I went to the Free Speech Union’s ‘speakeasy’ in Oxford last week. A great event, packed out, with lots of interesting conversation and a short talk from an Oxford philosophy professor on the dynamics of groupthink.
The FSU is a much-needed lobby group and union, fighting for its members’ basic and essential free speech rights, which are so seriously under threat now.
It has to be said that the meeting was dominated by ‘chattering-class’ types like me – writers and academics – which is inevitable in a newish organisation set up by a well-known journalist after his own appalling hounding and attempted cancellation.
A few of us mentioned this overrepresentation: how important it was to promote the truth that free speech isn’t just an issue for those whose livelihoods depend on writing and teaching. For every academic who needs protecting there will be thousands in ‘ordinary jobs’ who are bullied – self-censoring or literally shut down – into cowed silence. The free speech of a transport worker, fired for saying we don’t live in an Islamic state, is at least as important as that of an Oxford don. After all, as the don said: “People like me are very difficult to sack.” Not so the transport worker. And – to its great credit – the FSU represented the latter in a case he won.
I spoke as a teacher (interestingly, the only one there) who warned how chronic the situation of free speech in schools had become. I had the impression that people were mostly aware of this, but not of how critical the issue is – of the tsunami which will hit us all when the current generation at school are in positions of power. I heard many who were naïvely confident in the ‘pendulum effect’ – that the overreaches of wokedom will inspire a refreshing backlash. I’m less sure that this will do much for the everyday person (like me) who’s been badly affected by the authoritarianism which we face. Wokedom exhibits classic ‘anti-fragility’ and is often strengthened for being attacked, its favourite position.
Perhaps most striking was the assumption that we do still enjoy freedom of speech. We don’t. Most people self-censor, to an extraordinary extent. Indeed, a number of people I spoke to at the event were using just those verbal ticks to indicate to a listener that they’re not racist/sexist/transphobic/whatever. This has become so ingrained and instinctive many don’t even notice it.
My main concern was urging the FSU into thinking hard about how to promote itself in schools. A very difficult ask, but vital. From my experience in teaching, little if any effort is made by teachers in promoting an understanding of free speech in pupils – in direct contrast with the huge amount done on ‘not causing offence’ or the need for ‘safe spaces’. Pupils draw their own conclusions. I’ve yet to teach one who really understood what free speech means, as an idea and in practice. At best, they saw it as always contingent on ‘not causing offence’. More often, they thought free speech was simply being allowed to open your mouth.
I’m a free-speech absolutist from my fundamental beliefs in individual rights but also because its absence means not one of the myriad problems we face gets acknowledged, still less addressed. I think the FSU is stronger on the first point (the philosophical argument) but could do more to stress the practical benefits. That would broaden its appeal. It needs to empower and embolden people so that they stop self-censoring and fatalistically thinking they need to keep quiet.
So many times – and I understand the argument – I’ve heard: “It’s not worth speaking out, I can’t risk it.” In the long run, many will regret such timidity and bear scars from the battles they didn’t fight in a loss of self-respect. It’s unhealthy, not just for society but for the individual, to feel and think strongly then repress it.
Every issue on which free speech is restricted – be it Covid, race, gender, immigration, whatever – is made far worse. Its absence in literature means this artform is vanishing. The scandals around grooming gangs, childcare, transitioning of prepubescent children, vaccine safety (incoming!) were – and are – all enabled by its numerous enemies, perhaps deliberately.
Paul Sutton can be found on Substack. He is the author of two collections of poetry.
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Yet more good news for Fishy the WEF stool pigeon. I predict a plum job inside the organisation when he becomes the first Conservative PM in 120 years to return less than 100 MP’s at a general election. What an accolade. And Kneel will jump on board to further immiserate the country and its people before he departs for his preferred place of work – Davos.
It’s all coming along nicely for them.
How can we be so collectively dumb to keep putting an X in abox for these squirming parasite UN lackeys that have long since serving the public, and now bend over the bonnet of EV’s to be shafted up the a.. by the Davos deviants, as you often call them.
Tri Lateral Kneel let’s not forget ! One of their own !
And there was me thinking road tax went on, well, roads! I guess I’m too old fashioned.
This guy is a star. I won’t vote. Fu+k the establishment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkqr2lbTcyM
It’s the most powerful message you can send. The only message they’ll hear: We see you. We are not playing. We are coming.
“The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) – the Government’s fiscal watchdog – estimates the Treasury’s receipts from VED at £8bn in 2023-24, up from £6.7bn in 2020/21. Adjusting for the 570,000 extra drivers on British roads, this works out to a 17.4pc increase per head.”
Bloody hell! So along with all the other freebies given to immigrants we are now giving them a free car on arrival. No wonder the boats keep coming.
Eh what? Is that real or are you just winding me/us up?
Bloody hell I hope it’s a BEV!
Oh no. That would be impractical without off-street parking.
Well if you are a politician, a civil servant an advisor living in the hallowed Westminster, EU, etc, you don’t need a car, because you have a car provided by us the tax payer with a driver, and when you aren’t using that you are in London with all your ilk, and don’t move out of the little bubble you live in, apart from when you need to visit the proles, then its a tax payer funded car and driver, Helicopter or jet.
They don’t care about us, they care about their place in the political world, how they appear to the WEF boys and where theie next big opportunity is to make bucks for themselves.
Seconded
Never mind driving costs WHAT ABOUT Humza Useless & his pay off – Ready ? Well it’s £52K a year for the rest of his life !!
FFS!
You can tolerate a lot of abuse over a couple of months if you know that at the end you can walk away safe in the knowledge that you have 52 grand for life to look forward to.
He knew he wasn’t up to the job of FM, and I did wonder if there was a period of ‘time in post’ to qualify for that obscene level of pension…and he hung on till he decided to ditch the Greens.
It is not just a war on the motorist, it is a war on the whole standard of living of the people in the wealthy west. But ofcourse the car is the one really big example of our wealth. A private vehicle can take us from our front door to anywhere in the country and the Sustainable Development Collectivists at the UN and WEF hate that. They think a bus, train or bicycle should be all we need. The excuse for the lowering of our standard of living is always “climate change”, the biggest pseudo scientific fraud ever perpetrated, and yet huge chunks of the population really think there is a climate emergency, because they hear it nearly everyday on their 6 O’clock News. ——How can people hardly believe a word coming from the mouths of politicians on almost everything, but when it comes the climate they seem to swallow it all down whole? ——The answer it seems is endless propaganda and scaremongering often referred to as “science”
One group that is fighting for the rights and freedoms of all motorists is the Alliance of British Drivers (ABD.org.uk). Please support them and preferably become members.
Yup I am a member.