Let All Be Heard

I’ve recently been doing a bit of scribbling in one form or another and not wishing to overestimate my capabilities, I’ve been fairly cautious about estimating the value of any of these efforts. But at least this did cause me to reflect on the fact that we do not hear nearly enough from ‘ordinary people’ as to the views that they hold on important matters.

This is especially true when these views diverge from ‘expert’ opinion, received ‘wisdom’, what leaders (elected, unelected, members of special interest groups or simply self appointed) and the wealthy owners of the press tell us and what we are supposed to accept as true. All too often, the people are manipulated by these privileged individuals and are not respected. This is not how it should be.

I for one would like to hear more from this needlessly silenced majority drawing on the wealth of experience that they hold and the abundant common sense that they have acquired. I say ‘silenced’ rather than ‘silent’ for good reason. People tend to be reluctant to say what they think on many subjects of substance, sometimes because they have been made, by various social pressures, to feel inhibited or embarrassed about expressing their own sincere views.

It is unfortunate that there are many people who may have very interesting things to say but who are silenced by this sort of anxiety, a fear that is often, sometimes deliberately, put into them by critics who, superior beings that they no doubt are, would much rather hear echoes of their own voices.

There are those with power and influence who without a second thought imagine that they speak for the people at large and take the liberty of doing so, invited or not, whenever they feel like it and who do not relish being told to ‘hold on a bit’.

But each person is distinct from all others and accordingly will have a unique perspective on life and singular experience of the issues that it inevitably raises. It is true that one risks looking rather odd when, at a certain stage in life, putting personal understandings and judgments into the public domain. To this I simply say ‘If this is the case, then so be it!’ No doubt I will find myself amongst those people who I believe should be suffered gladly!

In my own case (happily devoid of power and influence I hasten to add!) the stray reader may also detect what might be seen as my tendency to attempt to square circles! I admit that I find such exercises irresistibly tempting but, this said, I am not sure that the strict geometric impossibility is the best metaphor.

Perfect circles and perfect squares exist only as abstract concepts. What’s more, I enjoy making seeming impossibilities possible. In the end, this may be so only in some respects, or when viewed from unconventional angles. But once ‘imperfection’, albeit slight, is allowed to enter the picture so also do far richer possibilities come into being ‘amidst every perfection is a measure of imperfection’.

Furthermore, conducting the circle ‘squaring’ exercise can itself be revealing, and elements that may in abstract have appeared to be irreconcilable are usually not quite so in practice. Unsuspected affinities may come to light, and our understanding of each may be much enhanced.

All this, of course, being the exact opposite of, for example, tribalistic party political propaganda, commercial lobbying or certain religious recruitment and conversion processes – and so much the better for that. The divisiveness that these groups can create damages and diminishes our society.

In this light, I firmly believe that we should all take courage and make clear what we think regardless of the pontifications of leaders. We should do this whenever we can and in ways that suit each of us best, since all of us will have something distinctive and worthwhile to contribute and our society will be all the better for it.