David Aaronovitch on Free Speech
David Aaronovitch, now a Times journalist, who back in my student days was the Communist president of the National Union of Students, (though he was described at the time by a Conservative member of the NUS executive and future tory MP as a "Communist to the right of Ted Heath") has become chairman of "Index on Censorship," the free speech advocacy organisation.
In an article in The Times he asks
"Why is it that some of the people who should be most protective of free speech and actual open debate are now almost hostile to it in practice?"
There is an increasing and worrying tendency on both right and left to support free speech only for those you agree with. Aaronovitch thinks this is coming particularly from the left, and who am I to argue, though I do not think any part of the political spectrum can afford to be complacent about this.
When people on the left attack free speech they usually make the utterly inaccurate argument that the idea "free speech" is being used to defend attempts by the far right, or by right-wing, rich, straight white men, to offend everyone else.
But when you allow people to ban free speech the people it is used against are never limited to one part of the spectrum. I've seen a college Jewish society banned in the name of anti-racism.
Recent victims of attempts to use the "safe space" argument to restrict people's ability to express their views or take part in events have included gay left-winger Peter Tatchell and feminists like Germaine Greer, Julie Bindel, Sarah Ditum and Maryam Namazie. In case you are not familiar with those people, not one of them conforms to even a majority, let alone all, of the five criteria of being a right-wing, rich, straight white man, and every one of those five criteria fails to describe at least one of those individuals.
You can read David Aaronovitch's article about the subject here (there is a paywall but The Times allows non-subscribers who are registered with them a certain number of free reads per week.)
I've quoted Nick Cohen before and make no apology for doing so again:
In an article in The Times he asks
"Why is it that some of the people who should be most protective of free speech and actual open debate are now almost hostile to it in practice?"
There is an increasing and worrying tendency on both right and left to support free speech only for those you agree with. Aaronovitch thinks this is coming particularly from the left, and who am I to argue, though I do not think any part of the political spectrum can afford to be complacent about this.
When people on the left attack free speech they usually make the utterly inaccurate argument that the idea "free speech" is being used to defend attempts by the far right, or by right-wing, rich, straight white men, to offend everyone else.
But when you allow people to ban free speech the people it is used against are never limited to one part of the spectrum. I've seen a college Jewish society banned in the name of anti-racism.
Recent victims of attempts to use the "safe space" argument to restrict people's ability to express their views or take part in events have included gay left-winger Peter Tatchell and feminists like Germaine Greer, Julie Bindel, Sarah Ditum and Maryam Namazie. In case you are not familiar with those people, not one of them conforms to even a majority, let alone all, of the five criteria of being a right-wing, rich, straight white man, and every one of those five criteria fails to describe at least one of those individuals.
You can read David Aaronovitch's article about the subject here (there is a paywall but The Times allows non-subscribers who are registered with them a certain number of free reads per week.)
I've quoted Nick Cohen before and make no apology for doing so again:
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