Transcript - Assange on Humour & Politics

TRANSCRIPT [for quotation purposes, confirm audio] Julian Assange, Editor WikiLeaks & Carlos Latuff, political cartoonist Embassy of Ecuador, London August 26, 2015 VIDEO [6:46] https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=372&v=ZWru83kwu6A Julian Assange I'm here with Carlos, and he's asked me to talk about what I think about humour and social media. Well, for a long time I've had a theory about humour, and the power of humour: and humour is all about fear and the relief from fear. And most people are not politically engaged because of fear. Politics is all around us. It affects everything you do. You have to really try hard to avoid politics and, so, why do most people avoid it? It's because they're scared of it; they don't understand it; they look at the images on the TV, or from Hollywood movies, and they see CIA agents coming down in Blackhawk helicopters and they think as soon as they get involved that's what's going to happen to them. So how does this connect with humour? Well, humour is all about fear and the relief from fear. And I'll give you a very simple illustration of that, that is a classic joke in English. What's brown & sticky? A stick. And, why does that work? I mean, it's a silly joke. Why on earth does that work? And it's really easy. Well, you were thinking, what is brown and sticky. Well, there's several possibilities and none of them are good. There's nasty mud; there's a suppurating wound; and the obvious one is: sh*t. Sh*t is brown and sticky and sh*t is horrible, and we all have instincts to avoid sh*t; to not want to think about sh*t; to not want to smell sh*t; to not want to talk, even, to others about sh*t; because they won't like this idea in their heads, either. And, so, when we say, 'Oh, it's a stick,' we have this relief; and we feel flooded with the relief from the fear that we were really talking about sh*t. And that's something very basic to human beings. Basic in our physiology, that all the time we, in our natural environment, we are exposed to things that make us scared: a possible snake; sh*t; the potential anger of other people against us. And that creates a fear state in our bodies where we become tense and we draw in breath to scream, or to fight, or to run. And when we become scared we have to become scared fast, because we may have to act really fast. In fact, we often become scared faster than our brains can understand the true nature of the situation we're in. And, so, in a joke, we erect the state of fear in someone and then give relief to that fear and, so, this feeling of relief means that we're not scared anymore. And when we look at political cartoons, that's what they do, and that's why we laugh at them. So, we take someone who has power and we are scared of their power - some, you know, powerful government figure - such as Barak Obama, who has at his control drones and assassins, and so on - and then we show that he doesn't understand; or that he doesn't get it; or that he's a hypocrite; or, in some way, that he doesn't have the power that we all perceive him previously to have, or the power is illegitimate, or hypocritical, in some way. And, so, that strips a powerful figure of their fear and the ability to instill fear in others; and as a result people feel more courageous. And that's why political authorities, and powerful commercial authorities, are so scared of politician cartoonists. Because the cartoon strips them of their power to instil fear into others, and most authority is not gained through legitimate actions of being accurate, or just, or competent, but, rather, in installing fear into others. Now, what's happened with the internet in the - well, really, the past four or five years - is that we have gone from a text-based world to a world that is combined text and images. And that's why if WikiLeaks does a tweet and we have an image, or a cartoon from Carlos, and some text, it does really well. It spreads around. Whereas just tweeting text doesn't. And that's not just something that's done by political cartoonists; it's done by most people, now - creating images with text overlays. And the dominant social medium is now moving to one of images combined with text, and this is the traditional form of political cartooning. Now, to a degree, everyone is starting to head towards being a political cartoonist, and they should see the power in that; because it can remove fear that people have and, once people's fear is removed and they can, you know, knock down the false images that have been constructed by organisations like the US military, or by the police who want to project themselves as being tough and unconquerable - then, yeah, people can address the world as it truly is and not the world that is constructed by illusions that install fear in others. --- end audio --- ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- COMMENT lol ... I probably thought sh*t at first, followed by chocolate pudding, followed by sticky date pudding. Don't know that sh*t is particularly fear inducing in me.  Disgust maybe.  But it's a remote sense of disgust.  The mention of sh*t doesn't bother me.  Images of sh*t are more unappealing. Dealing with other people's anger or hostility is anxiety inducing, for me.  And I think I live in a state of permanent breath-holding ... for no reason at all.  I'm always in a hurry, I guess.  lol Politics can be avoided for heaps of reasons other than fear.  Genuine disinterest.  Boredom.  Apathy.  Apathy borne of conviction that nothing can change and that one's vote does not count. But I guess there's elements of fear in politics for those even on the outermost periphery of politics.  Fear of having unorthodox views.  Fear of becoming a target of those with opposing views.  Fear of drawing unwanted attention etc. Don't know about fear of CIA and Blackhawk choppers (unless maybe you're in Latin America or the Middle East), but, yeah, challenging the political status quo in any way (even if it is merely expressing opposing views) is fear inducing for an individual because all power rests with the state, rather than the individual. Or is that just my illusion? lol That was good.  I enjoyed that. PS   I just thought of a barrier to participation in politics (apart from motivation or desire).  Politics isn't for individuals; it's for groups. But there's no 'group fit' for an individual, unless the individual holds orthodox views or some kind or other, which neatly slot into the belief system of the group (which itself would aim to neatly slot into a formally endorsed or accepted societal ideological position, in order to have as wide a support base as possible).  Maybe participation politics beyond observation, isn't for everyone. Oops ... inexplicable typos. Must have gremlins.  lol ꕤ