Newspeak

It is interesting to see the word intolerance used to describe tolerance and in doing so, it is accurate.

Recently, however, he has put aside his own academic concerns to announce that he is helping to set up a new journal to combat what he sees as an encroaching intolerance of free expression. Called the Journal of Controversial Ideas, the publication promises to include articles by anonymous writers – that is by writers whose ideas are deemed so controversial that it is unsafe for them to reveal their identity.

You see we are repeatedly told that we are a tolerant society – yet this tolerance is intolerant of any ideas that go off message.

On the one hand, I applaud the effort. On the other, I am horrified that it is necessary. The headline to the piece asks the question:

Do we need to hide who we are to speak freely in the era of identity politics?

I would have thought the answer to that one was obvious. We have seen people hounded until they are forced to resign from their jobs for daring to engage in wrongthink. For daring to challenge the orthodoxy of the virulent, intolerant, vile, evil leftist control freakery. So, yes, anonymity is a refuge from this if you want to speak out. It’s why most of us use a thin shield of pseudonymity when blogging or engaging on fora. That said, as I’m not employed and can’t be sacked for speaking out, I have, perhaps, a luxury denied others.

Although its first issue is unlikely to appear for at least a year, the journal has lived up to its name by already attracting controversy. The Guardian columnist Nesrine Malik derided it as an irresponsible “safe space” that was “thin-skinned, elitist, coddled, unable to engage in the hustle and bustle of the marketplace of ideas”.

Ha! The lack of self-awareness here is staggering, not to mention the rabid hypocrisy. If those who dared to counter the narrative weren’t hounded by the Twatter mob until forced out of their jobs, such a safe space wouldn’t be necessary – besides, this safe space is intended as a place where people can challenge ideas, not be shielded from ones they don’t like, so Malik is a moronic jerk – so no change there, then.

The Observer columnist Kenan Malik suggested that the very idea of anonymous articles should be “anathema to anyone who cherishes free speech and academic debate”. Ideas, he argued, “become ‘controversial’ only in a social context. Not because they are published in a journal that calls itself ‘controversial’”.

Another idiot called Malik. There seems to be a lot of it about. The threat to free speech comes not from anonymous authors but those who use twisted language, the fear of sanction and the threats of violence to shut down anyone who dares to challenge the leftist orthodoxy. Even their own who dare to go off message.

Even before the programme was aired, the historian Gavin Rand took to Twitter to say that the “‘controversy’ at stake here is entirely confected”. Another historian, and anthropologist, Gemma Angel, who is an expert on the European tattoo, tweeted that the programme was “basically an opportunity for white male rightwing politically motivated researchers to whine on about how unpopular their abhorrent ideas are.” It was, she said, “disgusting”.

More of the same. Idiot! It does not occur to these people that for many, it is their ideas that are abhorrent and the sheer volume of screeching causes those who oppose them to keep their heads down and shut up rather than take the risk. It is Gemma Angel who is disgusting here and her comments inadvertently make the case for this journal.

For some observers, such as Nesrine Malik, free speech defenders are concealing their real interests behind misleading language. She claims that freedom of speech is being “used as a demand for ‘freedom from consequence’ for the speaker”.

If that consequence is being hounded out of your job, then yes and rightly so. No one is suggesting that an idea should not be robustly debated by disagreeing voices, but that is not what Malik and her evil cohorts are about – they seek to silence such voices, especially if they come from white men.

McMahan is what philosophers call a consequentialist, which means that, morally speaking, one judges conduct by its consequences. I ask him what he thinks about Malik’s implication that he’s seeking freedom from consequence.

“Let her get 50 death threats in three days and see what she thinks,” he says, before quickly apologising for the uncharacteristic outburst.

Well, quite. Doubtless from the entirely peaceful types at Antifa. So, yes, it will be interesting to see how this one develops. Free speech needs all the help it can find when faced with the cohorts of anti freedom on the left. And whether this is a good idea or not is measurable by the level of noise coming from its opponents and who those opponents are.