I’ve written quite a lot recently on the topic of No Platform and the wider issue of free speech at universities. And I am not done yet. If the reader feels as if I am repeating myself, that’s because I am: blogging is an iterative form of discourse where each evolution towards some kind of opinion is published for all to see.
And I have been thinking about iteration in the context of the campus free speech wars.
After reading Emey’s amusing-but-actually-serious Open Letter to People Who Write Open Letters to People Who Write Open Letters, my mind wanders back to the debate of the past few days. Consider, once more, the the Tatchell pile-on from last week: an internicine debate between left leaning social liberals. Continue reading
Tag: freedom of expression (Page 19 of 31)
Yesterday evening I left a comment1 on a post by Chris Jarvis on the Bright Green blog. Discussing Peter Tatchell and No Platform, Chris wrote:
Tatchell tacitly endorses the idea that people should not be able to collectively decide the people that they chose to invite to speak at events that they are organising in their own spaces.
No, I replied. In signing the letter, Tatchell is saying that when people chose not to debate people with whom they are disagree, they are making a mistake and harming their own cause. Continue reading
In my earlier post, I wrote:
And perhaps students, at the cutting edge of culture and knowledge, have a greater and particular duty than the rest of us? …No Platform is the political equivalent of fly-tipping. Rather than dealing once and for all with the unpleasant rubbish, the policy causes the mess to be dumped elsewhere.
There is a coda to this which I think is important to acknowledge.
If we compare No Platform to fly-tipping, then it follows that that the task of debating reactionaries is an unpleasant experience.
If we ask trans* activists (or feminists, or members of a marginalised group) to debate those who have disparaged them, we should at least acknowledge the unpleasantness of the task. Continue reading
The debate about students and free speech has flared up again. NUS LGBTQ officer Fran Cowling refused to share a platform with veteran human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, acusing him of racism and transphobia.
Many people have pointed out that refusing to speak alongside someone is not the same as denying them a platform; others argue that it can amount to the same thing.
The standard argument against No Platform is that we should debate people we disagree with, because we will win the argument. This is a point I have made in many contexts. But there is a collary to this which is often glossed over: No Platform just makes the bigots someone else’s problem.
No Platform is just a clever form of NIMBYism. When students refuse to engage, the people with unsavoury views are not discredited to the extent that they fall out of the discourse. Instead, they double-down. Although they may be prevented from speaking in a particular place, they usually take their speech elsewhere. Continue reading
Ever since the hideous massacre of journalists at the Charlie Hebdo newspaper, I’ve been relaying a pair of juxtaposed facts about the media coverage of the incident. I am preparing a talk to some media studies students about the coverage, and I have just realised I have never properly blogged about what I noticed.
Better late than never, I’m doing that now. Continue reading