In today's hyper-sensitive, politically correct, identity-driven landscape we're told that we mustn't insult, ridicule or discriminate against people that aren't like us. Superficially this sounds perfectly reasonable but the problem comes (as it invariably does) when we attempt to define these terms and agree on our definitions. For example what constitutes the word "people" in that sentence? Does it just mean individuals that we interact with or does it mean a community of people, like "transsexual's" or could it mean a diverse group of people that happen to (broadly) subscribe to some or all of a religious or political ideology like "Muslims" or "EDL members" for example? We could also debate what it means to "insult", does this mean falsely accuse of bad or immoral behaviour or could it also mean simply pointing out an unwelcome fact, like, someone is bald or a simple biological reality like someone has black skin. The only thing we can safely conclude from even this brief analysis is that words (i.e. the things we use to express ideas and thoughts) are far too imprecise to convey everything that is required to properly disambiguate meaning, other things, like context, intent and world-view are also required, and even then, these additional elements have the same ambiguity issues.
Anyone who has read a complex legal document will realise that a) they are usually very long and b) use language that is totally alien to everyday discourse. This is because those kinds of documents attempt to disambiguate meaning much more rigorously than everyday language, unfortunately you have to be particularly skilled to understand them and even then, they often fail to cover all eventualities. I experience this gap quite a lot in my job, often people ask me to create software under the illusion that they have expressed their requirement perfectly and completely and this alone should mean that my job is simple. This is NEVER the case. Anyone who understands why we can build software that locates a person on a map anywhere on the surface of the earth in about 10 minutes flat (using their phone and Google maps) but require a team of graduates, supercomputer and 10 years of research funding to identify that a particular photograph contains a bird, will appreciate why, just because something is easy to say, it doesn't mean that it's easy to do. Identity politics is like this, simple slogans alone are insufficient to define and delimit the thorny subject of free-speech and legitimate persecution.
Having said this though I believe there are some relatively clear foundational premises upon which we can all (potentially) agree, these are.
- People can be slandered/insulted/offended, ideas cannot
- Religions, politics, hobbies, supporting particular netball teams are all ideas.
- If something is observable, measurable and verifiable then it's a fact
- If something is subjective, unfalsifiable or simply an opinion then it is an idea or belief
- People should be able to hold whatever beliefs they wish, but only act within the law
- The law is a guidepost for minimally acceptable behaviour in society.
- The law should address how we behave and not what we believe
- We should not deny access to facts or beliefs
- Everyone, including children, should understand the difference between facts and beliefs
Unfortunately, as we've seen recently around controversies such as the attempt by Islamic apologists to introduce a
"definition" of "Islamophobia" and also in cases like the protests outside of primary schools over the teaching of
facts about Human sexuality and many other examples and it's unfortunate that many of our
politicians seem utterly oblivious to the dangers in allowing such definitions to be driven by those who have vested interests contingent upon the restriction of criticism against them, and those who fear transparency. There will always be special interest groups attempting (often by bullying and threatening) to impose their favored definitions on the rest of us. In my view this is something that cannot be tolerated and must be resisted and fought at all costs, even when the particular limitation seems innocuous enough in itself. The slippery slope that hides behind this desire for "special treatment" leads straight to hell, for everyone.
