Receiving online abuse has now become a badge of honour

On Monday night I took part in a discussion on free speech in London for the think-tank Policy Exchange. The other speakers were ‘feminist comedienne’ Kate Smurthwaite, a student called Kitty Parker Brooks and the wonderful Munira Mirza. Jess Phillips MP failed to show up, which was a shame because I wanted to decide for myself whether she is the free-thinking future-leader acclaimed by Julie Burchill or the PC-party-line clutz who recently compared New Year’s Eve in Cologne to any night in Birmingham.

Anyhow, the argument I made was that two things are putting huge pressure on free speech and giving enormous impetus to the censors on campuses and elsewhere. These are social media and mass migration. Social media gives a megaphone to stupid and aggressive opinions that might otherwise have barely been heard. Meanwhile the unparalleled range of opinions brought about by mass immigration has produced a growing sense that in an increasingly diverse and pluralistic society too much opinion causes problems. Of course (as Flemming Rose suggests in his excellent book The Tyranny of Silence) rather than clamping down on speech, such a society will probably just have to get used to hearing a wider range of views than ever before. But not everyone agrees, and one current solution seems to be to clamp down on speech. This is principally done by exaggerating the power of words, equating words with actions and simultaneously lowering the bar on incitement. Thus mean and even harassing words are recast as plausible threats and acts of violence in themselves. No wonder the British police have asked for government guidance to find a way through this minefield.

I also noted an observation of Lord Moulton’s which I recently discovered thanks to Mark Steyn:

85 years ago English judge Lord Moulton, said that human action can be divided into three domains. At one end is the law at the other is free choice and between them is the realm of manners.