I’ve had an interesting ‘debate’ with someone I follow online this morning about whether or not people with platforms on social media and elsewhere should speak up about issues such as the Epstein files or if they should remain silent. I fall firmly in the speak out space, the person I follow appears to be the exact opposite.
This person’s argument is that it is not the responsibility of people with large platforms to speak out. That their platform should just be used for their business purposes. They are in the self-development arena and this all arose because of a post that has gone viral criticising the likes of Tony Robbins, Mel Robbins, Brendon Bouchard and Oprah Winfrey amongst others of not speaking out about Epstein. Particularly as Noam Chomsky and Deepak Chopra have been named in the files and the correspondence is tremendously uncomfortable reading. Those who have remained silent have a combined audience of a quarter of a billion people, though there is likely a large crossover of people between them all so let’s be conservative and say one hundred million people (Oprah’s audience number). The person I follow (who has had a contract with Tony Robbins) says that they shouldn’t have to speak out about Epstein or the links with Chomsky and Chopra – despite the fact that these people have professional ties with both (my addition there). That they should, in fact, remain silent.
Now, anyone who has read my blogs knows my feelings on community. On us all being one. On how we are here to serve our society and try to make it the best it can possibly be. So, for those reasons, I fundamentally disagree with this person. I think it is a function of society that when we become aware of heinous and disgusting actions by others, we call them out. And, if we have a significant platform which gives us a measure of influence, we are bound by the unofficial rules of society to do so. That we do not indulge in selective outrage when it is fashionable or the ‘thing’ to shout out about. When I pointed this out, I was told ‘where has shouting out about things ever stopped things from happening’ and I was utterly gobsmacked to use a technical term. Because it went alongside with an acknowledgement that silence enables those heinous and disgusting acts to proliferate.
Now, this is the point I made to that person and that I want to reiterate here. If someone hadn’t decided to speak out, we wouldn’t have universal suffrage in most democracies in the world. If someone hadn’t decided to speak out, we wouldn’t have banned the slave trade in the West (acknowledging that it does still continue elsewhere in the world, which is beyond reprehensible). If someone hadn’t decided to speak out, men would still be able to rape their wives in marriage and call it conjugal rights in western countries (again, it is still allowed elsewhere in the world). If someone hadn’t decided to speak out, women would still have to have their father’s/husband’s permission to open a bank account. If someone hadn’t decided to speak out, we would still have child labour and the union movement would not have happened. If someone hadn’t decided to speak out, we wouldn’t have democracy in the first place. The American War of Independence and French Revolution would never have happened.
The list is endless of what we wouldn’t have if someone hadn’t decided to speak out.
Speaking out, seeing that something is wrong and saying it openly and loudly until enough people listen is akin to innovating. It’s based on questioning. It’s based on thinking ‘if I do this I wonder what will happen’. So, if I say ‘I think everyone over the age of 18 regardless of gender or affluence should be able to vote’ and I repeat that enough, someone will listen. We have innovations because of that mindset. Someone decided 400,000 (30,000 years earlier than we thought according to the findings of an archaeological dig in my home county of Suffolk) that they would see what would happen if they struck flint against something and, having done so and eventually made fire, thought – I wonder what I can do with that? And in so doing set us on the path to the modern world of today. Someone decided around 5,500 years ago to add alluvial deposits to copper and created tin, an innovation that heralded the Bronze Age and a seismic step forward for humanity. What if those people had thought, ‘ooh no, best not put my head above the parapet’. Quite simply, we would still be in caves existing as hunter gatherers if we hadn’t been wiped out as a species because we were not, at that time, the apex predator. Had we survived, we would not have progressed at all as a society.
Yes it was likely that those innovations happened as a result of curiosity but they also happened as a means of improving the society in which they all lived. At some level 400,000 years ago in eastern England, one or a group of people thought it would be very beneficial for their way of life if they struck flint and made a spark. They benefitted society as a whole. They did not think, it’s not my job.
So, in the ‘to speak or not to speak’, I am very firmly in the ‘speak’ category. I don’t have much of a platform but I do speak out on social media about all the issues that bother me in this world – Epstein and what it all means for society, greed, corruption, the degradation of the environment, Iran, Sudan, Nigeria, Syria. It has started conversations with people who wouldn’t otherwise have had such conversations (their words) and even persuaded some that perhaps Trump isn’t the Messiah for the world they thought he was and that Nigel Farage most certainly isn’t. If I have deprived the latter of a few votes, I have made something of a difference.
Why do I think the person I follow has decided that having a platform doesn’t mean people should speak out? Well, a number of reasons. One I think they were wanting to be controversial in what they said and wanted the likes and responses they got to confirm the sycophants who responded in the majority, agreeing with their position. Another reason is because they are tied professionally to at least one of the people who hasn’t spoken out and they are probably trying to curry favour – I’m not sure Tony Robbins will notice, but someone in his team might. And, finally, I think it was an entirely thoughtless post without considering exactly what its content really meant. I think they whole thing, frankly, was driven by money because they get paid by Facebook and are probably hoping to get paid again by the Tony Robbins organisation. As much as I want to create a larger platform for my work and have a settled financial future – this has been a lesson to me to never sell my principles (or the lives of others) down the river for a few quid.
I did respond in the same vein as this article, frankly, and unsurprisingly have not received a response. I have also unfollowed the person because, frankly, I didn’t often agree with them and our values were very different. I just hadn’t before gotten around to unfollowing. Now I have. Because in no way do I want an association with them.
I would, though, be interested to hear what you would have done? Do you think people with a platform have a role in society that means they should use it for the greater good? Or do you think they should keep quiet? I am genuinely interested in hearing your views. Thank you.
Louisa Simpson 