Freedom of Speech is one of the great virtues of our modern society. The right to be able to say more or less what you want no matter how blunderingly stupid it might be has become one of the defining aspects of modern culture. But now we appear to be buggering it up.
It is a stark difference from the relatively authoritarian past; now everyone can have a voice (though that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be heard by anyone), a fact enhanced hugely by the existence of the internet. But now, there seems to be a sudden trend of those on the left censoring the right. And by left, I don’t mean everyone has developed a sudden authoritarian streak, I wouldn’t make such a brusque generalization, but there have been a number of instances where people with liberal leanings have actively sought to suppress the views and opinions of people with right-wing views, which all things considered is really quite an illiberal thing to do.
I will be honest right from the start, I hold relatively left-wing views and as such some of the events that will be discussed, there is some degree of bias. First of all, this past week, the Student Union at Cardiff University held a vote on whether or not to ban Pro-Life rallies and protests on the university campus. The motion gained a majority of the votes but fortunately, due to student governing bodies believing that complexity gives them more legitimacy, it was not passed because of a technicality and postponed the vote for 3 days. This stirred up a hornets nest of people saying “what the **** are you doing?”, particularly from religious societies and notably, the Pro-Life society. As well as, notably, a number of other groups that value freedom of speech but don’t necessarily agree with the pro-life parties. And as much as I personally think most of those groups don’t really deserve a say on this sort of thing, their participation in the debate on the matter is still important.
A few weeks previously, the CEO of Software Company Mozilla, (responsible for the Firefox internet browser, among other things) Brendan Eich, was forced from his job after controversy caused by the revelation that he financially supported a campaign called California Proposition 8. For those of you not familiar, Prop 8 as it is also known was a ballot proposition in California, 2008, that would effectively mean that only marriage between a man and a women can be recognized as a lawful marriage in the state of California. As a consequence, all LGBT couples in the state would not be able to marry (which is obviously ludicrous, but never mind). Once Eich’s support of Prop 8 was revealed, the Twitter-sphere turned its hatred towards Eich. Not long afterwards, Eich felt compelled to give up his position as CEO. A man has lost his job on the basis of his personal views, because of the hate-campaign (and it must be said, internal company politics) enjoyed by a number of anonymous people on the internet.
So how has this happened? How has the liberally minded taken to undermining their own views. Part of this could stem from the seething writhing beast that is the Internet. The web has changed things from the good old days where protesters could be run down by cavalry. With the internet, everyone has gained a voice, which regrettably also means that everyone has a voice. Take for example the now infamous internet “hacktivists” Anonymous, who have been long been proponents of generally liberal ideals. They were pivotal in maintaining access to the internet, thus a platform of communication, for the Egyptian people during the 2011 revolution, among other good deeds. However, paired with the likes of Twitter and Tumblr, there are now a number of sites and ciricles on the web that can become very focused on social justice. Regrettably, these social justice internet warriors can be fickle, brutal and relatively close-minded. Attacking those who oppose their views can be considered a form of censorship, or at least an infringement upon your freedom of speech. Whilst every opinion should not go unchallenged, they should go unpunished.
Certainly, this is a problem, a relatively serious one as well. Aggressively attacking people for their views because you think they are wrong is not going to achieve anything other than exacerbating the differences between views. Suppression and censorship does nothing but provoke and victimise those that are suffering as a result. As a strategy, censorship is quite ineffective as it will only make people more sympathetic, in subjective cases. Certain subjects we can, as a society, agree on. Slavery is bad, the Nazis were dicks, Piers Morgan should be shot into space out of an enormous cannon. Other subjects it would seem, from my very biased point of view, we are just waiting for a more mature, modern mentality to take hold. Other subjects are murkier still, and it is because of those that we must maintain the ability to engage in dialogue.