Wednesday, December 09, 2020

Words are important


I'm happy to see that Cambridge University has (via a vote) rejected guidelines that would mandate students, staff and visitors be "respectful" of the views and identities of others. Whilst this may sound reasonable, any analysis that concludes this is clearly only superficial, and IMO woefully inadequate! "Respect" totally depends on the view being expressed and is something that should be earned, not granted unilaterally! For example, having such a rule would make it extremely difficult to speak truth to power, a vital pillar of free-speech. 

So, ironically, a rule that was intended to prevent hate speech would in fact achieve the opposite, i.e. hate speech could thrive unopposed so long as someone expressing it was feeling "disrespected". For example, Islamists could preach what they liked about gay people, i.e. that they should be thrown from tall buildings! "Hate speech" if ever I heard it, but such people could simply hide behind the façade of their "religion" and claim that any protest against them was "Islamophobia", i.e. disrespectful.

In the end the smart people at that institution changed the word "respect" (a weasel word if ever there was one!) to "tolerate" a much better formulation. Now the rule is that all views should be tolerated, i.e. not silenced or muzzled (particularly by violence or threats of violence) by anyone, however not necessarily respected. So now (hopefully), opposition to any idea, via ridicule, counter-argument or even protest is fine, i.e. free-speech properly implemented!

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