The Theatre Of Cruelty.

A Spectacle Of Punishment: Clare Curran’s fate: public, prolonged and filled with intense emotional pain; was out of all proportion to her transgressions. As always in the Theatre of Cruelty, we were treated to the spectacle of hate without cause; punishment without mercy; and the unimpeded triumph of institutional sadism.

“HARDER! HARDER! I want to hear her scream!” The awful images and dialogue from that late-night arts documentary, broadcast forty years ago, were unforgettable in the worst way. One of those highbrow British television networks was examining the “Theatre of Cruelty”: an artistic movement born out of the surrealist revolution of the 1920s and 30s which was making something of a comeback in the work of the French playwright, Jean Genet. The scene seared on my memory was an out-take lasting only a few seconds: but those few seconds were enough.

The shock-factor intrinsic to the Theatre of Cruelty was intended to demolish the smug assumptions of its audiences by exposing the violence and sadism lying just below the surface of everyday life. The playwright’s purpose was to lay bare the cruelty embedded in the institutions that educate, employ, entertain and govern us. It certainly had that effect on me, a callow youth of 16 or 17. The sheer delight with which one of the characters urged on the torturer to new heights of depravity was profoundly affecting.

Why am I reliving all this? Because the recent treatment of Clare Curran brought it all back. The Theatre of Cruelty and contemporary politics have converged in a truly alarming fashion.

What distinguishes the Theatre of Cruelty from traditional theatre is its rejection of the classical precepts of dramatic art. Traditionally, plays are both a representation and an affirmation of the accepted moral order, in which those who seek to overthrow or evade its strictures are judged and punished. Or, more colloquially: drama is about reassuring us that the good guys always win. In the Theatre of Cruelty, however, not only do the good guys not win, but they are subjected to the most appalling torments by the bad guys – who are not judged or punished in any way at all.

The parallels with contemporary politics are, hopefully, clear. What start out as morality plays: demonstrations of what happens to politicians when they break the rules; very quickly degenerate into something quite different. The villains of these political morality plays, it soon transpires, are, like Shakespeare’s King Lear “more sinned against than sinning”. Their fates: public, prolonged and filled with intense emotional pain; are out of all proportion to their transgressions. As always in the Theatre of Cruelty, we are treated to the spectacle of hate without cause; punishment without mercy; and the unimpeded triumph of institutional sadism.

The surrealist pioneer of the Theatre of Cruelty, Antonin Artaud, envisaged an entirely new configuration of the theatrical experience. He wanted his audiences huddled in the middle of the auditorium with the players performing not in front of them but all around them. His direction also called for them to be bombarded by all manner of startling special effects – to the point where their senses were overloaded and they became disoriented.

A more vivid anticipation of the twenty-first century media experience is difficult to imagine. Artaud wanted his audiences to be at the mercy of his players; to dissolve the boundaries, both physical and psychological, which conventional theatres use to keep the audience safe from the action on stage. But, it is precisely the absence of boundaries – most particularly moral boundaries – that defines the experience of contemporary social media. The players are, as Artaud foresaw, all around us, and their viciousness is without restraint. We are transformed into witnesses of cruelties from which we cannot turn away.

The damage caused by this extraordinary environment is difficult to assess. That a few seconds exposure to the Theatre of Cruelty’s horrors left such a deep scar on the imagination of my teenage self makes me wonder what the ubiquitous and almost casual cruelties of twenty-first century media are doing to the imaginations of today’s teenage viewers. What sort of moral order is being communicated in the very public crucifixions of politicians, sportspeople and every other variety of celebrity? And what do these endlessly repeated spectacles of punishment tell us about the tastes of the contemporary citizen?

Forty years ago, we looked back with a mixture of superiority and horror at the vast crowds which once gathered to watch public executions. Forty years later, in our panoptic on-line dystopia, Artaud’s intuitive apprehension that the virtues of civilisation are barely skin-deep can only be described as cruelly prophetic.

This essay was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 14 September 2018.

Freedom Of Expression And Its Discontents.

If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. - John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

 

FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION has long been regarded as the cornerstone of liberty. Indeed, without the ability to speak our minds freely the whole notion of liberty begins to unravel. Freedom of expression is vital in at least one other respect – it helps us to arrive at and recognise the truth. This is important because, as many philosophers and religious leaders have observed, it is the truth that sets us free.

 

The Left’s relationship with freedom of expression has never been an easy one. Ever since the French Revolution of 1789-99 the desire to maintain the purity of the revolutionary message has weighed heavily against those who dared to raise objections concerning the Revolution’s means – if not its ends.

 

The relaxation of state censorship is the first and most important gift to any revolutionary cause. Historically, the sudden appearance of posters, pamphlets, newspapers and books authored by those whose voices had hitherto been suppressed has always been the surest sign that the old order was crumbling. In today’s repressive regimes it is the unfettered use of social media: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and blogs; which signals the arrival of the revolutionary moment. Think of the Arab Spring.

 

In its youth the Revolution hails freedom of expression as sacrosanct. The revolutionaries know that without it the power of the elites cannot be challenged. As the Revolution matures, however, and new power structures begin to replace the old, the criticism and analysis which freedom of expression makes possible seems less and less like an unqualified good. To the new occupants of these new structures, it is the protection and consolidation of the Revolution’s gains that should take priority. There is no surer sign that the Revolution is over than when the new power elite begins to punish people for exercising their right to free speech.

 

By this analysis it is clear that the social and cultural revolutions of the 1960s and 70s have well-and-truly passed their expiry date. The great provocations of the Hippy era: think of the Broadway musical “Hair”; the proliferation of revolutionary underground comics; the human “Be-Ins” and “Love-Ins”; Ken Kesey’s “Acid tests”; would today be dismissed as either infantile or inappropriate.

 

Only last week, on the University of California’s Berkeley campus, birthplace of the “free speech movement” which touched off the student revolt of the 1960s, the world was treated to the spectacle of furious students doing everything in their power to prevent the Alt-Right provocateur, Milo Yiannopoulos, from exercising his right to (yep, you guessed it) free speech.

 

In discussing these sorts of incidents with contemporary leftists, I have been staggered by the consistency of their responses. “What you’ve got to understand, Chris,” they reply, “is that while people have the right to express themselves, they have no right to expect that the things they say will not have consequences.”

 

If free speech is met with "consequences" - is it any longer free?

 

Just what those consequences look like can be seen every hour of every day on social media. Relentless incivility; extraordinary personal abuse; the issuing of threats to attack (and even kill) those whose expression is deemed offensive to, or transgressive of, the great revolutionary “truths” of the once “new” social movements; this, sadly, has become the norm on what passes for the “Left” in 2017.

 

The liberal tradition of responding to the expression of ideas with which you disagree with a reasoned, evidence-based argument in rebuttal no longer seems to fall within either the ideological of intellectual repertoire of today’s left-wingers. The only form of argument they seem capable of deploying is the abusive and circumstantial “Argumentum ad Hominem” – attacking the person rather than his or her ideas.

 

In his celebrated treatise, “On Liberty”, the nineteenth century English philosopher, John Stuart Mill, states: “If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.”

 

In the ears of far too many contemporary leftists this oft-quoted passage will sound either incomprehensible or offensive. (Mill does, after all, use the sexist noun “mankind” rather than the more appropriate and gender-neutral term, “Humanity”.) To their way of thinking it is entirely right and proper that those who give voice to offensive or hateful opinions should be silenced. If these people would rather not endure the consequences of exercising their freedom of expression, then they should STFU.

 

“Those who defy the self-evident truths of the new order,” thunder its uncompromising defenders, “must endure the consequences – humiliation and pain!”

 

What tyrant king or totalitarian dictator could possibly disagree?

 

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Wednesday, 8 February 2017.

A Disturbing Precedent

GUILTY MEN? Tried and convicted in the Court of Public Opinion for their insensitive questioning of "Amy", a friend of one of the "Roastbusters'" victims, Maori broadcasters Willie Jackson and John Tamihere were taken off the air. Radio Live's decision was assisted by massive criticism from social media and direct pressure on the radio station's advertisers. But, were Willie and JT's failings personal or cultural? Is it pure coincidence that their Pakeha colleagues - also guilty of insensitivity in relation to the Roastbusters scandal - have escaped Willie's and JT's fate?

 

AM I ALONE, amidst all the liberal self-congratulation at the silencing of Willie Jackson and John Tamihere, in experiencing a chill of foreboding? Has no one else on the Left paused for a moment to consider what manner of precedent this appeal to advertisers may have set? Has no thought been given to how – or even if – the demise of The Willie & JT Show can be reconciled with the NZ Bill of Rights’ guarantee of freedom of expression?

 

Because there can be little doubt that the decision by so many businesses to withdraw their advertising from Radio Live was prompted by the implicit threat of a consumer boycott of their products if they didn’t. Bluntly, the proposition put to Radio Live amounted to: “Take these guys off the air, or, first off, we’ll hurt your advertisers; and then we’ll hurt you.”

 

And it worked. Messrs Jackson and Tamihere have been silenced and their show shut down for at least two months. They have been tried in the Court of Public Opinion for expressing opinions and evincing attitudes that a great many New Zealanders deem to be not only objectionable but dangerous. They have been found guilty and punished.

 

But, when you think about it, they didn’t really get a fair trial – did they?

 

In a fair trial they would have been asked why they treated the young woman caller, Amy, the way they did. Were their questions about her friend’s attire and the amount of alcohol she’d consumed framed deliberately, to inflict maximum harm and humiliation? Or were they merely reflective of the values and assumptions that characterised the circumstances in which her inquisitors were raised?

 

At a fair trial, someone might have posed the question: “Is it more or less likely that Willie’s and JT’s alleged “misogyny” reflected a predisposition toward deliberate cruelty? Or, was it the product of deeply ingrained misconceptions about sexuality and gender?” And, if we’re willing to concede that it might have been the latter, then hasn’t the discussion moved on from failings that are personal, to responses that may be cultural?

 

At a fair trial, Willie’s and JT’s defence attorney might even have tried to turn the story around to where it was no longer about sexism but racism. Because the charge of rape, when levelled against a black man, carries with it all manner of disreputable historical baggage.

 

What did Willie and JT see when 3 News broke the Roastbusters story? Two young brown faces. What did they hear? Middle-class Pakeha liberals baying for their blood. To what did their first thoughts turn? Rape Culture or Lynch Law?

 

And the sad fact is, there could have been a fair trial – or, at least, a free exchange of views about the many issues raised by the Roastbusters scandal. Had the first instinct of Willie's and JT’s critics been to ask Radio Live for an opportunity to go head-to-head with them on air; to challenge their ideas about young women and rape; then the result might well have been a week’s worth of productive and progressive dialogue. But that is not what happened. Rather than korero, the left-wing social media’s first instinct was to condemn, threaten, punish and shut down.

 

And now that they have tasted blood; now that they have fixed the heads of these two high-profile Maori “misogynists” above the gates of their virtual Utopia; listen to what some in the left-wing social media believe it to mean:

 

“Old media Radio Live have been damaged by the new media blogs. The power of Twitter and Facebook allows a focused roar from the crowd to descend with crushing force on whatever target it decides to destroy. It’s trial by social media.”

 

Now, I’m pretty sure that the author of those sentences, The Daily Blog editor, Martyn Bradbury, did not intend them to sound quite so triumphant. Because the situation he is describing in no way merits self-congratulation. Nor is it one which any leftist worthy of the name will approach with equanimity.

 

Freedom of expression is absolutely basic to any movement which places challenging the status quo at the core of its political practice. In denying that freedom to Willie Jackson, John Tamihere and Radio Live, the Left has set a precedent upon which, at the first opportunity, a vengeful Right will pounce.

 

This essay was originally published in The Waikato Times, The Taranaki Daily News, The Timaru Herald, The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 15 November, 2013.