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| Don’t be fooled – these free-speech obsessives approve of no-platforming | Don’t be fooled – these free-speech obsessives approve of no-platforming |
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| Wed 10 Jan 2018 06.00 GMT | |
| Last modified on Wed 10 Jan 2018 11.59 GMT | |
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| When people obsess over a trivial issue, it usually means they are avoiding a more important one. The intense focus on student politics, and in particular no-platforming, by middle-aged journalists – columnists and leader writers at the Telegraph, Spectator, Times, Mail and Sun – suggests to me that there is something they would rather not see. | When people obsess over a trivial issue, it usually means they are avoiding a more important one. The intense focus on student politics, and in particular no-platforming, by middle-aged journalists – columnists and leader writers at the Telegraph, Spectator, Times, Mail and Sun – suggests to me that there is something they would rather not see. |
| As it happens, I agree with them: the no-platforming of people whom students find offensive is often wrong (though not in the case of direct hate speech towards minorities, or the incitement of violence). But I also believe that, on the scale of global importance, this issue ranks about 12,000th. This is student politics, for God’s sake. Daft ideas and failed experiments are its raison d’etre. | As it happens, I agree with them: the no-platforming of people whom students find offensive is often wrong (though not in the case of direct hate speech towards minorities, or the incitement of violence). But I also believe that, on the scale of global importance, this issue ranks about 12,000th. This is student politics, for God’s sake. Daft ideas and failed experiments are its raison d’etre. |
| Yet this middle-aged obsession is taken so seriously by a government that is otherwise slashing the state that it has set up a new public agency to police student follies. This is the body – the Office for Students – that caused such controversy by appointing no-platform obsessive Toby Young to its board (he resigned on Tuesday after realising he had been a bit too free with his own free speech). Why does this issue command such attention? What is it that these people would prefer not to see? Perhaps it is the far graver no-platforming that prevails across adult public life. | Yet this middle-aged obsession is taken so seriously by a government that is otherwise slashing the state that it has set up a new public agency to police student follies. This is the body – the Office for Students – that caused such controversy by appointing no-platform obsessive Toby Young to its board (he resigned on Tuesday after realising he had been a bit too free with his own free speech). Why does this issue command such attention? What is it that these people would prefer not to see? Perhaps it is the far graver no-platforming that prevails across adult public life. |
| For instance, the incoming vice-chancellor of Edinburgh University is a man whose views, if they belonged to a student, would be quickly condemned. In his current post, as University of Hong Kong vice-chancellor, he signed the following letter: “We treasure freedom of expression, but we condemn its recent abuses. Freedom of expression is not absolute, and like all freedoms it comes with responsibilities. All universities undersigned agree that we do not support Hong Kong independence, which contravenes the Basic Law.” | For instance, the incoming vice-chancellor of Edinburgh University is a man whose views, if they belonged to a student, would be quickly condemned. In his current post, as University of Hong Kong vice-chancellor, he signed the following letter: “We treasure freedom of expression, but we condemn its recent abuses. Freedom of expression is not absolute, and like all freedoms it comes with responsibilities. All universities undersigned agree that we do not support Hong Kong independence, which contravenes the Basic Law.” |
| Digging his hole deeper, he now claims that the phrase “recent abuses” refers not to the pro-independence protests at universities but to unrelated instances of hate speech. How can this meaning be deduced from the letter? Is a man who first rails against free speech, then engages in such sophistry, fit to serve in this role? Shouldn’t the minister responsible for the OfS take an interest in the matter? Or is easier to attack a handful of confused 18-year-olds? | Digging his hole deeper, he now claims that the phrase “recent abuses” refers not to the pro-independence protests at universities but to unrelated instances of hate speech. How can this meaning be deduced from the letter? Is a man who first rails against free speech, then engages in such sophistry, fit to serve in this role? Shouldn’t the minister responsible for the OfS take an interest in the matter? Or is easier to attack a handful of confused 18-year-olds? |
| Another resounding silence concerns the US government’s deletion from its websites of thousands of documents that mention climate breakdown. The US agriculture department instructs that the terms “climate change” or “greenhouse gases” should not be used in its publications; and the federal government bans the words “vulnerable”, “entitlement”, “diversity”, “transgender”, “foetus”, “evidence-based” and “science-based” from an agency’s budget reports. This is real censorship, not a feeble attempt by a few teenagers to prevent their peers using trigger words. Could it be that our free speech crusaders quietly approve? | Another resounding silence concerns the US government’s deletion from its websites of thousands of documents that mention climate breakdown. The US agriculture department instructs that the terms “climate change” or “greenhouse gases” should not be used in its publications; and the federal government bans the words “vulnerable”, “entitlement”, “diversity”, “transgender”, “foetus”, “evidence-based” and “science-based” from an agency’s budget reports. This is real censorship, not a feeble attempt by a few teenagers to prevent their peers using trigger words. Could it be that our free speech crusaders quietly approve? |
| Lord Lawson gave a lecture last year, claiming that “the suppression of freedom of speech in the universities now is one of the great problems of our time”. Somehow he forgot to mention that he served in the government that banned Sinn Féin and 10 other organisations in Northern Ireland from being heard on television and radio broadcasts, regardless of what they were saying. This was not an occasional no-platforming but full-on prohibition. | Lord Lawson gave a lecture last year, claiming that “the suppression of freedom of speech in the universities now is one of the great problems of our time”. Somehow he forgot to mention that he served in the government that banned Sinn Féin and 10 other organisations in Northern Ireland from being heard on television and radio broadcasts, regardless of what they were saying. This was not an occasional no-platforming but full-on prohibition. |
| Yes, to use their unpleasant term, there are some snowflakes at university. But there’s a blizzard in the newspapers | Yes, to use their unpleasant term, there are some snowflakes at university. But there’s a blizzard in the newspapers |
| But perhaps the real discomfort is that the worst no-platforming of all takes place within our newspapers. In the publications most obsessed with student silliness, there is no platform for socialism, no platform for environmentalism, no platform for those who might offend the interests of the proprietors. In the Telegraph, as its former chief political commentator Peter Oborne says, there is no platform for criticism of – or even embarrassing news about – some of its major advertisers. | But perhaps the real discomfort is that the worst no-platforming of all takes place within our newspapers. In the publications most obsessed with student silliness, there is no platform for socialism, no platform for environmentalism, no platform for those who might offend the interests of the proprietors. In the Telegraph, as its former chief political commentator Peter Oborne says, there is no platform for criticism of – or even embarrassing news about – some of its major advertisers. |
| In the Daily Mail, Dominic Sandbrook warned that universities “are becoming bubbles of received opinion, echo chambers in which the same lazy prejudices … reverberate unceasingly.” Yes, that’s the Daily Mail, which has made its own contribution to free speech on campus by calling on readers to report views it disagrees with: “Have you – or do you know anyone – who has experienced anti-Brexit bias at university? Email university@dailymail.co.uk.” | In the Daily Mail, Dominic Sandbrook warned that universities “are becoming bubbles of received opinion, echo chambers in which the same lazy prejudices … reverberate unceasingly.” Yes, that’s the Daily Mail, which has made its own contribution to free speech on campus by calling on readers to report views it disagrees with: “Have you – or do you know anyone – who has experienced anti-Brexit bias at university? Email university@dailymail.co.uk.” |
| A column in the Sun warns: “Universities risk looking more like places of darkness, intolerance and ignorance.” This admonition comes from a newspaper that during the EU referendum campaign, according to research at Cardiff University, published 220 pro-leave letters and one pro-remain letter. | A column in the Sun warns: “Universities risk looking more like places of darkness, intolerance and ignorance.” This admonition comes from a newspaper that during the EU referendum campaign, according to research at Cardiff University, published 220 pro-leave letters and one pro-remain letter. |
| The newspapers that claim to be so incensed about no-platforming are not above seeking to deny people a platform. When the broadcaster Chris Packham spoke out against the shooting industry, both the Mail on Sunday and the Telegraph published articles that sought to have him sacked from the BBC. The BBC resisted this attempt, but – disciplined by both press and government – across much of its output it has unthinkingly succumbed. For instance, while it broadcasts series such as Mary Berry’s Country House Secrets and Elizabeth & Philip: Love and Duty, it provides no documentary platform for those who seek to break the stranglehold of patrimonial wealth and power. Where’s the balance? | The newspapers that claim to be so incensed about no-platforming are not above seeking to deny people a platform. When the broadcaster Chris Packham spoke out against the shooting industry, both the Mail on Sunday and the Telegraph published articles that sought to have him sacked from the BBC. The BBC resisted this attempt, but – disciplined by both press and government – across much of its output it has unthinkingly succumbed. For instance, while it broadcasts series such as Mary Berry’s Country House Secrets and Elizabeth & Philip: Love and Duty, it provides no documentary platform for those who seek to break the stranglehold of patrimonial wealth and power. Where’s the balance? |
| I’m not claiming that journalists try to distract attention from their own industry. Quite the opposite. Projection is something we do unconsciously, to avoid facing uncomfortable truths. We should all seek to challenge ourselves unceasingly, in the forlorn hope of combating this tendency. | I’m not claiming that journalists try to distract attention from their own industry. Quite the opposite. Projection is something we do unconsciously, to avoid facing uncomfortable truths. We should all seek to challenge ourselves unceasingly, in the forlorn hope of combating this tendency. |
| I believe that a healthy media organisation, like a healthy university, should admit a diversity of opinion. I want the other newspapers to keep publishing views with which I fiercely disagree. But they – and we – should also seek opposing views and publish them too, however uncomfortable this might be. Otherwise media organisations are vulnerable to the charge they level so freely at students: creating a safe space in which only the views they find congenial are heard. | I believe that a healthy media organisation, like a healthy university, should admit a diversity of opinion. I want the other newspapers to keep publishing views with which I fiercely disagree. But they – and we – should also seek opposing views and publish them too, however uncomfortable this might be. Otherwise media organisations are vulnerable to the charge they level so freely at students: creating a safe space in which only the views they find congenial are heard. |
| Yes, to use their unpleasant term, there are some snowflakes at university. But there’s a blizzard in the newspapers. | Yes, to use their unpleasant term, there are some snowflakes at university. But there’s a blizzard in the newspapers. |
| • George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist | • George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist |
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