Shut Up
I was having, I thought, a conversation with a friend the other day. My friend said “Oh, I have to tell you this, but you don’t get to say anything about it.”
Jesus. If you don’t care about my opinion or feelings about things, then why tell me anything at all? Censoring is the absolute worst thing that can be done to someone like me, and censoring is the perfect word for what this friend did to me. Censorship says that one’s comments have no value. Right after listening silently to their tirade of complaint, my friend said to me, “That’s why you’re so wonderful; you get me.”
Actually, yes I do. I know that my friend is self-centered and not much of a friend at all in this particular respect. I get that my ideas and opinions mean nothing. I get that I am not a valuable contributor in their eyes.
Now don’t get me wrong. I think my friend does care about me, but they are incapable of real friendship. I am not much more than a pet to be ordered around when I’m visible. There has never been any time in my life when I have tolerated the censoring or so personal a debasing of anyone, and I’ve been ready to get into a fist fight because of it. I grew up in a home with a tyrannical father who didn’t give a damn about anyone’s opinion. Just before she died my mother told me that the only reason for her staying with him was her Catholic upbringing. She was afraid that she would spend eternity in hell if she violated her marital vows. Instead, she spent 30-plus years of hell before she died under mysterious circumstances just before the divorce, which my father instituted, was finalized. I should point out here that my family was wealthy and the money was my mother’s. The divorce would have left my father with little compared to what he had, even with community property. The police were certain that my father killed her, but were unable to prove it.
Now, for all the time they were married, my mother rarely won an argument. Part of that was her fear of annoying my dad, and the rest of it was his dismissal of her having anything valuable to say. As a result of this bit of family theater, I have despised the idea of anyone quashing anyone else’s spirit.
Reeling back to my friend who told me not to speak, you may see why it stuck in my craw when they said it. It’s funny in a way; I was so busy thinking about being told not to speak, I didn’t hear a word my friend said. So when they changed the subject and spoke a bit –then asking me what I thought, I had no answer. I had no idea what they were talking about. So I just said “Gee, I don’t know.” That seemed to suffice because they didn’t look at me funny or challenge the response.
I concluded that I probably wouldn’t be hearing much of what they said in the future. As far as friendship is concerned, that pretty much went out the window along with their dismissal of my being able to make a contribution to the conversation. I’m not a stupid person; I think I’m pretty objective and pragmatic, mostly because the people around me say I am.
It’s a horrible thing to dismiss people and their opinions. I think the Founding Fathers of our nation were thinking in similar lines when they came up with the First Amendment. Of course, it’s a lot worse for a government or corporation to censor a person; they aren’t human beings. Governments and corporations are self-serving in all cases, ergo their opinions of people are less than worthless. It’s sickening that so many people allow them to have and espouse opinions. They demean themselves in the doing. People have important opinions, “entities” do not.
Opinions are like noses; everybody has one. It is those opinions and ideas which have brought us to the level we enjoy in the cosmos, warts and all. So I have the opinion that the speech one needs to protect the most are the words they care to hear the least. But all words and ideas which carry personal import are —well, important.
