It isn’t just me who sees our culture and freedom of speech under threat. There was an interesting article in yesterday’s Times, quoting a speech by Lord Neuberger, President of the UK Supreme Court.
Liberal censorship is preventing traditional attitudes to issues such as sexuality being heard in the national debate and permits only “inoffensive” opinions, Britain’s most senior judge has warned.
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This new “censoriousness” was similar to the “moral reaction” of previous, often illiberal, generations which prevented alternative views being aired.
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He cautioned, though, that efforts to improve diversity carried the risk of shutting out more traditional views that were just as valid. “A tendency appears to be growing in some quarters which is antithetical to diversity in a rather indirect and insidious way,” Lord Neuberger said.
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Possibly as a counter-reaction to the permissive society, a combination of political correctness and moral reaction appears to be developing”.
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“As has been said on more than one occasion, freedom only to speak inoffensively is a freedom not worth having. The more that arguments and views are shut out as unacceptable, the less diverse we risk becoming in terms of outlook.
“And the less diverse we become in terms of outlook, the more we risk not valuing diversity and the more we therefore risk losing diversity in practice”.
This is precisely why society needs people like me — mavericks, controversialists and thinkers who will, and do, put forward divergent views. Our role is to be the grit in the oyster; to make people think; to keep us from descending into politically correct group think. And I make no apology for doing this.