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A place where I get to rant, rave and point out the seemingly obvious, but which I'm constantly amazed to find is not as crystal clear to others. Guess the old saying about there being no single objective reality is true after all!

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Location: Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

A word on Negativity

It seems that there are few things as misunderstood as the nature of negativity - there appears to be an automatic assumption in many people that identifying problems and being outspoken about them is "negativity".

I think I've finally managed to crystalise my thoughts on this, so here goes...

All of us who were outspokenly opposed to apartheid were not being negative when we kept "moaning" about what was wrong in various forums and refusing to let go of the issues, were we? We were speaking our truth. To speak your truth is never negative, it's just honesty.

Even if people weren't actually doing anything more than voice their opinions, their refusal to lie down and accept the situation was crucial to it changing for the better.

That's what punk was all about - in fact it's the traditional role of the musician/artist/writer in society - where would we be without Dylan's WHINING, Bono's MOANING, Bright Blue's WEEPING, The Sex Pistols' FURY, The Clash's sardonic political VENOM, Nirvana's CYNICISM, Green Day's SARCASM?

Sure, these are all "NEGATIVE" words, but they have power to change things. As PiL sang: "Anger is an energy".

(Yes, I know music has lost much of its ability to change the world, because the powers-that-be immediately co-opt anything threatening, but allow me the romance, if you will :)

THE REAL NEGATIVE THING IS TO KEEP QUIET - like those in the USA who were opposed to Bush, but did not speak out, and thus let him have his way.

That's why we can't just assume that, because someone is saying things that are not nice or comfortable or optimistic, they are automatically negative.

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