Stir crazy

I am increasingly of the opinion that many people are becoming more than a little stir-crazy, and that this is manifesting in anger and intolerance. Or maybe it's just I'm spending more time on the internet, and people on the internet are angry and intolerant. It's a close call. I'm definitely becoming more angry and intolerant, but this may be from excess exposure to other people's rage; or the state of the world; or the gradual degradation of my mental health after 13 weeks trapped at home while watching one of the most catastrophic governments in living memory mishandle everything. Again, a close call.

A case in point for you.

There are a group of people in our village who are choosing to hold "street discos" once every month or so, placing a professional PA system on their front drive and cranking the volume up to "entertain" the neighbourhood. In itself, marginally anti-social, as they inflict loud music on a wide area, without apparent consideration for whether everyone wants to hear their choice of music. Nor indeed any awareness that once said music has travelled half a mile, to call it music is an affront to Euterpe, as the sounds bounce, diffuse and dissipate their way through and round buildings, trees and roads. But, it's only been about once a month, and it does appear to have been a communal decision for their street and a lot of people seem to have been made happy by it. So, while I was only one person who was unhappy, I didn't feel inclined to complain to anyone beyond my nearest and dearest. 

Saturday night was another such night of "entertainment". It started at about 7pm, with the published intent to end at 11pm. A bit late for my liking, on a hot night when I want the windows open, particularly in LittleBear's room. He was left with the choice of a stifling bedroom or being kept awake with loud music. "A bit late for my liking," veered into, "You have got to be kidding me," as the music continued blaring out beyond 11:30pm. I went and checked the village Facebook page, and sure enough it was supposed to finish at 11pm, but all I could see were pages and pages of comments about how much fun everyone was having, so I simply seethed quietly to myself and tried to sleep.

The following day I discovered that I was not alone in having felt vexed by the antisocial volume and end time, and a couple of my friends recommended I have another look at the village Facebook page to see the conversation one of them had got involved in, in which she politely and calmly suggested that maybe finishing earlier would be considerate. 

Oh dear.

It was one of the worst mistakes I have made during lockdown, because I was exposed to the full depths of idiocy which humanity can plumb. Most people limited themselves to knuckle-headed inanities, such as "We all like different things, so you should just put up with what I like," or "The nay-sayers always get their way, it's not fair", not to mention the classic, "You should just chill out." One particular resident really aggravated me though, when he launched a remarkably aggressive post to defend the organisers of these events, using an impressive array of logical fallacies. The more I think about the things he said, the more angry I become, not only at his attitude, but at the level of support that attitude received.

The essential points he made were:

• while holding this event, donations were collected for the local food bank, and £250 was collected for the local mental health support charity
• not only did lots of people enjoy the event but the man in question has evidence that many people supported his views, as demonstrated by the number of "likes" his post acquired.
• those who were complaining about the volume and duration were challenged to answer what they were doing for charity
• anyone who complained was simply a moaner trying to spoil other people's fun by preventing any music being played ever.
• the next event would be held, come what may, and since we'd all had plenty of warning that was good enough.

The first point is literally Machiavellian in its assertion that the end justifies the means. The fact that some good comes of these events is deemed adequate to excuse any distress, inconvenience or illness that they induce. I doubt very much that £250 to a mental health charity comes anywhere close to counteracting the impact on the mental health of the excess noise and sleep deprivation. I'll take myself as a single example. I have attempted to write about my relationship with sound before, but the essence of it is that I find too much external noise emotionally and mentally painful. I cannot function properly. I can't think. I become stressed and anxious and angry. In the case of the street disco, even once the music had finished, I was in such a heightened state of anger and anxiety, I still couldn't sleep properly. I am one person out of many, many hundreds who were forced to listen to four and a half hours of music that was not of their choosing. How much was my mental health worth compared to £250 and some food? How many other people suffered sleep-deprivation, anxiety, or other mental health issues as a result of not only the anti-social hours, but the aggressive attacks on social media? Do the ends really justify the means?

Next we can move on to the more classical logical fallacies exhibited, and here I can prove to my sceptical friend that there is a use for my Latin GCSE...

We can start with the idea that because lots of people approved of the event, and approved of the subsequent post, they were in the right. This is Argumentum ad Populum  - or an appeal to popular assent. This isn't actually a valid argument at all. The fact that many people like something does not demonstrate that that thing is in itself right and proper. And even if we were to consider the holding of street discos to be a matter for democratic assent, 60 "likes" on a Facebook page can hardly be considered a free and fair election. Nor does the fact that many people like something justify causing distress to a minority. When your fun comes at the expense of other people's wellbeing, your "right" to that fun needs to be questioned. Popular assent is not sufficient in itself to justify all actions.

Then we can move on to the Argumentum Ad Misericordiam - an appeal to pity. These street discos are being held for charity, and therefore to complain is virtually the same as stabbing orphaned children yourself. What kind of a monster are you? I'm not sure I need to point out that this is a ridiculous argument.

There's my own personal favourite of Ignorantio Elenchi - an irrelevant conclusion, in this case via the use of a straw man. No attempt is made to address the reasonable requests to finish earlier, or to play the music at a lower volume - instead a totally different proposition is countered. Our aggressive Facebook warrior contends that a complaint about the event is a de facto attempt to stop the entire event ever occurring, which would be quite obviously unfair, unreasonable and an affront to the personal liberties of those who do enjoy it. The request to modify the event to be less anti-social is thus brushed aside by imputing something that was never said. The actual argument is bypassed by railing against something else entirely.

Naturally, no internet argument would be complete without everyone's favourite, Argumentum Ad Hominem - attacking the person. Unless you give to charity, you can't complain. If you do complain, you're just a moaner trying to ruin the "fun", not to mention virtually stealing from charity yourself. You're joyless. You're oppressing the rights of other members of the community by your selfish desire to sleep, or have some peace in your own home. The issue here is you and your unwillingness to allow anyone else to have any fun. You're a snowflake, and represent everything that's wrong with modern society.

I don't think I'll be visiting the village Facebook page again for a while.