Concise and Abridged EditionIn 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.In a fierce defence of free speech – in all its forms – Mick Hume’s blistering polemic exposes the new threats facing us today in the historic fight for freedom of expression. In 2015, the cold-blooded attacks in Paris on the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists united the free-thinking world in proclaiming ‘Je suis Charlie’. But it wasn’t long before many were arguing that the massacres showed the need to restrict the right to be offensive. Meanwhile sensitive students are sheltered from potentially offensive material and Twitter vigilantes police those expressing the ‘wrong’ opinion. But the basic right being supressed – to be offensive, despite the problems it creates – is not only acceptable but vital to society. Without a total freedom of expression, other liberties will not be possible.
Оглавление
Mick Hume. Trigger Warning: Is the Fear of Being Offensive Killing Free Speech?
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Epigraph
Introduction to the concise edition
A few things we forgot about free speech
The age of the reverse-Voltaires
A short history of free-speech heretics
‘… but words will always hurt me’
‘There is no right to shout “Fire!” in a crowded theatre’
‘Mind your Ps, Qs, Ns and Ys’
‘Free speech is just a licence for the mass media to brainwash the public’
‘Liars and Holocaust deniers do not deserve to be heard’
The fear of free speech
The Trigger Warnings we need
Notes
About the Publisher
Отрывок из книги
Title Page
.....
Yet there are important reasons in principle and practice why we need to defend free speech for all. A universal liberty cannot be divided. Once we allow free speech to be questioned for some then what should be right instead becomes a privilege, to be doled out from above like charity to those deemed deserving. And when it comes to ‘selective’ censorship, one thing always leads to another.
‘Hate speech’ just means moral views you object to, and one person’s hate speech is another’s passionate belief. As some university campaigners have discovered to their consternation, if you seek to No Platform those you find offensive, don’t be surprised if somebody does the same thing to you. Those who live by the ban can perish by it, too.
