Free Speech and the Charlatans

When Toby Young launched his Free Speech Union, it was only a matter of time before the forces of regression launched their ad hominen attacks. Sure enough we get Jonathan Wolff in the Guardian displaying his twisted logic and disapproval of free speech.

It has been a glorious couple of weeks for defenders of freedom of speech. Now there’s even a union to join, led by father of the chapel Toby Young. You can imagine it: robust white men brandishing copies of John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty and bellowing “ideas must fight it out in the marketplace of ideas”.

This charlatan starts well, doesn’t he? I wasn’t aware that Lionel Shriver was a man. Nor was I aware that Inaya Folarin Iman was a man and white. Then we get Dr Radomir Tylecote, who, to be fair is a man, but not exactly white. But this is the Guardian and in true Guardian fashion, Wolff follows the mantra that if you tell a lie loud enough and often enough, people will believe it.

The point about the FSU is that the woke totalitarians are seeking to silence dissenting voices by doxxing and hounding people out of their jobs as well as denying platforms in universities. The twitter mob is a recognised phenomenon and is all about denying speech that the wokerati don’t like.

It is universities that this charlatan is worried about.

But why, and why now? It seems to be part of a backlash against supposed censorship and political correctness, to say nothing of leftwing bias, bleeding over the university sector like a cheap red sock in a hot white wash. Policy Exchange, the rightwing thinktank, has just published a report, Universities at the Crossroads, intimating that the sector has lost the trust of the entire nation. Oops. That was careless of us.

This attempt at humour falls flat – indeed, it is nothing more than pompous flatulence. They have lost the trust of the nation and it is precisely because of their behaviour. Again, this is simply a matter of observable fact. Unless, that is, you exist in the rarefied atmosphere of academia and the media, never bothering to breath the the same foul air as the hoi-polloi. There is a leftwing bias and there is censorship on campus when we see people being deplatformed because they dare to think and speak heresy.

Indeed, the first salvo from the FSU is aimed at the University of Exeter for an example of just this behaviour. They are defending a feminist, thereby demonstrating that they mean what they say about free speech being for everyone. The backlash, therefore, is justified, despite the pompous arrogance of Wolff.

Freedom of speech on campus, they say, has been pushed into the background by high-profile culture wars, and it’s time to reverse the trend. Limiting speech on campus isn’t a good look. Mill, notoriously, argued if an idea is wholly or partially true, then cutting it off will obstruct progress. But even false ideas should be given voice. Otherwise truths will be become “dead dogmas” and we will lose our ability to defend them. Conclusion: never obstruct free speech. Yet others, sotto voce, intone: “It’s all a bit more complicated than that.”

You disingenuous fucking arsehole! No, it is not more complicated than that. It is simple. So simple even a lackwit like you should be able to understand it, if you can get your head out of your arse long enough to take the time to comprehend it. Free speech means people get to say whatever they want, no matter who might take offence. The only restrictions being libel and incitement to violence. Even you should be able to get that. Anyone who utters, sotto vovce: “it’s a bit more complicated than that,” is either very, very stupid or an outright liar seeking to deceive. I’m inclined to the latter.

Mill himself, like many thinkers, distinguishes freedom of thought from freedom of expression, which, he argues, can be restricted if it is likely to cause serious harm, such as immediate violence. Hence the prohibition of hate speech and the offence of inciting racial hatred.

And this is why I have assessed Wolff as a liar. For he deliberately conflates the nonsensical concept of hate speech with incitement. No one who advocates free speech is advocating for the freedom to incite violence. There is no such thing as hate speech. There is speech, that’s it. Hate speech is merely what the left doesn’t like.

The question, then, is not whether there should be limits, but where they fall.

We already know this. Incitement to violence and libel. Nothing more, nothing less. It is so simple even the Guardianista could comprehend it.

This is the frontline in the culture war, where speakers have been subject to protest and boycott because opponents believe their views are akin to hate speech. The line will always be contested, and those pulling out a point of principle often use it to mask a political programme.

The only people contesting it are the liars and charlatans who seek to censor voices that disagree with them. The final sentence is an attempt at poisoning the well.

Policy Exchange is not the first to attempt to whip up the idea that universities are rotten with reprehensible leftwing, anti-British values, try to indoctrinate students, and pursue a “woke” agenda.

Well, no, because it is a reality.

If so, we are doing a spectacularly bad job, given recent election results. In my experience, students typically leave university with their political views unscathed, albeit a little better defended.

Is this prick for real? The Conservative victory wasn’t won by people from university, it was won because ordinary working class people who never went to university voted in their droves to keep a hard-left economically illiterate party out of power. It had fuck all to do with the universities. Indeed, the student vote was outnumbered somewhat in the north – unless you need a degree to go mining and shipbuilding and all those out of work miners and shipbuilders have useless degrees in their back pockets.

I think from this that we can deduce that Jonathan Wolff is a disingenuous arsehole and is part of the swamp that needs clearing out if this is the kind of logical thinking that he is teaching young people.