You
may notice a bit of a theme to my discussions and activities over the
last few days. I've talked about freedom more then once. I've
mini-bloged about an organisation which supports a free and liberal
society. It's because freedom is an issue which matters and I want to
make everyone understands just why it matters and why we need to
defend it in this era where human rights are challenged.
Today's topic is free speech.
Something very dear to me as I am a proponent of free speech.
I believe it is a corner stone of
not just democracy but civilisation itself.
Without the ability to speak without
fear of persecution there would be a stifling of social progress,
scientific progress and cultural progress. We would literally freeze
as a civilisation and fade into the historical dust. This freedom to
say what we want has been restricted, we are not allowed to incite
hatred against others, which is to me at least a fair restriction,
and we are not allowed to make accusations without fear of financial
reprisal if those accusations turn out to be false, which again I
find quite a reasonable thing.
It seems however that in recent days
even this flag stone of our democracy is under threat. Noted speakers
like Germaine
Greer have come under fire from groups seeking to silence them
because they disagree with their opinions. Now I happen to disagree
with Germaine Greer's opinion of transsexuals but would I support
banning her from speaking at events? of course not. It is through
argument and disagreement that we have political and social change.
If you disagree with her point of view rather then trying to silence
her you should challenge her on it. Go to the debate and ask her to
defend her opinions.
The trouble with today though is no
one is willing to do that. They think they have a right not to be
offended. Sadly you don't.
I am offended whenever Katie
Hopkin's opens her odious mouth on TV and spouts whatever noxious
thought has come into her mind. Unlike those who tried to silence
Germaine Greer though, the audience at Ms. Hopkin's latest speaking
engagement simply
walked out. They accepted that she had a right to speak but
decided that they weren't interested and so showed her precisely what
they thought about her opinions. I applaud the audience that did this
and I welcome their sensible mature approach to a situation like this
where they did not try to prevent someone exercising their right to
speak freely.
Society is a give and take. At the
event I attended on Wednesday evening, Forgive
us our trespasses: the moral case for choice & responsibility,
one of the speakers (I believe it was James Cleverly MP but as they
were all brilliant I could easily be mistaken) made the point that
with rights come responsibilities and without one you cannot have the
other. On free speech this is particularly true. You cannot expect
you right to free speech to be maintained if you are not willing to
allow others that same right. Otherwise free speech becomes a
privilege not a right and that is something I as a social liberal
could never and will never support.
There is a host of academic
research on free speech. Different scholars argue for different
things, they disagree with one another even. It is what drives
forward the debate. Do we count flag burning as free speech? do we
count political donations as free speech since it allows your chosen
party to express views you support? all of these are mammoth
questions that I will not even attempt to answer in this blog, but
all of the articles I've read suggest that free speech (even if some
regulation is needed) is important and we must keep it from becoming
anything other then our most sacred and cherished right.
Otherwise we might find ourselves in
a society where opinion is suppressed just because it might cause
offence...
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