy Movements.
[1] ...Which would imply the clear presentation of all the ramifications of power (what is more abstract than power) and the proof that all the ramifications lead to only one source (the myth of the first cause: it is the fundamental myth of all religious principles!).
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