The attack on free speech
So, we’re in 2020, our country is in the most progressive state it’s ever been. I believe with progression, comes liberty. But do I believe that liberty is under threat? Yes, I do, not from government or higher power but by society. As society becomes more PC (politically correct), it limits freedom of others. Unfortunately in the UK, we’re not protected like the Americans and their first amendment right. We have similar legislation under the human rights act of 1998 which allows us ‘freedom of expression’ but contrastingly, there are hate crime laws that can result in prosecution on the basis of spoken word. Is this a good thing though? Is someone’s ‘right to be offended’ of greater value than someone’s freedom to speak? This is a difficult question because offence is very subjective, and you can’t create a criteria of what is offensive to someone so this is a grey area in terms of the law. The CPS defines a hate crime when ‘someone is hostile to another person because of their disability, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, religion’ the list goes on. There are people out there that their sole purpose is to create hate in minority groups and I think this law is in place predominantly to prevent that, but it’s still denying them liberty to speak their opinion and as most people are told, there’s no such thing as an incorrect opinion, just a misinformed one and this promotes debate. Debate is always a good thing, not an insult shouting match but a debate and things talked about in a debate may be considered inflammatory and offensive to people so should you be prosecuted for that? Well obviously not and I think I can safely say that everyone would agree with that but it’s the principle of using language in such a way that is contradictory in my opinion. Taking away offensive words will not take away the offensive people who use them so the whole principle of policing language is pointless. This raises a question about how language has become so offensive to people. Donald Mackinnon, a linguist, proposed the idea that due to change in English, politically correct language has developed with it. He says that with new language, people find it either correct or incorrect, socially acceptable or not, useful or useless and this is how conflict starts. Furthermore, Philip Hensher, a columnist from the independent was writing about how language used within a group of friends is acceptable but as soon as you’re not in the safe environment of your friends, things you say become offensive and this is simply because your friends may be like minded and not take offence.
Moving on, ‘cancel culture’ or ‘boycotting’ is on the rise on social media platforms and it’s where a large community ‘cancel’ someone due to something they’ve said or done and I think this is the most toxic movement on social media because not only does it have a profound impact on the individual being cancelled but it also effects the wider social media community. To use the analogy of lying, everyone on earth has told at least one lie in their lifetime, does that make them a liar for the rest of their lives? No, it doesn’t, and the same principle applies to online ‘cancelling’. Humans are imperfect and make mistakes. In psychology, Sigmund Freud was a leading neurologist in the 20th century and one of the concepts he proposed was what he called ‘Freudian slips’. These were unintentional errors that are seen to reveal subconscious thoughts. If this theory is suggesting that things happen subconsciously due to repressed thoughts in childhood, then should you be labelled as a bad person when something like this happens? The picture above is rather fitting in my opinion, the ‘social media mob’ as it were are quick to cry wolf. But let’s make it clear, in most of these cancelling cases, it’s by no means a mistake what people say, but is it the job of society to eliminate a person’s platform because they don’t like something that was said. I don’t think it’s right that society has this power, effectively denying someone their right to have an online presence if they say something controversial. Tabloids along with internet users are always watching and waiting for someone to slip up then tell the world why everyone should hate them or vice versa, mine through decade old tweets that were made and wait for someone to have a big role and then call them out on it, if you couldn’t tell, I’m hinting at Kevin Hart when he was due to host the Oscars but got ousted due to tweets surfaced from 10 years ago. Bearing in mind this man is a comedian, contextualising any comments is 100% necessary before making judgement, but no one seems to do that anymore. Similar criticisms of our current PM, Boris Johnson, about comments made about Muslim women, gay men, single mothers and many more. Do these comments give us judgement on how good of a leader he is? No, it doesn’t. And obviously the comments he made could be seen as inappropriate but what’s been said has been said, you can’t ‘cancel’ the prime minister.
So looking at the bigger picture, I could use this as evidence that us as humans are imperfect and therefore back up an argument for conservatism but I think what’s important in a modern society is that people have social liberty and not have to worry about being prosecuted or denied rights because of something they’ve said. As Evelyn Beatrice Hall said, “I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”.