The moral maze of free speech

Thursday December 1, 2011

Stuart Waiton battles against left and right to protect our right to be offensive

Appearing on the Moral Maze last week it was interesting to see the two sides of the Snob Divide unite and fight.

On the left we had angry young man Matthew Taylor, ex-advisor to Tony Blair, who miraculously, despite his role in the government, appears to be the most outraged man on the planet about all things Bank and Banker. Clearly he hasn’t grasped the idea of collective responsibility, which is strange for a man who claims to be so concerned about creating a better, more social world.

And on the right we had Melanie Phillips the politically correct’s most hated women (so she has something going for her at least).

Taylor started with the lowest ‘dead babies’ type argument, throwing two murdered Celtic fans in my face and suggesting there must be a link with the atmosphere created at Old Firm matches (see my previous Free Society articles on this issue). Of course the reality that violence is little different in Glasgow to any other major city in Britain after a game, and in fact is often less violent than many European cities where there is no ‘sectarian divide’ is of little concern to Matthew Taylor.

Despite his twitter about the hate filled mob at these games the irony of course is that it is he who is the ‘bigot’ with his profoundly prejudiced view about ordinary punters who turn up and sing nasty songs but amazingly enough don’t actually run out and kill the nearest Tim or Hun they can get their hands on.

Yes Matthew, if you’re reading this, working class people who didn’t go to the same finishing school as you can actually distinguish between words and deeds. Perhaps I could get one of them to explain this to you. The imaginary violence of the mob will, and is unfortunately, leading to the real violence of the state as young men’s doors are kicked down in the morning and they are dragged off to serve time in prison for singing the nasty songs that Taylor doesn’t like. Well done Matthew, you crazy radical you.

Phillips was at least more intelligent in her questioning, and, if I understood her correctly her basic argument was this. Some words are explosive – ‘nigger’, say, or to use her example ‘Jewish bitch’; these words are therefore different, should be a taboo, and that they are a taboo is a good thing. This is why laws against racial hatred are a good thing. So in essence her perspective appears to be this: Some words are too dangerous to be aired, we can’t trust the public to hear them, so while I hate all things PC I am a conservative who doesn’t trust the public (like Matthew) and therefore support limits to what we can say and what you can hear.

It is rare to listen to a coherent conservative today so Melanie should be thanked for at least laying on the table the elitist and contemptuous idea of we plebs and what Mummy and Daddy should allow us to say and hear. Michael Portillo, who was in fact very good at presenting the liberal case on free speech, bottled it at this point saying that of course he supports laws against racial hatred.

Despite all of this it was a useful debate. One of the concerns I raised was that when surveying my students I have found that they will almost all say ‘I am against racism and sectarianism in all its forms’, but when you actually quiz them about their thoughts on immigrants, what dangers they pose, what type of people they are and what rights they should and should not have, they do not appear to have a very positive or liberal view of immigrants. This doesn’t mean that they are all racists but it does suggest that being ‘against racism and sectarianism in all its forms’ doesn’t mean very much, or at least doesn’t mean what I thought it meant.

As Portillo noted, a potential problem of today, illustrated in the Blatter and also the John Terry incidents, is that once something like racism becomes a taboo, something that is ‘offensive’, it results in a virtual blanket ban on further thought or debate on the matter. We end up with a situation where being against racism becomes a mantra chanted rather than an idea that is fought for. It becomes lifeless, meaningless and in the end simply a form of etiquette that people nod their heads to.

This is the danger of the current climate of offence where debate is increasingly closed down and society is weaker, wetter and more empty of content. The unity of snobs can only damage further the potential for a free public who are able to come to their own conclusions about issues and ideas in society.

Stuart Waiton is founder of Take a Liberty (Scotland). The petition against the Offensive Behaviour Bill can be found here