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Trigger Warning: Is the Fear of Being Offensive Killing Free Speech?, by Mick Hume
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In 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.
The cold-blooded murder of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists in January 2015 brought a deadly focus to the issue of free speech. Leaders of the free-thinking world united in condemning the killings, proclaiming ‘Je suis Charlie’. But it wasn’t long before many commentators were arguing that the massacre showed the need to apply limits to free speech and to restrict the right to be offensive.
It has become fashionable not only to declare yourself offended by what somebody else says, but to use the ‘offence card’ to demand that they be prevented from saying it. Social media websites such as Twitter have become the scene of ‘twitch hunts’ where online mobs hunt down trolls and other heretics who express the ‘wrong’ opinion. And Trigger Warnings and other measures to ‘protect’ sensitive students from potentially offensive material have spread from American universities across the Atlantic and the internet.
Hume argues that without freedom of expression, our other liberties would not be possible. Against the background of the historic fight for free speech, Trigger Warning identifies the new threats facing it today and spells out how unfettered freedom of expression, despite the pain and the problems it entails, remains the most important liberty of all.
- Sales Rank: #584527 in Books
- Published on: 2015-06-18
- Released on: 2015-07-21
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.10" h x 1.00" w x 5.90" l, 1.07 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 320 pages
Review
‘Superb…This is a first-rate polemic and the most important political book of the year so far’ Rod Liddle
‘This is an important book, and couldn’t be more timely. It’s strong-minded, unafraid, determined to knock down all the various specious arguments against free speech, unapologetic about insisting on the value of free expression, and terrifically well argued. In these weak-minded times it’s good to have so uncompromising a defence’ Salman Rushdie
‘What this book does tremendously is pull off the neat trick of summing up just what the hell is going on out there on the great frontiers of speech, offence, liberty and people shouting at each other’ The Times
About the Author
Mick Hume is a journalist and author. He is editor-at-large of Spiked and writes regularly on free-speech issues. He had a weekly column in ‘The Times’ for 10 years, and was described as ‘Britain’s only libertarian Marxist newspaper columnist’. More recently he has written in defence of freedom of speech and a free press in ‘The Times’, the ‘Sunday Times’, the ‘Independent’ and the ‘Sun’.
Most helpful customer reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful.
Cuttingly insightful
By Andrew
Very clever, polemic and cutting. This is an insightful book which shook up my own thinking about these issues. It marauds its way across a range of current and pertinent free speech issues and leaves the scene a healthier place for it.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
Extremely timely book about the importance of free speech
By Joseph G. Doser, Jr.
This book should be required (and yes, I see the irony in that) reading for university students, college administrators, professors, self-declared activists, and others who would forcibly "improve" the world by shrill overreaction to free speech and thought. Orwell's Big Brother never dreamed thought control would be so easy. All it takes is a few delusional malcontents and a media desperate for content, no matter how trite and irrational--and no need for bayonets or jack-booted thugs! The author makes many straight-forward compelling philosophical arguments in support of free speech, supported by comically tragic anecdotes. I imagine it was difficult to chose from among the many real life incidents related to this topic. I hope that people realize the only rights that truly exist for oneself are those you're willing to endure others having as well.
As further irony, we'll have to see if this review makes it past the Amazon censors.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
Attack of the Politeness Police
By Kevin L. Nenstiel
Once upon a time, kings and priests censoriously decided what we citizens could say and hear. Centuries of Enlightenment philosophers, religious dissidents, and civil liberties champions struggled to expand the definition of allowable discourse, calling free speech a necessary human right. But something funny happened: once the seeming libertarians achieved cultural supremacy, they began silencing others, just as they themselves had once been silenced.
Marxist journalist Mick Hume has gotten zapped by Britain’s exceptionally restrictive libel laws, so has personal connection to the consequences of un-free speech. During the Cold War, officials silenced his semi-Soviet ideology; more recently, speech police have dinged his supposed lack of multi-culti empathy. He considers both options equally chilling, as both encourage dull, conformist thinking expressed through studiously bland and unthreatening language.
Hume considers this the diametrical opposite of freedom. We’ve become pathologically fearful to face controversial ideas, to question received truths, or kill bad beliefs with facts. This isn’t just philosophical principle to Hume; he believes we’re starving the taproot of free democratic society. "The best way to counter hatreds and ideas we despise is not to try to bury them alive,” he writes, “but to drag them out into the light of day and debate them to the bitter end."
Hume considers three common areas subject to moralistic silencing: the Internet, universities, and entertainment. Many jurisdictions have passed laws against Internet “trolling,” even though no meaningful definition of trolling exists; one person’s troll is another’s non-conformist truth-teller. University speech codes have so thoroughly stymied some campuses that today’s most important issues cannot be discussed. And attempts to silence rowdy sports crowds or insurgent comedians have created potentially dangerous pushback.
Where once, the powerful and priggish tried to silence cusswords and sex to avoid rocking the boat, Anglo-American discourse has fallen into the hands of "full-time offense-takers, whose default emotional... is outrage." The motivation is almost diametrically opposite—protecting the weak rather than defending the status quo—but the effect is virtually identical. Both responses squelch debate, prevent testing and improving ideas, and encourages dimwits to think themselves martyred.
We’ve witnessed the rise of what Hume calls You-Can’t-Say-That culture, a two-pronged spear, "not only You-Can't-Say-THAT, but also YOU-Can't-Say-That." Vocal spokespersons, mostly unelected and chosen by their ability to argue stridently and write clickbait, attempt to circumscribe not only what constitutes acceptable language, but who constitutes acceptable speakers. This has, in practice, produced a narrowing of discourse that forcibly silences certain groups, while punishing True Believers for changing their minds.
But You Shouldn’t Say Damaging Or Violent Things!
Hume agrees. But he also distinguishes between words and actions. Threats of imminent, physical violence or attempts to kick-start riots aren’t speech, they’re action, and deserve treated appropriately. Jerks saying mean-spirited things aren’t acting, they’re speaking. If we silence them, their bad opinions merely fester. Better instead to rebut them publically, dragging bad arguments into the sunlight.
But People Say Hurtful Things About Minorities!
They’ve always done so; and historically, we’ve fought to ensure minorities have the opportunity to answer back. Hurt feelings, or even outright bigotry, mustn’t negate civil liberties. What more subjective criterion could possibly exist to limit speech, than one’s feelings. While actions that measurably harm minorities, like lopsided access to education or work, go unabated, verbal demonstrations of ignorance are prosecuted like violence.
But Small Offenses Now Breed Big Offenses Later!
Do you esteem humans so lowly that you believe we’re mere machines of persecution? Democratic advances always proceed against exactly that “slippery slope” fallacy. Attempts to forcibly silence bigotry often prove disastrous for progressives; as Hume writes, with ample evidence, "control-freak governments and judges will always take requests to restrict one kind of speech as an invitation to restrict another."
British himself, Hume’s examples of legal proceedings against free speech come significantly from Britain. As Hume admits, America’s First Amendment makes flatly outlawing bigoted speech difficult. But Americans readily resort to tweet-storms, shaming campaigns, and other extra-legal techniques to derail free speech. Hume even quotes Hillary Clinton promising to use unsportsmanlike techniques to silence speech she finds objectionable. “Illiberal liberals,” Hume writes.
Hume’s argument contains plenty to anger liberals and conservatives alike, as his definition of free speech excludes sacred cows. But it also contains an important warning, too. As women, gays, and minorities fought for freer speech throughout the Twentieth Century, civil discourse widened. Now, arguably, it’s narrowing again. If we don’t demand truly free speech, we may see narrowness, silencing, and repression unseen within our lifetime. Consequences will be dire.
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