In Defence of Muttering & Mumbling
Mumbling truth to power.
Letters have appeared in The Guardian (23rd July) complaining that dialogue in the theatre and sometimes on film is sometimes hard to make out and sometimes inaudible.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/jul/23/the-lost-art-of-speaking-clearly
It is a fair enough point if the words spoken are meant to be clearly audible.
Sometimes of course they may not be meant to be
Those that know me will know that I am veteran mumbler. Why is this? Largely because in private [not in public roles] I am quite a shy person and you mostly won’t hear me bellowing out my thoughts, [although bellow I can if required]. Mostly I speak quietly and sometimes that is inaudible.
Of course I do sometimes actually do this deliberately, in meetings for example.
I once heard the late, and not great, Gerry Healy speaking in public. His voice would drop to a nearly inaudible whisper and then, in the very next utterance, rise to a huge volume. The impact was startling. A good deal more so than the politics.
The social theorist James C Scott has written in Weapons of the Weak that mumbling can be an act of resistance.
He has studied peasant societies where ordinary people have little collective power on most occasions and expressing open dissent can be dangerous.
It is here that the mutter really comes in to its own. An oath or semi-audible word can give the appearance of dissent but since it has not been clearly heard it is very difficult for authority to pursue it.
The mutter provides a sense of dissent without a specific form.
It can work well in meetings- though pick your meeting with care. A remark, let’s say a mild piss-take of someone who is talking, which is only half heard can be off-putting and more effective than a heckle. Of course such interventions are not always designed to take the rise out of authority. They can be used in a reactionary way- the muttered sexist or homophobic remark for example.
But with that caution up front, the mutter and muttering should not be simply dismissed. To use Charles Tilly’s framework it is one of a range of tools that can be used to show dissent.
In the words of the song, ‘there’s something happening here, what it is, ain’t exactly clear
Yes, thank you, so true.