REFLECTIONS ON THE TWITTERSPHERE

For my sins I have discovered Twitter. Of course I have been superficially aware of the thing for some time but never really saw the point. Then after a discussion with a friend in a café in Piccadilly I decided to give it another go. The net result, [no pun intended] being that I soon became addicted.
The appeal of Twitter is not hard to fathom, the potential to take part in a national and sometimes international conversation and to communicate with those whom, outside of virtual reality, you would have no possibility of conversing and - for the politically minded like myself - the chance to add your penny worth to the cut and thrust of political and cultural debate.
The atmosphere on Twitter is a strange combination of the intimate and private and public and open. The conversation runs on a spectrum from overly cutesy and saccharine to the virulent and abusive. In political discourse in particular licence is given to a level of rudeness unusual even in the normally acerbic dialogue of politics. This rudeness often descending into gutter abuse and the flagrantly ad hominem. It is this aspect of Twitter that most interests me.
Cutesy 
In the atomised and alienated world of the big cities social media has created the means of contact and interaction that is, at least superficially, democratic and open. At its best the cut and thrust on Twitter is democratic and open. Where else, for example, could I express my disdain for the current Foreign Secretary’s abject response to Israeli settlement policy on the West Bank, directly to the Foreign Secretary himself?
There is always however an undercurrent of anger in me, a feeling of my own real impotence. I can stab and thrust at the things I hate and despise but no real blood is ever drawn. So often I sit on the edge of civilised discourse.
The psychology of this discourse is obviously deeply linked with the strange combination of sitting in the comfort of your own surroundings, safe from any physical come backs, whilst engaged in acerbic exchanges with strangers. It also speaks of a deep anger running just below the surface amongst citizens who feel disenfranchised and voiceless. For many Twitter has become their voice.
At the very margins of this group are the socially inadequate, the mentally unwell and the sociopathic souls who in Twitter have found a means to enter the world from which they have been excluded. This is the world from which the Troll has emerged.
I speak of these things in awareness of echoes in my own psyche, indeed anyone who has ever shouted at a radio or television screen has glimpsed the anger and impotence of the Troll. 

Popular posts from this blog

NESRINE MALIK AND THE UNSUNG VIRTUES OF HYPOCRISY

Image
As I write this a 27 year old woman, Mariam Ibrahim, has just had a baby in a Sudanese prison, ‘the condition of the mother and baby is not known as Ibrahim's lawyer and her husband, a US citizen, had been denied access to her. Omdurman women's prison has a basic clinic, where the child is thought to have been born. Ibrahim has been shackled since being imprisoned.’ [1]   Mariam also has an 18 month old child who is also being held in prison with her. The ‘crime’ for which she is imprisoned is apostasy, for which she has received the death sentence. She has also been sentenced to 100 lashes, for the additional crime of having sex with her Christian husband. Although she has been a lifelong Christian her father was a Muslim, Sudanese sharia law forbids women to marry outside the Muslim faith, men needless to say can do as they please in these matters. Mariam Ibrahim and her husband.  Nineteen countries punish their citizens for apostasy, and in 12 of those countries...
Read more

INTERVIEW WITH TOM VAGUE

Image
Tom Vague At the top end of All Saints Road there is a refuge, an enclave in which a local Bohemian culture retains a foothold, this is the Book & kitchen , a cafĂ©/bookshop with adjoining terrace. Here the bustle of the nearby market gives way to conversation, conversation in the presence of images of the recent, and not so recent, past. The past of an area that has contributed so much to the life and culture of the city. I was there to meet local historian Mr Tom Vague a man intimately familiar with so much of this history. What Tom doesn’t know about the recent history of the area probably is not worth knowing. With Tom’s energy and effort Colville Community Forum, supported by City Living Local Life, recently held a gathering at The Book and Kitchen to celebrate this rich history. February 16 6-9 Pm, with Film Screening and Readings Exhibition February 16-26 2016. Featuring 30 Classic Westway Photographs and Posters. This represents one of a number of initiatives of t...
Read more

VOLINE AND TROTSKY

Волин и Троцкого A Footnote in Russian History In April 1917 the Russian anarchist revolutionary Voline* and Leon Trotsky were both stranded in New York as the Russian revolution broke out in Petrograd , inevitably coming into contact with one another. Voline stated that he felt that the Bolsheviks, given their ruthlessness and single minded determination, would ultimately come to power. They would then begin eliminating their opponents, amongst whom of course were the anarchists; this persecution would end with the Bolsheviks shooting the anarchists “like partridges.” Trotsky was dismissive, they might have their differences but they were comrades in arms, they had different interpretations of the revolutionary process but shared the same goals. It was nonsense to speak of Bolsheviks shooting revolutionary comrades, “we are socialists, comrade Voline! So we are not your enemies….” [1] In December of 1919, whilst gravely wounded Voline was captured by the Bolshe...
Read more