Brendan O'Neill | Freedom of Speech and Right to Offend | Proposition

thank you very much um 700 years ago if someone had come to Oxford and stood here and said I think everyone should be allowed to read the Bible even peasants that person would have been described as offensive he would have been denounced shouted at and eventually no platformed that was that was certainly the experience of John Wycliffe in 1382 he was banished from Oxford for among other things translating the Bible into English his work was described as an offense against the ecclesiastical order 200 years ago if someone had come to Oxford and stood here and said I don't believe in God that person would have been described as offensive he would have been ridiculed yelled at that was certainly the experience of Shelley who in 1811 was banished from Oxford for writing a pamphlet called the necessity of atheism one historical account describes how Shelley's pamphlet caused maximum offense it describes how fellows and students at new College swept the pamphlets up and disposed of them much like today's students sweep up copies of the sun which they also describe as causing maximum offense 100 years ago if someone had come to Oxford and stood here and said I think a man should be allowed to have sex with another man that person would have been described as offensive he would have been booed hissed at no platformed that was certainly the experience of the chameleon an openly gay Oxford magazine which in 1894 survived for one issue only why because it was offensive one Observer described it as an insult to the animal creation and said it would have a dangerous influence in other words it made Oxford an unsafe space and it had to be stopped much as today's student leaders ban Lads mags in the name of preserving safe spaces for students so when today's student leaders clamped down on offensive stuff they're actually carrying on a very long tradition a tradition whereby the creme de La Creme of British Society take it upon themselves to police the parameters of acceptable thought and to exclude offensiveness from the academy throughout history The Church politicians universities have always branded certain ideas offensive and have waged war against them today student leaders do the same they carry out one of the oldest foulest forms of intolerance intolerance of anyone who gives offense but giving offense is good in fact it's essential humans have long had the urge to offend against the natural order the religious order the moral order and in the process they have pushed Humanity forward in fact pretty much every Leap Forward in history pretty much every freedom we enjoy is a product of individuals having given offense having offended against the orthodoxies of their age offensiveness is not just something we have to begrudgingly accept offensiveness is the motor of human progress Copernicus offended Christians when he said the sun was at the center of the universe he really hurt them and in the process he made the world a better more understandable place John Wilkes the 18th century radical journalist offended everyone he packed his newspapers with sex and lies and stories about Bishops buggering their maids and so on and so on and in the process through his struggles with the authorities he gave birth to press freedom the newspaper gay news caused profound offense to Christians in 1976 when it published a poem about a Roman Centurion given Jesus Christ a [ __ ] and in the process in its struggles with the authorities it started a debate about the blasphemy laws which eventually led to their abolition expanding freedom of speech for all of you for everyone question no the right to offend the right to offend is not some pesky little part of freedom of speech that we have to put up with it is the heart and soul and lungs of freedom of speech it is the coursing lifeblood of human progress it is the instigator of Liberty and modernity and Science and understanding what a laughing stock today's student leaders are that they can so casually dismiss the right to be offensive without realizing that their lovely enlightened lives are the gift of individuals who gave offense the gift of scientists thinkers agitators who bravely showed their asses to the dominant ideas of their era their offensiveness made you free I know what some student leaders will say oh but are no platformings about protecting individuals we only want to protect women from misogyny and black students from racism so our intolerance is Progressive please how Progressive is it to say that female students are so fragile that they can't cope with seeing a pair of tits in the sun no without falling apart that doesn't sound that doesn't sound Progressive to me that sounds paternalistic how Progressive is it to say that black students need these wise white student leaders to protect them from harmful ideas because that doesn't sound Progressive to me that sounds neocolonialist the fact the fact is today's student leaders aren't protecting individuals they're protecting an idea and it is the most mainstream status quo idea of the 21st century the idea of human vulnerability the poisonous notion that humans are fragile and therefore our speech and our relations must be monitored and policed it is this misanthropic Orthodox idea that they promote and which they protect from criticism as surely as priests once ring fenced their beliefs from ridicule in this choking climate we have got to move Beyond talking about a right to offend we have to talk about a duty to offend anyone who cares anyone who cares for freedom anyone who believes that Humanity only progresses through being daring and disrespectful now has a duty to rile and stir and outrage a duty to break out of the new gray conformism a duty to ridicule the new guardians of decency a duty to tell them [ __ ] your orthodoxies thank you

Channel: OxfordUnion

Views: 486,955

Keywords: Union, Society, University, Debates, Debating, Interview, Oxford Union, Oxford Union Society, free speech, offend, offensive, right to offend, debate

Id: BtWrljX9HRA

Length: 8min 31sec (511 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 25 2015