Patrick Leigh-Pemberton: On the subtext which can arise from context

There is a group on the Facebook called “Overheard in St. Andrews”, and whilst I am sure that you have stumbled across it before in your time, I will explain the concept briefly for those who have missed out on this essential part of anybody’s procrastination pleasure. People hear random snippets of conversation on the street all the time, and sometimes they are funny. So they remember them, and upload them so that others can also enjoy the hilarity of the moment without actually being there. It is a wonderful example of sharing. Sometimes, however, comments or snippets from other people’s conversations are uploaded where the aim is not to amuse, but rather to appall. This can include extracts from conversations that at first glance seem racist, or misogynist. These then allow the dwellers of “Overheard” the only pleasure that they enjoy more than communal comedy, that of communal condemnation. The most significant rule of all this however, is anonymisation. This means that when you are overheard saying something that without context seems a little off, or stupid, or worse, you know that you will not be mocked or persecuted in the streets, as they won’t mention you by name.

Currently, however, if you were to go onto the group page, you would find that this tactic of anonymisation has been lost, in two significant posts. And these posts – whilst I am sure intended to provide nothing more than light comedic relief – have become an opportunity to pour bile on people for no reason other than what the community has decided about them. The first of these is a picture of the Dundee University Men’s Golf Team. The thread underneath seems to have one constant refrain, of tongue-in-cheek superiority, which sometimes sees the tongue slip out of the cheek, and just becomes smug abuse. The second is an article that surfaced recently about a young woman who is accused of several nasty things over the weekend. This young woman happens to be more easily identified by the National and Local press as a Bavarian Princess, and it has to be said, that in their usual manner, the idea that the case has yet to be decided in the courts seems to have escaped the press, who have condemned her now as much for her class, as for her actions. You’d have thought that students at a University as prestigious as St. Andrews (indeed, a point they are fond of making under pictures of people from other Universities), would see that there is a danger in judging people based on simple, unique facts.

The removal of context is fine when its effect is comedy, but the removal of context is a far more dangerous thing when its effect is condemnation. The sight of young people condemning others their age simply based on the fact of their birth, or on where they are educated is an incredibly ugly one. Similarly, it is an awfully ugly sight to see the idea of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ jump out the window, just because the alleged crimes fit with how we have judged a person before we have met them, a thing called prejudice.