Lions in the park!

 I've become intellectually lazy. I think I need to change that and get back to my daily thoughts! Well, if not daily, maybe bi-daily, as in every two days, not twice a day! And if not bi-daily then at least weekly! 

Not that anyone is listening, except for my inner consciousness which, as we all know from my previous in depth semi-pseudo semi-psycho analysis, is really quite disturbed!

My thought of the day comes after the attack on Sir Salman Rushdie, by a coward with little intelligence and presumably some mental issues!

But later in the day I listened to an author who made some salient points that we need all to consider.

He noted after the fatwa was issued over thirty years ago there was a coming together of most liberal minded people against the edict and an outpouring of support for Rushdie. But he noted, 'in this respect, we won the battle, but we are, today, losing the war!'

What he means is. In those thirty years since a decrepit old man deigned to set mindlessly brain washed individuals around the world to kill a man who dared to write a few passages, in a long book, that might have been considered an afront to a religion, the liberal dial has been slowly turned back!

Since that day all those decades ago we have slowly lost the right to free speech. There are vestiges of it left. But it becoming more nuanced and so, it is no longer 'free speech'. It is free, within boundaries, within an enclosure. 

Free speech is now like a lion in a safari park. It is strong and proud and powerful, but it has lost it's freedom, it has a degree of freedom, an area of grassland that it is now permitted to roam across freely, but that park or freedom is getting smaller all the time and one day, it might only be a zoo. 

For some countries, that is already the case, from China to Russia and Afghanistan, India and Pakistan and, sadly, many more. 

Over these decades we have agreed to move back from free speech because free speech can offend! But that's really the point isn't it. Free speech is about saying things that others might not like but, in a free society, those that are offended have the right to listen, or not, and to reply, or not! 

But we no longer do that. If someone voices an opinion that is slightly controversial, they get shouted down. And being dismissed and argued against is right and fair. But being bullied into silence is surely unfair, it is certainly not free!

But that's what happens now. Someone say's something that a minority group dislikes or feels disparages them and then everyone turns on the individual and chases them into the shadows.Some people lose their jobs, their livelihoods, relationships and even their lives, for saying something that some might find objectionable.

I have always felt it best for people to speak their minds. Even if I do not like what they have to say. It us up to those that feel offended to argue against their points, Preferably eloquently and persuasively.

I do not want people like Trump silenced, it does not make the world a better place, it simply makes things worse, because he can, rightly claim, his freedom of speech is being denied him!

When someone is chased into the shadows because of something they said, they do not stop thinking it! In fact, it becomes far worse, it festers inside and the individual will seek solace in the company of others who feel, rightly or wrongly, they are now victims.

When I see university students stopping speakers attending universities because a minority feel their words are offensive, this marks the end of debate! Universities, or decent universities, always had debating societies and chambers for ideas to be presented and countered, However unpleasant the ideas were. 

Now, these debates are being limited or even removed. So, is society better for not discussing these things? Are we in the liberal west any better off than those in autocratic societies? Even if we can see the distance between those two shores at the moment and they seem far away, they used to be further away, but they are getting closer to one another! Or so it seems to me!

He also noted about ever increasing self-censorship. There are many comedians who simply will not write, let alone perform, work that might offend a minority. They won't do this for fear of ending their careers because they will be labelled as one form of 'ist' or another! 

There was a time when I'd be disappointed with them and wish they would just have the guts to make jokes that might offend a societal group because it's a joke and that's really how most humour works. But today, I understand why they won't do it, can't do it, because we have lost that freedom. 

And yet at the same time I can understand not wishing to be on the butt of some random joke. A joke at my expense! But even so, I find myself defending the right to do so! At least I would if anyone did it any more!

So, that is what he meant by us losing the war. Our freedom of speech is being eroded, and with it our freedom itself is being eroded, we are lions, but we are not on the savannah, we are fenced in, and the fence is getting smaller every day, little by little!

Perhaps I am wrong, perhaps this change in society where we cannot say what we think lest we offend someone is a better society. But it is a society where, even if these things are unsaid, they are not unthought! And where they are unsaid, they are not countered. I really do not know any more!

Update: As if to highlight my point... A comedian de-platformed