The fundamental right to say what we think, even when it makes others uncomfortable, lies at the core of Western society.
As George Orwell famously observed, “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” This principle is central to my professional work, advocating for campaigns, countries, and companies, ensuring their voices are heard.
Once, British life was enriched by this ethos. Dinner parties thrived on thought-provoking conversations, and public debates hosted diverse panels of intellectuals sparring passionately yet civilly, stark contrast to today’s bullying mantra of agree with me or shut up, so vividly evidenced by the Oxford Union’s recent descent from the bastion of debate into “inflammatory rhetoric, aggressive behaviour, and intimidation.”
Public discourse has become a troubling combination of medieval zealotry and Marxist oppression, typified by today’s ideologically driven university students who ban any speaker who has a different view from the mob. This is a dangerous cocktail that stifles free discussion.
Public discourse has become a troubling combination of medieval zealotry and Marxist oppression, typified by today’s ideologically driven university students
This week, Dame Sara Khan, the government’s former counter-extremism tsar, highlighted her research findings together with the Policy Institute at King’s College London, which showed the erosion of free speech and open debate in the UK. Dame Sara found that we now boast the greatest polarisation between the left and right outside the United States. Her report also reveals a vicious cycle: weakening social cohesion that both drives and is driven by an environment where extremist narratives take root.
Debate is fast becoming a relic of the past. Cancel culture has silenced free speech in this country. How Voltaire must be spinning in his grave! What happened to his declaration: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”?
Shimon Cohen
We must rebuild a society where debate flourishes, where dissenting views are not cancelled, and where dinner parties include guests of differing opinions that can and do still speak to each other frankly and openly. Can Dame Sara Khan’s research provide an impetus for restoring open dialogue?
These are difficult questions. Unlike millennial activists, I do not claim to have all the answers. Is the decline of free speech tied, in part, to the erosion of common decency and the sense of a shared community?
Perhaps our current polarisation is also fuelled by the relentless speed at which we consume information, whether true or false, and are quickly pushed to form an opinion. Slowing down and digesting more than a bitesize snapshot of current affairs might help us listen more and shout less.
Arguably, our current culture of consuming information has created a harsh and polarising binary, with narratives which are kosher and those which are not. The UK’s Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony invitation’s reference to the “Palestinian civilians in Gaza” is an example of this.
New and proposed legislation, such as the Online Safety Law and the Communication Act, as well as others, have also been criticised by some as an encroaching cause for this breakdown of social cohesion and the demise of free speech, as these laws can be seen as a threat to free speech.
The rise of radical religious ideologies and the more sinister, manipulative agendas of social media outlet owners can also be said to be factors in the growing gulfs within British society.
We must cure this cancel culture that is so oppressively killing our conversation and debate together without the yelling, banning, or boycotting.
- Shimon Cohen is chairman of Roath PR Consultants
