You’d have to have lived under a rock to not be aware of Larry Flynt during his heyday. Even if you never “read” Hustler, his shenanigans and Supreme Court hearings made headlines. Then, of course, for a younger generation, came Milos Forman’s The People vs. Larry Flynt, starring Woody Harrelson as Flynt (a little bit of a cleaned-up version of the man, but still: an interesting film).
In the wake of Flynt’s passing – I’ve been thinking even more about freedom of speech, which is on the wane – or at least, the valuing of it in principle is – I’m shocked at artists who want to shut up other artists, I’m shocked at things like people responding to the Charlie Hebdo atrocity with “well, if those cartoonists hadn’t done what they did, maybe they wouldn’t have had to be murdered at their desks”. Like, literally. And these are “tolerant” people saying this. Salman Rushdie didn’t “read the room” and look what happened to him. These “tolerant” people wouldn’t have stuck up for him at all, they would have approved of the fatwa. “Well, if he hadn’t written what he did …” (And this is what happened back then too. So-called liberal tolerant people retreated into a kind of mealy-mouthed silence. Susan Sontag, though, became a fire-breathing dragon holding up a torch for Freedom of Speech. Good for her.)
You need to stick up for free speech, even if you don’t like said speech – because the boomerang could so easily swing around and YOU’RE on the chopping block, and you would want people to stick up for YOU and YOUR right to say whatever the hell you want to say. It really is the principle of the thing. Social media has exacerbated the situation. I find the rise of the term “read the room” and people’s unquestioning acceptance of its truth – alarming. Like, okay, yes, in some circumstances, you should read the room – it’s good manners – but in other circumstances, NO. I’m not “reading the room” because some rooms are SHITTY and some rooms are filled with SHITTY people, and I am not going to play by the SHITTY room’s SHITTY rules. If the room is sexist or misogynistic or homophobic? FUCK the room. If the room is racist or anti-Semitic? FUCK the room. Like most everything: one size does not fit all. One rule does not apply in every single circumstance. But people can’t deal with this, boy do people love rules. Social media values consensus. I fear consensus. What I was thinking about free speech was: the people who push the boundaries of free speech are rarely “respectable”. If they were “respectable” they wouldn’t push the way they do, testing the boundaries, calling out hypocrisy – If you allow THIS, then why not THIS? There is no one answer to these questions, and Larry Flynt may not be your cup of tea, AND you may not want HIM to be the representative for freedom of speech protections … but if you look at history, it’s usually the freaks, outlaws, and … libertines? … who challenge the status quo. People like James Joyce. James Baldwin. Oscar Wilde. Eminem. Lenny Bruce. Larry Kramer. John Waters. Madonna. The Maquis de Sade. Mae West. Jonathan Swift (putting him on here because satire is even more dangerous than pornography). Pioneers, all. Outlaws, all. Imperfect people, all. As we all are. And what matters is not that we “settle this thing” once and for all – I’m not big on language like “once and for all” – it’s tyrannical, and I’m talking quite literally – tyranny wants to settle things once and for all. What IS important is that we keep asking the questions, that we value living in a society where people CAN test the boundaries – and even pay a price for it, if necessary – as Flynt did, again and again – but paying that price is a hell of a lot different than not allowing these questions to be asked in the first place. Not allowing dialogue is Tyranny. So no thanks. I feel very strongly about this. Freedom of speech means protecting speech I don’t like, too. This does not include calls for violence. Speech that incites violence, yelling “Fire” in a crowded theatre, you know the drill, or at least you should – is not protected. But someone writing a book or a song filled with violent speech you may find offensive is protected speech. The entire world found Joyce’s Ulysses offensive. It was banned for over a decade in the United States. Books were seized at customs. Entire shiploads of books were turned away. Because SOME people felt that OTHER people should not be allowed to read said book, because it was filthy and degenerate, and SOME people want to make moral decisions for the REST of us. Hordes of people threw out CDs by the Dixie Chicks, set them on fire, rolled over them with tractors, because of the Chicks’ comments on President Bush. Okay, fine, you do you, and you doing this to Dixie Chicks CDs is protected “speech” but when you take that a step further and start to call for the thing to be banned – so that nobody else can listen – get the fuck outta here. We’re into book-burning territory. In 1821, German poet Heinrich Heine said, in what may very well be the most prescient comment of all time: “Where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people also.” Carry this all on down to song lyrics you might not like, books/articles you might find offensive, to whatever else. People are free to not support said artist. This is not splitting hairs. It’s the difference between democracy and tyranny. Pornography has always been on the front lines of this thing.
I am no expert on Larry Flynt, but I wanted to point you towards two good pieces:
Vice did a really interesting profile of him in 2016, which gets into all of this.
I really really love my friend Glenn Kenny’s obit, published over at Rogerebert.com.
It seems to me that “read the room” always follows the words that—in most cases—needed to be said. I agree that it’s a loathsome phrase. When I think about the impulse that drives the phrase, and try to understand the mindset, it just doesn’t come. I really don’t know what that urge feels like.
Though I do wonder if people are muddling the private and the public in some way. You touched on this directly: “One rule does not apply in every single circumstance.” And, as you wrote, people *truly* dislike nuance. (Or, in other words, they dislike what makes life most interesting…)
If I’m having dinner with a small group—pre Jan 2020, unfortunately—and someone says something that grates, that’s off-beat in some way, perhaps I’ll ignore it. I don’t mean that I’m ignoring something grand, such as sexism or racism. Just words that I don’t agree with, that aren’t quite right to my ear. Maybe I’ll speak, or maybe I’ll “read the room” and realize that it’s a friendly, comfortable dinner, and my objective in life isn’t to persuade everyone of everything at all times.
And that seems like a reasonable principle for certain, individual situations in my private life. The same principle doesn’t apply, however, for what’s in public, whether that’s social media or anything else. “Read the room” is nonsensical in any situation where there’s the potential for a large, or simply public, audience. The same example doesn’t work, and it seems that people are either confused about the differences, or want the benefits of familia norms while they are in public.
Charles – not responding to your really thoughtful comment was a total oversight on my part. I read the whole thing at the time – meant to respond – but I had just moved and therefore totally forgot.
I want to thank you for giving me a lot to think about – and I agree about the private/public part – although I hadn’t put it in those words. “Read the room” is not a Rule for Living – it can be very useful in private life for sure – sometimes, meh, it’s not worth it to “get into it” – but in politics or social conflict on a large scale? I don’t know. Read the room is a dangerous precedent and encourages self-censorship – freedom of speech is important and I’m really concerned at … the lack of concern about it right now – or, it’s probably not just “right now” but it feels particularly intense right now. I mean, people are telling each other to “read the room” on twitter – Read the room on Twitter?? That’s a shitty crazy room with terrible rules and NO I’m not reading that room.
// want the benefits of familia norms while they are in public.
//
really interesting. I think there’s something to that – I will definitely think about it more.
I loved at the time it was against Jerry Falwell. It was a fun joke. Falwell spent his life saying the most horrible things.
Debra – that was a great era for the magazine. They were ruthless towards him. GOOD.