Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the 14th Century masterpiece which tell the stories of a host of characters on a pilgrimage to Canterbury Cathedral, has been given a trigger warning by Nottingham University because they contained “expressions of Christian faith”. The Mail has more.
Nottingham University has now been accused of “demeaning education” for warning students about the religious elements of Chaucer’s stories – saying that anyone studying one of the most famous works in English literature would hardly have to have the Christian references pointed out.
The Mail on Sunday has obtained details of the notice issued to students studying a module called ‘Chaucer and His Contemporaries’ under Freedom of Information laws. It alerts them to incidences of violence, mental illness and expressions of Christian faith in the works of Chaucer and fellow medieval writers William Langland, John Gower, and Thomas Hoccleve.
The Canterbury Tales, written between 1387 and 1400, is a collection of stories about characters on a pilgrimage from London to the tomb of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral.
They include the promiscuous Wife of Bath, the drunken miller and the thieving reeve, who delight and shock each other with stories containing explicit references to rape, lust and even anti-Semitism.
However, the university’s warning makes no reference to the anti-Semitism or sexually explicit themes.
Frank Furedi, emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent, said: “Warning students of Chaucer about Christian expressions of faith is weird. Since all characters in the stories are immersed in a Christian experience there is bound to be a lot of expressions of faith. The problem is not would-be student readers of Chaucer but virtue-signalling, ignorant academics.”
Historian Jeremy Black added: “Presumably, this Nottingham nonsense is a product of the need to validate courses in accordance with tick-box criteria. It is simultaneously sad, funny and a demeaning of education.”
Worth reading in full.
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Let’s have an article on the historical cancellation of Tommy Robinson and the jailing of Julian Assange.
Very good points.
Clarkson represents the cuddly side of the “right”.
Robinson and Assange would represent a step too far for most. IIRC Hitchens has attacked the way Assange has been treated but seems to have something of a blind spot with regard to “racism”.
But for now, I will take this. Clarkson has a big following and is a mainstream figure, and what he has written here seems very well put to me.
Respect to JC and my comment on
https://dailysceptic.org/2023/01/20/sign-the-petition-urging-itv-not-to-cancel-jeremy-clarkson/
Clarkson would have fared better going full-on offensive, rather than issuing grovelling mea-culpas to the Sussexes.
Correct. IMHO he should have said: “It’s a joke. If you don’t like it, tough” or words to that effect. You should never apologise, which is basically admitting that they’re right and you’re wrong. Just tell them to stick it.
Struggling to sign up to petition – no email coming in to confirm…and I’ve checked my junk mail. OK, as soon as I posted this, miraculously it came through!
When I try and sign the petition I just get a message saying that the site is not secure (although I can access some sites that are not secure but not all sites) and that cnhg.it sent an invalid response. I know that my internet provider is pretty rubbish (or censoring certain sites someone doesn’t approve of), but is there anything I can do to be able to sign?
I had similar, it seems to be in slow motion. Hopefully sheer weight of numbers wanting to sign.
My confirmation took hours to turn up.
A communist take over of police, civil service, schools avd media has occurred whilst the masses were fast asleep. Their plan to enslave us with energy rationing, because that’s what socialism basically is, permanent rationing by hateful ppl pretending to be virtuous.
https://declassifieduk.org/the-secretive-us-embassy-backed-group-cultivating-the-british-left/
Chunts !!.. The lot of em!
Clarkson needs to keep this up and even ramp up a gear or two.
“Do not go gently in to that good night.”
a very powerful and true piece. Clarkson now needs to drop the green credentials he acquired a while ago and realise that this agenda is the driving force behind much of what we are seeing today.
I can’t help thinking the whole woke agenda obessessed with race and gender and climate, all imaginary problems, is a provoked distraction.
It draws attention away from the truly critical issues like our unsustainable debt, the collapse of the global monetary system and the expanding power of our plutocrats.
As we squabble about wholly unimportant made up issues they are free to do and undo as they please with the matters that are truly important.
And you’d probably be right. Soros funds most of it. One of the biggest tragedies on Earth right now is that excess deaths are currently breaking records and not one of them is George Soros.
I don’t think he’s even on the Death List.
https://deathlist.net/
What a truly awful list.
It is missing all the big names.
Or the myriad of other silly old C-nts running the shit show !!
Don’t be concerned.
If the grim reaper comes a knocking on Georgie’s door you can be sure there will be a charitable fund in place to carry on Georgie’s “good works“.
Possibly, but all of those things are very real problems for those in the firing line – people whose livelihoods are at risk if they say the wrong thing, those who lose despite their merits, and society and civilisation are diminished.
“Clarkson Fights Back” – well done to him, but his fatal error was in apologising to the woke mob in the first place. Never, but never, do that. Ever.
He should start a Joe Rogan type podcast & then he could say what ever he likes ! Until The Online Safety Bill kicks in
Clarkson has made a career of being needlessly offensive to people, so I regard it as some kind of poetic justice that he’s finally offended someone who can trash him. Personally, I think there are much better recipients of your free speech campaigning out there – I would leave Clarkson to his own devices.
Amazing. Clarkson has managed to string sentences together without abusing anyone.
Probably had help whilst his hands were nailed to the table to stop him messing up again.
Pathetic: “My son came over for a father-and-son pre-football supper the other day, and as he fussed over the Aga, making a particularly fine stir fry”
His daughter did not come over to cook for him. She went public and told us what she thinks of him. His son came over to try to ensure his Dad’s demented scribbling was not wiping out his inheritance.
It is time Jezza quit.
Take a look at this and tell me me I am wrong.
Don’t forget to downvote this comment – click below.
I want to go for the world record of down votes. Help me achieve my ambition. Its what iconoclasts live for.
Hooray. My first down vote for my comment. Arrived within 28 minutes of posting. At that rate it will be less than 500,000 hours to hit a million. Which is a whisker less than 57 years.
Come on people, roll up, roll up and down vote asap. You have got to do better.
Another ambition of mine is to have ambitions.
Only people with ambition can be ambitious.
Why be ambiguous when ambition beckons.
Miserable effort. Only 14 down votes after 3 hours.
Do better!
Only 29 after 11 hours. Hopeless.
Barely 1 every 23 minutes.
Good for Jeremy Clarkson and his son – spot on.
No, I’m not signing the petition. For once let this hugely rich man put principle before lucre.
Good for you Smudger.
The Sussexes have a genuine constant fear of violence for themselves and their children just because of who they are.
But forget that and let’s all force the Free Speech Union to campaign for the repeal of criminal legislation in the name of Clarkson’s freedom of speech to threaten, abuse, insult and incite hate.
Compare the petition with section 4 of the Public Order Act 1986.
THE PETITION:
“the negative reaction has been completely disproportionate”
“these statements were not intended to be taken literally”
“just using hyperbole for comedic effect”
“much of the outrage ,,,,, has been ‘performative’” “the people expressing it do not appear to really believe Mr Clarkson’s remarks put anyone at risk.”
“if they genuinely believe his words posed a danger to the safety of the Duchess of Sussex or women and girls in general ….. why have so many of them repeated those words verbatim in the course of condemning him?”
“I hope you are not taking more seriously the complaints about Mr Clarkson because one of the complainants is a Duchess ….. To apportion extra weight to a complaint because the complainant is rich and powerful … would be to send a message …. that saying anything that annoys somebody well-connected and influential may result in them losing their jobs.”
“Finally …. the price Jeremy Clarkson has already paid for his remarks. …. Is he to be punished even further by losing his only other main source of income? …. completely disproportionate to the crime ….. compounding his humiliation.”
Section 4 of the Public Order Act 1986
4 Fear or provocation of violence.
(1) A person is guilty of an offence if he—
with intent to cause that person to believe that immediate unlawful violence will be used against him or another by any person, or to provoke the immediate use of unlawful violence by that person or another, or whereby that person is likely to believe that such violence will be used or it is likely that such violence will be provoked.
(2) An offence under this section may be committed in a public or a private place, except that no offence is committed where the words or behaviour are used, or the writing, sign or other visible representation is distributed or displayed, by a person inside a dwelling and the other person is also inside that or another dwelling.
(3) [repealed]
(4) A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale or both.
__________
Don’t forget to down vote my comments. I really do want to go for the world record.
You’d have to go a long way to prove that Clarkson calling for Sparkles to be hammered with doggie-do is going to provoke violence. Hazmat showing off that he bumped off two dozen Taliban is far more likely to get them creamed.
1) You people know no shame nor realise how damaging to the cause of free speech defending Clarkson is;
2) You also avoid facing up to the nasty creepy pervy sexual fantasy Clarkson wrote and substitute “hammered with doggie-do” – bah, pathetic;
3) proving it is not the point;
4) read s4 again for what constitutes the offence.
________________________
1) It is foolish to set Clarkson up as a poster-boy martyr for free speech. He is soiled goods and this will come back on you.
Why? Some for examples:
No concern is expressed about the thousands of innocent people and school kids every day subjected constantly to exactly the same kinds of abuse online or to their phones via social media for the same kinds of bullying and abuse that Clarkson epitomises and encourages by his example.
And there are those for whom it is too much and take their own lives.
Clarkson is the last person the DS or FSU should be standing up for.
Freedom of speech and freedom from abuse.
Crocodile tears from you all about this multimillionaire “losing his livelihood” are hilarious.
Is Clarkson a criminal – I think so. He in any event does not deserve the support of DS or the FSU. He oversteps the mark too often.
________________________
2) The pervy creepy nasty sexual fantasy Clarkson wrote about for loons everywhere to get off on:
“I’m unable to sleep as I lie there ….. dreaming of the day when she is made to parade naked through the streets of every town in Britain while the crowds chant ‘Shame!’ and throw lumps of excrement at her.”
3) The point is the law recognises threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour can constitute a criminal offence. And Jezza loves doing it. It is just a matter of time before his nastiness for profit will result in violent harm to someone.
4) s4 – “whereby that person is likely to believe that such violence will be used or it is likely that such violence will be provoked“.
We already know the Sussexes have to take precautions all the time. So just because they try to make sure immediate violence cannot happen does not mean they are not likely to believe such violence will be used or is likely to be provoked.
If hostile people turned up in the street outside the Sussexes home during the period Jezza’s nasty article was online the offence would appear to be complete – likely to believe use of or provocation of immediate violence.
Although no fan of Piers Morgan he didn’t apologise to Meghan. He lost his job or walked off the show and good for him. Clarkson loves gobbing off to his credulous fans but the minute his money income stream is threatened he acts like a big spoilt kid and gives a grovelling apology. What a wimp.
Is he really any different to the money grubbing Sussexs?
Good on yer Smudger. And “gobbing off to his credulous fans” – nice turn of phrase which captures it nicely.
Also, Morgan said he did not believe the Duchess over comments made about her mental health in an interview with Oprah Winfrey.
He did not say:
“I’m unable to sleep as I lie there ….. dreaming of the day when she is made to parade naked through the streets of every town in Britain while the crowds chant ‘Shame!’ and throw lumps of excrement at her.”
At least someone knows right from wrong.
Denise Welch fumes as Meghan’s blamed for Piers Morgan and Jeremy Clarkson being ‘sacked’
she fumed: “So it’s Meghan’s fault that they have said disgusting things about her??? Go f…k yourselves!!!”
Why don’t people here know right from wrong? A lot of others seem to.
Quotes below from more people who know right from wrong. Why not people here?
There are those of us who joined the FSU because we have experienced hateful online abuse and bullying of the Clarkson kind just for expressing valid views and exercising our right to free speech.
Freedom of speech and freedom from abuse.
None of you can answer that. None of you can explain what is right about what Clarkson wrote or why he should be allowed to write it. And that is because he should not be and you all know it.
_______________________________________
Clarkson’s Daughter
Posting on her Instagram page on Sunday, podcast host Emily Clarkson said she supports those “targeted with online hatred”.
“My views are and have always been clear when it comes to misogyny, bullying and the treatment of women by the media,” she wrote.
“I want to make it very clear that I stand against everything my dad wrote about Meghan Markle.”
Newsweek:
There was instant condemnation of the words which resulted in 60 British politicians signing a letter calling for action from The Sun’s publishers. Clarkson issued an apology to those he offended on December 19, after his own daughter distanced herself from him and his comments online. The apology, however, was not directed at Meghan herself.
The People:
Clarkson’s article sparked near-immediate backlash from Brits, with more than 6,000 complaints being made to press regulator IPSO about the piece, according to the BBC.
First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon, who was also named in the article as someone that Clarkson “hates,” called the piece “deeply misogynist.”
“I think what he said about Meghan Markle was deeply misogynist and just downright awful and horrible,” she said, according to The Times. “My overwhelming emotion about guys like Jeremy Clarkson is pity. I mean, what is it that makes somebody so distorted by hate that they end up writing these things? I think that possibly gives an insight into Jeremy Clarkson and the kind of person he is. So maybe he just needs to take a step back from things and just think about life a bit more.”
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan took to Twitter to offer his own condemnation of Clarkson, writing: “As Jeremy Clarkson should well know – words have consequences. The words in his piece are no joke – they’re dangerous and inexcusable. We are in an epidemic of violence against women and girls and men with powerful voices must do better than this.”
The Guardian
A Jeremy Clarkson column in the Sun about the Duchess of Sussex has provoked outcry online, with social media users labelling it “vile”, “horrific” and “abusive”.
….
The comedian John Bishop tweeted that the remarks were a “blatant appeal to incite humiliation and violence on a woman”.
The presenter Carol Vorderman tweeted: “NO, Jeremy Clarkson. Not on any level, in any circumstance, is it OK to write this stuff about any woman and absolutely NO to ‘everyone who’s my age thinks the same’.”
The author Philip Pullman wrote: “That Jeremy Clarkson can write things like that, and publish them unashamed, tells us all we need to know about the way Rupert Murdoch has poisoned and rotted our public life.”
Clarkson’s daughter Emily, who hosts the Should I Delete That? podcast, was praised by many on social media for an Instagram post that said: “I want to make it very clear that I stand against everything my dad said about Meghan Markle and I remain standing in support of those who are targeted with online hatred.”
The comedian Dom Joly said he was “literally gobsmacked” at Clarkson’s “utterly vile and disgusting comments”. He added: “What is it about these type of men that triggers them so?”
His fellow comic Jason Manford tweeted a photo of an excerpt from the article with the caption: “If you can defend Clarkson in this, then please don’t reply to me, just unfollow and block and move on. We are never going to agree.”
Meanwhile, the British social activist and chief executive of the Five Foundation, Nimco Ali, wrote: “A young Black woman opens up about her struggle with suicidal thoughts as a result of the abuse she got from the media, and this is how some men in the media react. This is absolutely horrific.”
The 5 Live presenter Rachel Burden tweeted: “So … there’s Jeremy Clarkson writing what he did. And then the editor deciding to publish it.”
The Radio DJ and TV host Edith Bowman wrote on Twitter: “How is someone able to print such abusive comments in an actual newspaper?”
Why would The Offendables ever go near Clarkson’s writing or his TV, if not for the specific risk, or even, purpose, of being offended? Clarkson’s Markle column was as they often are: satirical and clever and funny. It was arguably very un-clever only if it is conceded that in a world where the lunatics run the asylum, it is insane to poke sticks at the morons who rule over us. Like Trump, Jeremy can be … off-putting, but in the face of the existential danger posed by the Biden/Blair/Fauci/Shwaub/Trudeau/Sturgeon/Sunak et al view of the world we need to put aside our little foibles about personality and wtfu (first word wake, then “the” …) and organise our strengths. Jeremy has woken up I hope.
The handling of Covid, of Climate, of China and Russia since 1990, are all absolute proof of the domination of left/liberal insanity. It is bringing to destruction the freak of nature which was the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it period when The West reigned supreme. This was the only time in human history – 1950/60’s – when equal opportunity was far from complete but was briefly on a seemingly permanent upward trajectory; grotesque historic injustices were beginning to be recognised and tackled. So how sickly ironic that it was the virtue signalling fools on the liberal left who put a stop to all that nonsense. Every baby on the planet thrown out with the bath water; the destruction of grammar schools the perfect example, as the great – and mega-prescient – Peter Hitchens eloquently details in his new book.
BTW, awesome speech, so pertinent to all this, by Konstantin Kisin at Oxford! Please watch: https://youtu.be/JKIOSnKX96E. Big respect, but I fear that Nigel will be crowned King of Scotland before KK’s words will be taken on board by The Blob who rule over us. Also, brilliant piece (YouTube or podcast) by the author of The Parasitic Mind, Professor Gad Saad on the intriguing intransigence of previously demonstrably bright people (like Sam Harris) even when stared down by reality and undeniable evidence. If you thought Sam might have brushed up on his self awareness after his highly entertaining debacle over the Hunter Biden laptop with KK on Triggernometry, then you ain’t seen nuthin yet, as poor Sam demonstrates his “mental agility” over Covid. Just search “the saad truth if grandma had balls”. A great 20 minutes. The prof is right up there along with his fellow Canadian (how about that, two oases in a desert of woke fascism) and great friend Prof JP. I’m a pessimist, but guys like that – and of course the great TY himself, thanks again Toby – keep me from being an INSANE pessimist.
Lots of words but not much content from Dnacam. To summarise:
“Na na na na na – our world to hell in a handbasket because of the woke idiots who rule us.”
I’m still waiting for someone to explain why freedom of speech and freedom from abuse should not be the guiding principles of the Free Speech Union and for DS.
No one explained why everyone should be free to suppress my freedom of speech by abusing me and attacking me and engaging in hate speech to encourage me to shut up, which has been attempted so often.
I will not give up my free speech and be silenced by abusers and haters.
Come on you lot – tell me why I should.
Stop moaning about “Woke“. You use it complain about everything you don’t like with no idea what it means or represents.
Snore, snore, snore. I’m as bored hearing wokism as I am hearing people complaining about it.
Take my arguments apart if you can – but so far no one has tried. It is just down-votes from the Sheeple: “Aw, I’ll just click here and make it go away. But don’t ask me to exercise my brain and use free speech ‘cos that is just way harder than a painless little click.”
Clarkson knows if he abuses people you don’t like, you hear what you want to hear and he makes dosh. It is that simple.
He does not have to be sophisticated to be clever and funny when he has abuse. Markle is just “asking for it” isn’t she so Jezza makes a few more quid appealing to the worst instincts by tapping out some easy money on the keyboard of his laptop when he had nothing better to do on Old McJezza’s Farm one wet Cotswolds afternoon.
It is quick, its easy, it takes very little effort to serve up Jezza’s populist laddism for the lads and laddettes to lap up.
Konstantin Kisin’s Oxford Union speech which Dnacam claimed supposedly left them speechless did not and is boring.
He moaned and moaned about the Woke mob.
People kept trying to interrupt him they were that speechless. Ha, ha, ha! So there is someone who does not even know what that version of speechless means let alone what freedom of speech means.
We all know about the kind of speechless Clarkson was trying to achieve. He was attempting to make Markle speechless – to get her to shut up or to be shut up by engaging in abuse and hate speech for entertainment purposes and make money.
His free speech versus hers.
What hypocrisy. Freedom of speech for Clarkson to shut up Markle’s freedom of speech.
You want to deny free speech by allowing personal, hate-filled and abusive attacks? Really? It is how it started in 1930s Germany. And it did not end well.
So come on and tell me why I am wrong. Dnacam‘s 440 words don’t cut the mustard. Who amongst you can do any better?
I was last night watching Denial. All about Holocaust denier antisemite and fascist David Irving’s libel action against Deborah Lipstadt for making false and damaging allegations about him.
But Irving lost all the same. She kept her free speech and Irving discovered he had no reputation to protect.
How will your arguments do in comparison. What are the principles you base it upon? Do tell please. Where is their intellectual merit?
Come out of the woodwork and make your case. Lipstadt’s allegations were not entirely correct but Irving lost because he made up claims the Holocaust never happened and did his own reputation untold damage to the degree he was left without one.
So tell me why freedom of speech and freedom from abuse should not be the guiding principles of the Free Speech Union and for DS.
So how much better is your argument than mine? Is mine wrong and your’s right?
I am waiting to hear.
Irving’s “holes in the roof” revealed the holes in his arguments. So far I have not seen your arguments. Where are they? Where are your principles upon which you base your defence of Saint Jezza the Pure and Saint Jezza the Humble.
So far it has been this multimillionaire should not lose his livelihood. Aw, shucks, some people who get his kind of abuse and hate lose their lives when they cannot take it any more. But Jezza will not follow their example by hanging up his boots in quite the same indirect manner.
At least Irving tried to be clever in his efforts to concoct his arguments to abuse and humiliate the few million who survived the fate of their less fortunate relatives.
On denying Irving permission to appeal the English Court of Appeal decided:
“The judgment (J 8.17) sets out the solidity of the applicant’s denial of mass homicide at Auschwitz, and sets in that context his recent focus on the “holes in the roof” issue (J 13.81-3). …. the evidence that there were no holes for the admission of cyanide pellets is at best inconclusive against the potent evidence that people were gassed there in tens of thousands.”
So are your arguments in favour of St Jezza the Pure, St Jezza the Humble any better than Irving’s that there was no Holocaust.
Do tell me.
Why would The Offendables ever go near Clarkson’s writing or his TV, if not for the specific risk, or even, purpose, of being offended? Clarkson’s Markle column was as they often are: satirical and clever and funny. It was arguably very un-clever only if it is conceded that in a world where the lunatics run the asylum, it is insane to poke sticks at the morons who rule over us. Like Trump, Jeremy can be … off-putting, but in the face of the existential danger posed by the Biden/Blair/Fauci/Shwaub /Trudeau/Sturgeon/Sunak et al view of the world we need to put aside our little foibles about personality, wake the bleep up and organise our strengths. Jeremy has woken up I hope.
The handling of Covid, of Climate, of China and Russia since 1990, are all absolute proof of the domination of left/liberal insanity. It is bringing to destruction the freak of nature which was the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it period when The West reigned supreme. This was the only time in human history – 1950/60’s – when equal opportunity was far from complete but was briefly on a seemingly permanent upward trajectory; grotesque historic injustices were beginning to be recognised and tackled. So how sickly ironic that it was the virtue signalling fools on the liberal left who put a stop to all that nonsense. Every baby on the planet thrown out with the bath water; the destruction of grammar schools the perfect example, as the great – and mega-prescient – Peter Hitchens eloquently details in his new book.
BTW, awesome speech, so pertinent to all this, by Konstantin Kisin at Oxford! Please watch: https://youtu.be/JKIOSnKX96E. Big respect, but I fear that Nigel will be crowned King of Scotland before KK’s words will be taken on board by The Blob who rule over us. Also, brilliant piece (YouTube or podcast) by the author of The Parasitic Mind, Professor Gad Saad on the intriguing intransigence of previously demonstrably bright people (like Sam Harris) even when stared down by reality and undeniable evidence. If you thought Sam might have brushed up on his self awareness after his highly entertaining debacle over the Hunter Biden laptop with KK on Triggernometry, then you ain’t seen nuthin yet, as poor Sam demonstrates his “mental agility” over Covid. Just search “the saad truth if grandma had balls”. A great 20 minutes. The prof is right up there along with his fellow Canadian (how about that, two oases in a desert of woke fascism) and great friend Prof JP. I’m a pessimist, but guys like that – and of course the great TY himself, thanks again Toby – keep me from being an INSANE pessimist.
Well, well, well.
I have already answered this from Dnacam and demolished it
https://dailysceptic.org/2023/01/22/clarkson-fights-back/#comment-856427
Instead of meeting my direct challenge to tell me why freedom of speech and freedom from abuse should not be the guiding principles of the Free Speech Union and for DS and how much better is his argument than mine, he just reposts exactly the same comment.
I guess ignoring someone’s free speech is another way to deny it.
But I thought that the DS and the Free Speech Union were interested in supporting and promoting free speech and not destroying it by supporting people like Clarkson who crush other peoples’ free speech by using abuse and hate to try to shut them up.
My direct challenge is to tell me why freedom of speech and freedom from abuse should not be the guiding principles of the Free Speech Union and for DS and how much better is your argument than mine.
Anyone up for it?
Notice how Dnacam creates a category of persons called “The Offendables”. In facf that category is everyone because everyone is capable of being offended by something.
His/hers is a new category of Apartheid and a new way of shutting people up.
His/her argument is that if anyone can be offended they should not read newspapers or interact with anyone or anything that might cause offence.
S/he writes why should “they” [his/her invention of The Offendables] “ever go near Clarkson’s writing or his TV, if not for the specific risk, or even, purpose, of being offended?”
So let us turn that around. Why should Clarkson ever be allowed to get into the position of broadcasting or publishing his views to people he intends to offend?
So thanks to Dnacam we now have the perfect argument for keeping Jezza off the airwaves, out of print and out of sight. That way he cannot offend anyone.
The greatest good for the greatest number.
Well done Dnacam, you have just come up with the perfect argument for dealing with Jezza. Shut him up. See – I knew you were not interested in freedom of speech at all.
So I think my solution is better – freedom of speech coupled with freedom from abuse. And still no one to tell me I am completely wrong.
It happens also to be the law of England that Freedom of Speech includes the right to be informed.
So telling people not to read newspapers is another denial of freedom of speech. Well done Dnacam. Absolute genius. Thanks.
Maybe we need a new Free Speech Union which is concerned about free speech and not about shutting people up whose views you don’t want to hear.
Hey, Jezza. This article by Toby is entitled “Clarkson Fights Back”.
So come on. Come here and answer my arguments and prove me wrong.
You can even use abuse and hate as it seems to be what you know best, but I will call you out on it every time.
I’m responding Iconoclast. He (or she, but I think he) says my long 440 words say nothing. I have since browsed all the comments and realised he totally dominates with very long contributions saying, not nothing, but just one thing: that he has an all-consuming intense hatred of Jeremy Clarkson. To the power of ten! But what I was going to say was:
Wow! Is Iconoclast actually responding to what I wrote? Of at least a dozen points he could have addressed, he picks on something I simply did not say. Actually, in essence, the opposite! You know you’ve touched a nerve when rather than deny one of my key points, that the lunatics are running the asylum, he demonstrates that he might be one of the managers. He must know from the essence of my words that I identify the liberal/left’s success in suppressing free speech as at the heart of our current malaise. He keeps returning to the Game of Thrones image. Deeply distasteful as that was, it is NOTHING compared to the catastrophe we see all around us, created by decades of lethally stupid decision-making, rooted in wokeism and virtue-signalling and the censorship of wiser voices. So many of my university educated friends have NO OPINION about “The Hunter Biden Laptop” or “Vaccine Damage” etc etc because the have simply “never heard of it”. Why would they have if they had not read ANYTHING contrary to The Narrative supplied by the BBC or The Times. I am more and more convinced that “pure dead ignorance” among a huge proportion of normal, mostly decent, so called well educated people is a huge and, surprise surprise, worryingly undebated issue. I plead with people to explore as many widely different sources of news and opinion as possible. But the mindset of The Offendables, like those promoting fascist liberalism (think Trudeau, Sturgeon), is more akin to a religion, and believers in one faith tend not to spend time reading alternative scriptures. It’s great that Ico admits to being “bored” by wokeism and all debate about it. The disease will indeed thrive and spread if we do as he hopes, and share his boredom. But he was also bored by KK’s brilliant Oxford speech WHICH WENT VIRAL. Ico, “boring” never generates global interest, but rather than acknowledge that, you dismiss it. As I said, see Gad Saad’s nailing of this mindset.
Iconoclast cunningly changes “from being offended” to “from abuse” when he frames his challenge to me to tell him “why freedom of speech and freedom from abuse should not be the guiding principles of the FSU and for DS …..” The side I’m on takes as a given that “no human being has a right to not ever be offended”. His side obviously disagrees, and in my view, and I hope in the view of Toby and the FSU, that is a threat to freedom itself. And that’s before we get to the absurdity of allowing the “offended” person to take offence when genuinely no offence was intended or imagined. The Offendables love the concept of “intersectionality”, leading to the rabbit hole wherein lies a hierarchy of victimhood, with degrees of vulnerability to “offence” in there somewhere among all the nonsenses. I cannot remember ever being offended by an essay written to make a point I vehemently disagree with. George Monbiot writes such dangerous drivel about Climate that the WORLD should be much more than offended, but I still read him occasionally. And laugh at his stupidity. But, back to my point that Ico chose to misunderstand: if people know they might be traumatised by reading JC, then why do they knowingly risk their health and happiness by so doing?
A person is simply being either dishonest or stupid if, like Ico, they claim to want to promote BOTH freedom of speech and freedom from causing offence; sometimes they are in loud and unavoidable conflict. And slipping abuse into the equation is wilfully muddying the waters because the word COULD describe behaviour that none of us would defend. But when it comes to the written word, bad actors too often conflate abusive and offensive. Nearly always, they both mean “offensive”. And we must be passionate about defending the right to offend. If Iconoclast thinks this is me telling people “not to read newspapers or interact with anyone or anything that might cause offence”, then … he’s nuts. Is this me being abusive, or just offensive?
Ha! Answer coming right up. Watch this space.
The challenge I posed to Jezza Clarkson, and to everyone else was to tell me why freedom of speech and freedom from abuse should not be the guiding principles of the Free Speech Union and for DS and how much better is his/her/their argument than mine.
Still no answer.
Instead I get strawmen arguments from Dnacam who is the first person I have ever read who can write in what seems to me to be a Dutch accent.
A strawman argument is the ploy of substituting what the other person says with something different and then answering that.
It of course does not answer the argument at all.
So let us see the first “strawman”.
Strawman 1
“he has an all-consuming intense hatred of Jeremy Clarkson”.
Nowhere in my comments is it possible to find that. It is Dnacam’s pure invention.
And he does not answer the challenge.
Strawman 2
“he picks on something I simply did not say” “in essence, the opposite”.
“the essence of my words that I identify the liberal/left’s success in suppressing free speech as at the heart of our current malaise”
Where Dnacam gets that idea from I cannot say because I did not say it. And again, Dnacam fails to answer the challenge to explain why freedom of speech and freedom from abuse should not be the guiding principles of the Free Speech Union and for DS.
Strawman 3
“rather than deny one of my key points, that the lunatics are running the asylum, he demonstrates that he might be one of the managers”
I love this one. Pure abuse pretending to be argument – this argument claims I am a loony.
Aside from being nearly impossible to discern his/her “key points” let alone deny one, all I have been doing is trying to get someone, him/her or Jezza Clarkson to explain why freedom of speech and freedom from abuse should not be the guiding principles of the Free Speech Union and for DS.
Strawman 4
“freedom from abuse” is impossible because “no human being has a right to not ever be offended”. and “A person is simply being either dishonest or stupid if, like Ico, they claim to want to promote BOTH freedom of speech and freedom from causing offence; sometimes they are in loud and unavoidable conflict.”
The strawman here substitutes and equates “freedom from abuse” with “freedom from being offended” which are two completely different things but as if I argue they are the same which I do and did not.
I again thank Dnacam again for making my point by degenerating rapidly into abuse that I am supposedly “dishonest or stupid” whilst I sit here reading Dnacam make the point for me.
Dnacam chooses to confuse being abused with being offended. Whilst one may be subjected to abuse one may not feel offended, especially when the person attempting to be abusive is embarrasing him or herself, as we see happening here with Dnacam.
If you cannot argue your case without degenerating into abuse you show the other person has beaten you. Thanks.
And one can be offended without being abused. One can be offended by hyposcrisy without being the subject of abuse. Organised religion for example might be offensive to many right-thinking people because it is so hypocritical. It can offend their sense of fairness and justice without abusing any of them.
Indeed, Dnacam writes “I cannot remember ever being offended by an essay written to make a point I vehemently disagree with.”
So one can have freedom of speech, with freedom from abuse, whilst potentially being offended. And Dnacam kindly illustrates that for me.
Strawman 5
Hilariously Dnacam writes “bad actors too often conflate abusive and offensive. Nearly always, they both mean “offensive”.”
But that is what s/he has just done but now accuses me of doing it when I have never done it.
I just love it. Awesome. Stupendous logic.
Dnacam asks “Is this me being abusive, or just offensive?“. Neither. It is you not being very good at winning an argument.
So Dnacam back to the point from which I have not strayed do tell me tell me why freedom of speech and freedom from abuse should not be the guiding principles of the Free Speech Union and why you are right and I am wrong.
How about you Jezza?
Anyone?
“La la la la la, la la la la la, fingers in the ears?” Surely not?