When the Internet arrived in Amsterdam around 1994, it exposed something quickly: people cannot handle the opinions of others. For a brief moment, everything seemed fine. Then came the complaints. Sexism. Discrimination.
Sexism was inevitable. Computing was a male domain, and men among themselves say things they would rather not defend in public. Nothing new there.
Discrimination carried more weight. Wars and poverty in the Middle East brought refugees to the Netherlands, and tension followed. Politics did what it always does. It amplified it. In a small country, pressure has nowhere to go.
At the time, I missed most of it. I was occupied with literature and software. That kept me out of the noise.
Now the noise is everything.
Thirty years later, sensitivity is no longer a byproduct. It is the system. Social media depends on it. Every opinion is treated as an attack. Every fact as a provocation.
The cause is obvious. A constant stream of news, fed into people who were never prepared for it, produces agitation. Not insight. Not understanding. Agitation.
What people refuse to accept is simple. Humanity has always been flawed. It is not improving at the pace we would like. It may not improve at all. Instead of accepting that, we attempt to control language.
Words become punishable. Not metaphorically. Literally. And once that line is crossed, freedom of expression becomes conditional. Those in power decide what is acceptable. Everyone else adjusts or disappears.
This is not new. Only more efficient.
Meanwhile, we laugh. World leaders are reduced to jokes, the President of the United States a reliable punchline. Entire audiences laugh on cue, while elsewhere people are being killed in numbers large enough to be abstract.
I do not find that funny. That, apparently, is my own sensitivity.
So much for distance. So much for detachment.
I am no different. Just another passenger, trying to remain composed, sounding not unlike stewardess Stevenson in an old routine by Lenny Bruce:
“I am the kind of person… You know, I don’t care who my next-door neighbours are. Please share the magazines. There is one Redbook. And a sandwich… No, I ate that.”