Trigger Warning: Is the Fear of Being Offensive Killing Free Speech?

Trigger Warning: Is the Fear of Being Offensive Killing Free Speech?
Mick Hume

Concise and Abridged EditionIn this blistering polemic, veteran journalist Mick Hume presents an uncompromising defence of freedom of expression, which he argues is threatened in the West, not by jackbooted censorship but by a creeping culture of conformism and You-Can’t-Say-That.In a fierce defence of free speech – in all its forms – Mick Hume’s blistering polemic exposes the new threats facing us today in the historic fight for freedom of expression. In 2015, the cold-blooded attacks in Paris on the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists united the free-thinking world in proclaiming ‘Je suis Charlie’. But it wasn’t long before many were arguing that the massacres showed the need to restrict the right to be offensive. Meanwhile sensitive students are sheltered from potentially offensive material and Twitter vigilantes police those expressing the ‘wrong’ opinion. But the basic right being supressed – to be offensive, despite the problems it creates – is not only acceptable but vital to society. Without a total freedom of expression, other liberties will not be possible.

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Copyright (#uc8c4c337-a155-58ba-bef1-cdfae73df041)

William Collins

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This abridged eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2016

Copyright © Mick Hume 2015

Mick Hume asserts the moral right to

be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record of this book is

available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780008126407

Ebook Edition © May 2016 ISBN: 9780008204389

Version: 2016-04-26

Dedication (#uc8c4c337-a155-58ba-bef1-cdfae73df041)

For Stella and Isabel, may they always think what they like and say what they think

Contents

Cover (#u5f021170-18a4-592d-a1c3-cf1cc22ad9ae)

Title Page (#ulink_faafe3ea-9c8e-5981-a6a6-5bb1117326f0)

Copyright (#ulink_c6b19a09-a4ae-5907-8502-0cca87a0f72c)

Dedication (#ulink_71c72213-ef64-53c0-83d2-df623d14ee16)

Epigraph (#ulink_faf01ff6-2ab6-5d4a-bdc3-32d88769e86f)

Introduction to the concise edition (#ulink_2fb91bdf-1a8e-5fd2-9ed3-7bfe19d1cf98)

1 A few things we forgot about free speech (#ulink_60132cef-079c-5128-ab4a-55273ba6a78b)

2 The age of the reverse-Voltaires (#ulink_35e9a080-4481-55ef-bb40-3805512ca6df)

3 A short history of free-speech heretics (#litres_trial_promo)

Five good excuses for restricting free speech – and why they’re all wrong

4 ‘… but words will always hurt me’ (#litres_trial_promo)

5 ‘There is no right to shout “Fire!” in a crowded theatre’ (#litres_trial_promo)

6 ‘Mind your Ps, Qs, Ns and Ys’ (#litres_trial_promo)

7 ‘Free speech is just a licence for the mass media to brainwash the public’ (#litres_trial_promo)

8 ‘Liars and Holocaust deniers do not deserve to be heard’ (#litres_trial_promo)

The fear of free speech (#litres_trial_promo)

Appendix: The Trigger Warnings we need (#litres_trial_promo)

Notes (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Epigraph (#uc8c4c337-a155-58ba-bef1-cdfae73df041)

Trigger Warning (noun): a statement at the start of any piece of writing, video, etc, alerting the reader or viewer to the fact that it contains material they might find upsetting or offensive.

Introduction to the concise edition (#uc8c4c337-a155-58ba-bef1-cdfae73df041)

Free speech is under threat in the West. But then, what else is new? Freedom of expression has never been assured, even in its heartlands, ever since the ancient Athenians took a democratic vote to put to death their greatest philosopher, Socrates, for talking out of turn.

But the threats to free speech are always changing. The UK parliament has not yet voted to make anybody drink poisoned hemlock, like Socrates, for saying the wrong thing.

This short book is intended to highlight the new challenges to our most precious liberty in the twenty-first century. It aims to provide some ammunition for fighting the new free-speech wars.

In our Anglo-American culture today free speech is not threatened by jackbooted state censorship. The more insidious threat comes from a creeping crusade for conformism in thought and speech. The slogan emblazoned on the crusaders’ banner is ‘You Can’t Say That!’.

It has become the fashion not only to declare yourself offended by what somebody else says, but also to use the ‘offence card’ to demand that they be prevented from – and possibly punished for – saying it.

The most dramatic attack on ‘offensive’ freedom of speech in modern times was the Charlie Hebdo massacre in 2015. Islamist gunmen murdered eight cartoonists and journalists and four others at the Paris offices of the satirical magazine, supposedly to ‘avenge the prophet’ after Charlie published cartoons mocking Muhammad.