September 19, 2025
Contributing regularly to a blog, arguably epitomizes modern civilization having elevated freedom of expression above all other freedoms. And indeed, currently, in the United States freedom of expression is becoming a hotly debated and defended right. Hate speech in the United States is not proscribed as in Canada and other so-called western democracies.
The ease with which any literate person can create a website or a social media page has facilitated the prospect of one’s views and opinions reaching millions of people. There are virtually (no pun intended) no gatekeepers that control what a person can post on their blog or social media page, but today, increasingly, one needs to be mindful of the prospect of backlash being unleashed against individuals disseminating certain points of view. The backlash, moreover, might not only come in the form of hate speech but also, with the risk of being hacked, and rendering, potentially, inoperable the blogger’s computer system.
Steering clear of any controversial issues may provide a certain measure of immunity for a blogger but then what is the point of blogging, one may ask. If a blogger is forced to look over their shoulder, harbouring the fear that they might be targeted, he or she or they are in effect being silenced and the freedom to express oneself is essentially being annihilated.
Is it critical to express one’s opinion or point of view in a direct way in order to get one’s point across? Many writers over the course of human civilization’s history have resorted to writing creatively in order to protect themselves against the backlash of an authoritarian regime’s denial of its citizens’ right to criticize oppression and injustice. The message that the writer was conveying to readers was symbolically, cryptically disseminated. It is infinitely more powerful to show rather than tell, through a novel or short story or play, or even film – the three literary conflicts, namely: man vs. man, man vs. the environment, man vs. himself. All three conflicts entail human suffering and on some level, miscarriages of justice.
Explicitness desensitizes us. By contrast, when we read a poem or watch a movie that conveys a message through allegory, metaphorically, our brains conjure up memories, images or related, even tangential ideas. An explicit statement can evoke emotion, but it’s like a blunt instrument, like a hammer striking a person over the head. A figuratively conveyed idea, on the other hand, is gentler, it invites us to explore its meaning. It’s like a message in a bottle tossed out to sea. When the bottle surfaces on a distant shore and is scavenged, the reader of the message can’t help but feel that they have beaten incredible odds and that what they read is precious. They have become fortuitously complicit in a risky undertaking.
And while the message in the bottle is likely to be unambiguous, with the date, place of origin, the name of the originator and a brief greeting (or maybe not), creative writing that shows rather than tells, employing metaphor and allegory, incites (hopefully) doubt and accordingly, provides the creator with a measure of protection against censorship.
Perhaps we should go back to our Pre-Neolithic roots when we painted on cave walls and overhangs, incised boulders and stones with sharp objects to symbolically reveal a belief system, a methodology of offerings to conceived higher entities in order to overcome anxieties of the unknown. Of course, pictographs and petroglyphs are subject to interpretation. We must put ourselves in those primitive peoples’ shoes and in doing so we cultivate empathy, rather than relying solely on our critical thinking skills.
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