So far – at least at time of writing – the civil unrest that has swept through so many English cities has not spilled north of the border. Knock on wood. But there is no room for complacency. Incidentally, somebody on Woman’s Hour (BBC Radio 4) the other day talked about “the invisible border”. It was said in the context of a discussion about enforced marriage. Apparently young women who are being trafficked abroad, usually by their own family, for purposes of compulsory nuptials for which they are less than enthusiastic, are encouraged to place a spoon (not a knife, or a fork) in their underwear. That will set off the alarm as they pass through airport security, and thus they are afforded an opportunity to discuss their plight, with a disinterested party, in confidence. In England, girls aged 16 can marry with parental permission, and those who campaign against forced marriage would like this option to be removed. Of course, in Scotland, you can marry aged 16 without parental permission. Is this not why Ms Lydia Bennet purportedly fled to Gretna with Mr Wickham? The activist on Woman’s Hour certainly wanted to remove this option “above the imaginary border”.
But we are not rioting in Glasgow, or Edinburgh, or Dundee, or Aberdeen, so maybe the border is more tangible than it appears. A young woman was stabbed in Stirling on Saturday evening. A man was arrested. Rumours circulated on social media, generated from south of the imaginary border, that three people had been stabbed, and the attacker was a Muslim. Police Scotland has said that this claim is false. This sort of thing is often called “misinformation and disinformation”, and I often wonder if there is a subtle difference between the “mis-” and the “dis-”. To my ear, disinformation sounds more nefarious than misinformation. Misinformation could be accidental, but disinformation is deliberate. So, somebody south of the imaginary border wants to foment trouble in Scotland. But it’s a strange word, and a strange notion, to disinform. It implies a retraction, in the same manner that you might be “disinvited” from a social function. You might inform the public that Huw Edwards is the voice of the BBC; then you might disinform the public by carefully removing all trace of Mr Edwards from the BBC archive. Mr Edwards would be like the character Syme in Orwell’s 1984. Syme does not exist. He never existed. But in fact “disinformation” is not retraction; rather it is blatant lying. So I propose that “disinformation” should be spelled “dysinformation”. The “dys-” prefix, as in “dysfunctional” or “dysarthria” or “dysthymia”, implies that something is ill, bad, or abnormal.
Dysinformation on social media spreads like wildfire. Going on to social media is a bit like going down to the pub. People’s tongues are loosened. Intemperate comments are liable to be voiced. After all, it’s just banter. The sorts of comments you are likely to read on social media are exactly like the sorts of comments you are likely to hear down the pub. The one difference is that pub talk is ephemeral, but comments on social media survive in perpetuity.
It turned out that the 17 year old perpetrator of heinous crimes in Southport last Monday was neither Muslim nor an immigrant, legal or illegal. A judge lifted the ban on identifying him, no doubt, because it was in the public interest that these facts be known. But it didn’t make a whit of difference. Apparently white working class males in England feel very disenfranchised.
There is a trope, a cliché, that social media of themselves are neither moral nor immoral; what matters is how these platforms are used. I would challenge that. You have to evaluate such entities as they exist in the real world, and not in some hypothetical sphere. X is puerile, or perhaps more accurately, adolescent. It’s the preoccupation of the teenager, to conform, be part of the group, one of the gang. It’s an indictment of our society that our politicians feel they have to have a social media presence, or they will simply disappear. Mr Trump uses his own platform, called, ironically, “Truth”.
Our universities embed academic courses within social media. I think they should stop doing this. University would be the ideal place in which to tell people that it is time to put away childish things. (Of course, the tech giants wouldn’t like it. But that is because they are making a lot of money.)
But I can’t say I’m hopeful. Universities, even, perhaps especially, north of the imaginary border, are notoriously craven when it comes to yielding to the whimsy of the Zeitgeist. In Edinburgh, the David Hume Tower is now 40 George Square. In Saint Andrews, the rector has been dismissed because she voiced, in a personal capacity, a view that was not remotely extreme, but was deemed to make part of the student body feel “unsafe”.
But I’m beginning to sound like one of the guys down the pub having a rant after a few jars. Any more outlandish remarks and I will be cancelled, disinvited, no-platformed, and disappeared. So on a cheerier note, let me say I’m thoroughly enjoying the BBC London Proms. Last night John Wilson conducted his own scratch bad, the Sinfonia of London, in an all-American programme, and tonight, Benjamin Grosvenor is going to play the rarely heard, 71 minute long, Busoni Piano Concerto. I’m almost tempted to take a trip south of the imaginary border.
jamescalumcampbell 