The False Affirmation Trap

 

Famously, when a woman in the UK asks, "Do I look good in this dress?", it’s deemed to be an emotionally charged question with implied expectations that hinder the honesty of the answer. It’s similar to when a male asks his chum “Do you think my new girlfriend is good looking?”, and if he thinks ‘no’, he’s in trouble. 😀

Emotionally charged questions with implied expectations are difficult for society because they promote dishonesty or false reassurance, which means it becomes harder to know what people honestly think and believe.

This is another reason why the widespread assault on free speech is so damaging to society. When people are reluctant to say what they honestly think or believe, for fear of reprisal or backlash, they start to say what they think society expects them to say, and the truth of what people really think gets lost in a morass of lies, dishonest consensus, and social performance.

Assaults on free speech become assaults on truthseeking, honesty and integrity.

Why Safe Spaces Don't Really Exist

This week the University of Edinburgh has been criticised for hosting an “anti-racism” event in which white people were due to be banned from asking questions. The conference was organised by the Resisting Whiteness group, which opposes racism and describes itself as a QTPOC (queer and trans people of colour) organisation. There are apparently two “safe spaces” at the event - and for one of which, white people will be barred from entering. The report said "the safe places are meant for those who feel “overwhelmed, overstimulated or uncomfortable”. Their aim is to “amplify the voices of people of colour" by not be giving the microphone to white people during the Q&As.

While the intentions are deeply disturbing, and indicative of a failing culture, I actually think the concept of safe spaces is a dubious one - there are not really any safe spaces, at least not at the intellectual level in universities. A place of sanctuary is a viable safe haven, such as for groups of addicts or women recovering from domestic abuse, but there are no real safe spaces in terms of intellectual ideas.

 

It's not just that attempted safe spaces stifle thought and erode free expression - the people within the walls of their self-constricted safe spaces are never really protected from what lurks beneath the sub-ducts of their psyche and their despair at being incarcerated in such a constricting mental prison. The walls they have erected to protect them from the outside are full of cracks into which those outside things leak anyway - you are never safe from the dangers of retarding truth, nor from the loss of the liberation gained from discovery and from the exploration of ideas. People who like the sound of intellectual safe spaces should be very careful what they wish for - it's going to feel like hell in the end.

The Needless Battle Of The Sexes: How Identity Politics & Faux Victimhood Hinders Women

John Lewis made the headlines the other week by announcing they are going to make all their children’s clothes ‘gender neutral’. Many reacted with dissonance, probably fearful that John Lewis is pandering to the rising snowflakery in our society.

Sadly, these days it is quite easy to encounter a tantrum from a social justice warrior who thinks that racial associations are so rigid that you can't even host a continental fancy dress party without written permission from the local Lord Mayor, but gender is so fluid that some hairy-chested, bearded bloke called Kevin can put on a padded bra and high heels and shout "Call me Kathy' and suddenly she's a woman.

But many have reacted to John Lewis's move in a fairly phlegmatic way, stating that it doesn't really matter much, as people are still free to shop as they wish, and are quite capable of making their own decisions on the colour and style of the clothes they buy for their children.

Whichever side you're on, one thing is clear - our society did for a long time relentlessly reinforce the stereotype that young boys like wearing blue and playing with action men and tanks and little girls like wearing pink and playing with dolls and make-up kits. The common view has been that this is less to do with biological hard-wiring and more to do with the ways in which boys and girls are socialised at an early age, particularly as for a long time our past society has perpetuated the female-as-caregiver paradigm, and that this manifests itself very early through (among other things) the toys children are given.

It turns out, however, that in all likelihood the toy preferences of boys and girls are not primarily driven by socialisation, but by genes. This study shows that non-human primates show preferences for gender-typed toys similar to those seen in human children. That is to say, sex differences in toy preferences exhibited in non-human primates give strong indication that these are independent of the socio-cultural mechanisms first thought by many to be the primary influences on toy preferences.

That said, it still is the case that socialisation plays a significant part in human development, and that there are traits imposed upon children and young adults that are negatively brought to bear on them as adults. A good example is how girls are frequently discouraged from being direct for fear of being thought of negatively, whereas values such as assertiveness and competitiveness (which one often needs to get to high-powered positions in business) tend to be associated with masculinity, and are explicitly encouraged in young males (and may well have political ramifications in terms of women and men on the left-right spectrum).

Identity politics has always been a precarious thing, because the merits and demerits of intellectual and ideological propositions do not stand or fall on the sex, ethnicity or skin colour of the person making them. Currently the personal and the political regularly become entangled to the extent that many tend to conflate criticisms of their views with an attack on their personal identity - their biological, ethnic, sexual, religious self.

Intellectual challenges are (or should be) blind to things like sex and ethnicity, and as such, the responses should be too. We've seen too many people whose arguments have been challenged cry foul that the motive for the challenge has been their sex, skin colour or religion. Alas, the contemporary mindset for a significant proportion of the population is that political disagreement is taken as an assault on the entirety of their character and sometimes on their sex or ethnicity too.

This engenders a kind of paradoxical figure that becomes utterly supine when facing challenges to their worldview, but at the same time hostile and intolerant towards those that disagree with them, even going so far as wanting to censor or sometimes even decimate contra opinions and viewpoints.

The very real danger is that genuine threats of violence get lost in a wave of noise against people who've offended them on Twitter or who've held a public opinion they want to shut down. But it is very unwise to act this way: as I wrote a few years ago, affording people the liberty to speak freely is also of huge benefit to the individuals trying to rob people of that liberty:

"Whenever we hear a voice or read an opinion which is vastly different from our own, or the common opinion, not only should we give that person the right to express themselves, we actually deny ourselves the right to hear or read the expression if we choose to seek refuge in the false security of consensual opinion. Not only does the person in front of you wishing to speak have a right to be heard, it is also the right of everyone to listen; and every attempt to silence somebody makes the silencer a prisoner of their own actions because they deny themselves the right to hear something.  In other words, your own right to hear is as involved as the other person's is to have his or her view. The freedom of speech is incomplete unless it means freedom of speech for the person who thinks differently.  We may not agree with everything we hear, but we do ourselves an injustice if we fail to hear the dissenting voices." 

Similarly, with the emergent (and awfully named) Westminster sex dossier that's gathering pace at the moment (and ditto wider allegations in society), there is a pressing need for genuine cases of rape or sexual assault to not get lost in a barrage of witch-hunting from women who've merely been on the receiving end of inappropriate jokes, improper suggestions and tasteless banter and labelled it 'sexual harassment'.

 

Let's all work together in whatever way we can to expose sexual assault, bullying and tawdry abuses of power, and see that justice abounds. But let's also frame this in its proper context and speak out against blanket condemnations from extremist groups who want to believe that the whole of society is one gigantic, overwhelming, dangerous patriarchy where all women are subjugated under the thrall of male-dominated hegemony. Because if you're running with this narrative, you're not helping anyone, especially women.

People who present themselves lewdly and unsuitably can easily face the charge of being sad, immature, pathetic and of lacking urbanity if it helps - but unless there are better demarcation lines between serious sexual offences and ill-suited words, it is women who will suffer most by being categorised as feeble and overly-delicate by a small minority of feminist women who don't have their backs at all, but pretend they are speaking on their behalf. There was no better response to this than Julia Hartley-Brewer's response reprinted below:

 

 

Wow, Just Wow! Whatever Happened In Society To Take Us Back Down This Road Again?

Oh heck, where did it start to go wrong again? As I'm sure you can remember, we used to be pretty repressive when it came to personal liberties, where anything deemed too offensive for social mores was frowned upon, contested and sometimes banned. Radio stations would not play The Rolling Stones' Let's Spend The Night Together; the film Last Tango In Paris caused uproar, as did Monty Python's Life of Brian. It even used to be difficult to be openly gay, or be involved in a mixed heritage relationship.

It's easy to look back and recoil at past attitudes, but we did seem to get a little better. We stopped being so intrusively upset about people's works of art, and about how they expressed themselves, and we grew the hell up about who people had relationships with. 

But alas, recently we seem to have gone backwards again. I can't recall precisely when - it seems to have insidiously crept into our society, but we started to find ourselves surrounded by spineless busybodies who get offended too easily in the absence of a rigorous argument or any notable reasoning skills, and thought it was their right to do so in a way that meant everyone else had to be very afraid of offending them.

And it seems they got their wish, because what emerged from this national paranoia was an even larger bunch of busybodies - those even worse than them: the people who get offended on their behalf. We've become so used to seeing people afraid of upsetting or offending other groups that it no longer surprises us when we hear of the latest person who cannot comfortably wear their crucifix necklace at work, or the latest group to be guilty of 'cultural appropriation*' for wearing sombreros on a night out, or the latest university that creates ‘safe spaces’ to protect the right of some students not to be offended (heck, did they forget that free expression, argument and debate are the essential tools for learning and for challenging bad ideas?).

What has caused us to journey from lily livered impotents to reasonably intrepid proponents of free expression back to lily livered impotents again? I can think of two main changes that might have altered the public consciousness. In the first place, the country now has a lot more diversity, which means there are a lot more minority groups with views that differ from the mainstream. And in the second place, computer technology has undergone radical changes, which means there is mass communication going on, and also that everything everyone does it pretty much under external scrutiny now.

Personally I see no reason why either of things should cause us to become spineless again, but it would appear that we have. Diversity of people has generated an unprecedented range of beliefs, opinions and cultural practices that appear to make many people uncomfortable in expressing themselves for fear of upsetting someone, or being labelled a racist or bigot. The widespread fear of upsetting Muslims is perhaps the most obvious case in point. And the extent to which everyone can have their say on social media is unprecedented too - it appears to be bringing with it a huge rise in vile threats and guttersnipe abuse, which as a consequence appears to be making many people fearful of free expression once again. But I've said it before on here, and I'll say it again - we must stop this train of timidity in its tracks as soon as possible. 

To finish, I want to leave you with a video doing the rounds at the minute - of a black campus employee confronting a young white male who has his hair in dreadlocks. Alas, this video is isn't exactly an isolated incident - hardly a day goes by without someone asserting that how someone looks, the clothes they wear, the statue they had erected, and so on, has suddenly become racist or simply deeply offensive to a minority group.

What you have to ask yourself is, what forces occurred in that young lady's life for her to so aggressively demand that a young white man's freedom to wear his hair in dreadlocks ought to be denied? She didn't just suddenly decide this for herself. Who has done such a number on this (probably) otherwise bright student to cause her to uncritically and unashamedly declare that this so inextricably belongs to 'my culture' that it trumps any personal freedoms you might have on this matter - was it parents, friends from the same 'culture', or was it those pervading busybody trends I mentioned earlier, insidiously creeping back into our society, and showing increasing signs that this is just the thin end of the wedge? Things have got to change all over again!

Cameron's Counter-Extremism Plan Is Not A Good One

In the papers today we read about David Cameron's new plans for counter-extremism:

"The Prime minister will announce a counter-terrorism bill including plans to restrict harmful actions of those seeking to radicalise young people. The policies include disruption orders to prevent extremists airing their views in public or radicalising young people, new powers to close premises such as mosques where extremists are seeking to build influence, and extra immigration restrictions for those thought to be preaching extremist views."

No no no, this is a terrible idea. While I'm all for coming down hard on Islamic extremism, this legislation will unleash an unwanted genie from the bottle - not just because it encroaches on people's free speech, but primarily because it involves backward reasoning that will probably make the problem it is trying to solve even worse.

Here's why. Generally speaking, you’re likely to reduce speeding by introducing speed cameras; you’re likely to reduce street crime by introducing CCTV; and you’re likely to reduce the chances of being burgled by getting a burglar alarm. What you are not likely to reduce by legislating against Islamic radicalisation is Islamic radicalisation - you are only likely to take it into even more secretive, private and harder to detect places.

The most dangerous Muslim fundamentalists are obsessed with the total and unchallengeable absoluteness of Islam - they are not going to let something comparably trivial like British legislation curb their ambitions - they will only be more likely to attempt to propagate their dangerous and fanatical influence from the subtle underbelly of society, underneath the radar of the authorities.

It's not that the idea of restricting pernicious radicalisation and dangerous extremism is an unworthy one, it's simply that it will make things worse - it will make many more young Muslims feel averse to the British establishment and increase their chances of being ripe for extremism, and it will remove many fundamentalist activities from where they can be observably checked.

The law is an effective deterrent only by preventing easily preventable activities. Islamic fundamentalism is not an easily preventable activity because its exponents consider it to be more valid than human laws. The best way to reduce the damaging effects of radical Islamic fundamentalism is not to prevent extremists from airing their views in public or repudiate the 'passive tolerance' we've come to enjoy - it is to leave untouched the liberty of free expression, and lock up those who end up committing criminal activities in the name of religious extremism.

Even that doesn't wholly get to the crux of the issue though - which is that words like 'extremism' and 'radicalisation' are nigh-on impossible to legislate against in any sense of hoping for pre-emption, because they are not objectively measurable states - they are subjective and part of a broad spectrum of viewpoint and behaviour. That simple truth gives us another reason why it's much better to afford people the freedom to believe and express whatever they want, and enforce the law when their freedom of belief and expression turns into a criminal activity that harms individuals in the society in which they live.

Miliband's Islamophobia: A Shameful & Dangerous Act of Political Opportunism

In what is a squalid and somewhat pathetic attempt to win votes off Muslims in this tight election, Ed Miliband's credibility and integrity has sunk to even further depths as he promises to outlaw Islamophobia:

"We are going to make Islamophobia an aggravated crime. We are going to make sure it is marked on people's records with the police to make sure they root out Islamophobia as a hate crime."

Everything….and I mean absolutely everything is wrong with this idea. I'll pick just my top four reasons why.

1) It's a dystopian example of thought crime; the very epitome of an Orwellian nightmare. Phobia literally means a fear of something. If you have claustrophobia you are afraid of confined spaces. If you have arachnophobia you have a fear of spiders. If you have a fear of Islam you have a fear of its growing socio-political influence in society, and of the way people anxiously pander to it, and of the extent to which its extremities stultify minds, and of the spectre of increased radicalisation that leads to hate speech and sometimes murder and terrorism (all very understandable fears, I'm sure we'd all agree). Of course we should be wholly tolerant and kind towards moderate Muslims, but far from wanting to criminalise this anti-extremist phobia, we should actively encourage it, and come down even harder on those Muslim leaders radicalising young people.

2) It's a contemptible infringement of our civil liberties and our freedom of speech. To outlaw the ability to criticise, mock, ridicule, campaign against and intellectually challenge Islam is to rob us of vital tools for enquiry and progression, and will at the same time create an even greater culture of trepidation whereby people are forever afraid to speak openly for fear of being criminalised.

3) It's ambiguous to the point of being useless. How the heck is this ridiculous legislation even going to be properly enforced anyway? The boundary line between what constitutes the Miliband version of Islamophobia is blurry. Am I an Islamophobe if I write a blog saying that I don't think the Qur'an is anything other than an inept man-made creation? Will I be outside the orbit of the Islamophobia law if I demonstrate outside a Mosque known to be radicalising young Muslims, or if I tell the police about a Muslim grooming operating above a local kebab shop (that's hypothetical by the way - I know of no such place in my city)? In terms of the law, Islamophobia is so ambiguous it is nigh-on impossible that it could be enforced with any consistency or in a way that doesn't stifle our free expression and genuine concerns about the darker elements of Islam. This leads me nicely onto point 4 - perhaps the most frightening prospect of them all.

4) It empowers the very people we actually want to disempower. Even aside from the very serious problem of making people reluctant to speak out against radical Islamist preaching in mosques, extremism in schools and hate speech in public places, the law will only help the despicable child-sex gangs that groom, entrap, rape and exploit young British girls. The majority of these offenders are Muslims of Pakistani origin (recall infamous cases in Doncaster, Rotherham, Manchester, Blackpool, Oldham, Derby, Newcastle, Rochdale, Bradford and Oxford as horrible cases in point). The reason so many of these young girls were subjected to the perverted exploits of the organised Muslim gangs for so long is because numerous agencies and authorities (including the police) were cravenly fearful of being labelled racist or prejudiced if they enforced the law against these perpetrators.

The truth is, this proposed law is highly irresponsible and gravely hazardous, as it comes with the danger of creating a greater freedom for already dangerous Muslims and potentially dangerous Muslims, and also the danger of creating a culture of trepidation and spinelessness for most other UK citizens.

When looking up the number of places (mentioned above) in which Muslim gangs have been responsible for child-sex grooming, I also happened to find this interesting piece of information from the Henry Jackson Society - "British Muslims could have the decisive vote in a quarter of constituencies, analysis shows. In 159 of the 632 seats, the number of Muslims is greater than the margin of victory in 2010. And this is true among almost half the 193 marginal seats."

So as well as the highly irresponsible and gravely dangerous nature of the law, this information about how important the Muslim vote could be gives clear exhibition to how Miliband's agenda-driven, Muslim-pandering proposition is a most shameful example of how this aspiring Prime Minister will put his own party political aspirations ahead of what's good for the country (namely some of society's most vulnerable people) by prostrating himself towards Mecca to further his own political gains.

What People Often Forget About Free Speech

There are some issues about which so much has been said in the past that it's nigh-on impossible to say anything original. One of those issues is free speech - written about so well by people like John Milton, Voltaire, John Stuart Mill, Thomas Paine and George Orwell. John Milton's Areopagitica is perhaps the best of all works on this - being acutely perceptive not just about free speech but about the need for a free press too.

Alas, even though these great men make it difficult to say anything original on free speech, if what they've said has been forgotten by modern politicians to the extent that the qualities they propounded are gradually being eroded away by our ever-increasing nanny state authorities, there will always be the need for a reminder.

The general wisdom that has been distilled from these great writers on our liberty of free expression is that we will not agree with every opinion being proffered, but we should defend everyone's freedom to proffer those opinions. We should do this not just to protect the right of the person with the opinion, but also to protect our right to hear opinions too. In other words, in denying someone the right to voice an opinion, we at the same time deny ourselves access to that opinion, so we decline the opportunity to hear something that may differ from the consensus or challenge widely held viewpoints.

We may not agree with everything we hear, and some of the things we hear may be vile, controversial or damn stupid, but we do ourselves an injustice if we fail to hear the dissenting voices, because even the most discordant and discrepant opinions may contain within them at least a grain of truth. Therefore we should be impelled to consider them carefully, for in doing so we force ourselves to question how we know what we do and whether the sources from whence our knowledge came were reliable and verifiable. 

When it comes to free speech, then, so long as no threat is being made, or slanderous or libellous lie about a person being told, or employer/employer protocols breached, it is in our best interests to have complete freedom to say/write down whatever we wish, however controversial or repugnant.

Sadly, it becomes ever more apparent nowadays that these important principles regarding free speech are being gradually forgotten, or in some cases deliberately eroded away, by the kind of charmless busybodies who would call for the arrest of a Tweeter or the sacking of an MP or journalist who says something they don't like. As is evident to anyone with even the sketchiest understanding of human nature and basic philosophical familiarity, the more censorious and nannified we become the more we become prisoners of our interference.

 

* If you're interested, in two previous blog posts I talked about how we should respond to the issue of offence, and also why, despite a popular myth to the contrary, no one is actually entitled to their opinion.

 

* Photo courtesy of sodahead.com

 

On Being Offended

Consider these 4 statements, and which ones are good positions to hold:

1) Everyone has a right to be offended

2) Everyone has a right not to be offended

3) No one has a right to be offended

4) No one has a right not to be offended

I think statement 4 is a strong 'yes' - 'no one has a right not to be offended', because there is no right that protects you from hearing something that offends you. Things are bound to crop up that will offend, because the honest pursuit of facts and truths makes that inevitable.

Given the foregoing, the statement 'everyone has a right to be offended' (statement 1) has concomitance with statement 4 'no one has a right not to be offended' - as both involve the environment of free expression, frankness, and probability of being challenged or affronted.

This leaves statements 2 and 3. Some people advocate the principles of statement 2 - 'everyone has a right not to be offended' - but as a viewpoint I think it is manifestly unhelpful, as such a right would be to insist on being quarantined from any contra-views that might affront you. Similarly I can't even envisage a condition under which 'some people have a right not to be offended' is ever going to be useful to anyone. As for statement 3 'no one has a right to be offended' - that is also one to reject if we agree that free expression, frankness, and being challenged are qualities bound up in our having a right to be offended and no right not to be offended.

The Muslim Brotherhood Is Not 'Brotherhood Of Mankind'

In Rosemary Hollis's article* in The Guardian yesterday we saw a quintessential example of all those people in the UK who, when speaking about militant Islam, have the backbone of a paramecium. Hollis says:

"David Cameron's Muslim Brotherhood inquiry could well backfire. If the investigation leads to a ban it may appease the Saudis, but it would also alienate the millions who never espoused violence. Cameron will come to regret his call for an investigation of the Muslim Brotherhood. The move is opportunistic and set to backfire on him. The impetus reportedly came from British intelligence, not from the Foreign Office, where there is greater awareness of the dangers of alienating the rank and file of an Islamist movement hitherto identified as relatively moderate and nonviolent. The prime minister has created a trap for himself. If his investigation finds grounds to proscribe the Muslim Brotherhood it will alienate millions who never espoused violence in the first place."

So let me get this right, the authorities shouldn't investigate the dangerous, deranged fanatics of this man-made falsehood because it might upset the milder, more socially innocuous proponents of this man-made falsehood?

Not only is this the worst kind of craven journalism around, it inadvertently attempts to rob the moderates of the very integrity they wish to retain by joining us in repudiating fanatical nutters like those of the Muslim Brotherhood. One cannot help but think of Iago's famous line in Othello (ironically spoken by a man whose reputation deserved to be on the line):

“Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,

Is the immediate jewel of their souls:
Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing;
’twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.”

In imputing to moderate Muslims a reactionary outburst of indignation and dissonance in response to David Cameron's investigation, Rosemary Hollis irresponsibly tries to filch from them the good name they would want to attain by disassociating themselves from the bad elements of the faith. The true moderates, pertaining to be good citizens and able to integrate and assimilate into UK culture, would presumably welcome the investigations as much as the rest of us. To suggest otherwise would be as ill-judged as suggesting that the majority of Catholics don’t want Catholic paedophiles brought to justice because they happen to be of the same Christian denomination.

What about investigations into terrorism in the UK?

When a gardener wants to get rid of weeds, he or she must ensure they are dug up at the root with no traces left in the soil, lest they grow back. Leaving aside terrorism for a second, this is the policy the police use for tackling certain crimes. When an act is criminalised the authorities usually want to go after the suppliers rather than the consumers - that is, they want to get to the root of the problem, dig it up, and remove all traces of it. Think guns and drugs and stolen cars - it is generally the providers in whom the police are most interested, not the consumers or users. Their logic seems to them to make sense - if we get to the root of the problem (say, locking up drug dealers) we reduce the chances of further growth (number of users).

Perhaps that is a good strategy, but perhaps not. Maybe going after the suppliers is actually less effective than going after the consumers. By locking up consumers they leave fewer customers for suppliers, which decreases demand - and unless those sellers find new clients there will be a superfluity of goods with a scarcity of buyers. Bear in mind too that if suppliers look for new customers they increase the chances of getting caught dealing because new customers are unknown, and could be informers, mindful citizens, or undercover police officers.

So with those sorts of crime it's possible that the 'get to the root' ethos may have a negative effect on prevention, because incarcerating providers creates scarcity, which creates rising prices, which may entice more providers to try to enter the market.  If the authorities focused more heavily on buyers as well as providers they'd probably have more success.

When it comes to terrorism in the form of Islamic extremism, though, I think the opposite might be true - here the authorities probably need to focus more heavily on the roots. Unlike drugs or guns, Islam fundamentalism is sold in the form of propaganda and brainwashing, where influential figures are able to penetrate the minds of impressionable young men and convince them to become 'freedom fighters' for the Islamic cause. Lock these people up and keep them away from society and you'll probably find fewer people there to replace them, because demand for suppliers of extremism isn't niche-filling in the same way that demand for suppliers of drugs is niche-filling.

Even failed terrorism is costly

Finally, another reason to toughen up on Islamic fundamentalism is that terrorism brings about huge costs on society even when its attempts are unsuccessful (actually most attempted crimes are costly even when unsuccessful, but terrorism more so). Imagine the sheer number of stop, searches, regulations, airport controls, security checks and so forth that occur because of terrorist threats. Let's just do a very quick conservative estimate based on a few major airports in busy cities to make the point. Over 60 million passengers visit Heathrow every year, so let's say with other UK airports that totals 150 million (a generously low estimate). If heightened counter-terrorism security costs every passenger 3 minutes per trip then that makes a total of 450 million minutes of lost time every year, which equals 31,2500 days, or 856 years of human time lost every year. With UK life expectancy being averaged at 81 years, that's the equivalent of losing 105 lives every decade purely on terrorism-precaution.

So I hope Rosemary Hollis and those like her will forgive us if we don't pay much regard to fears of upsetting the people who might not be upset enough by counter-terrorism and anti-extremism. As far as I'm concerned, Islamic extremism is a dirty lake into which we can throw as many large boulders of opposition as we can muster.

* See the full article from Rosemary Hollis here

 

** Photo courtesy of barenakedislam.com

No One Should Be Entitled To Their Opinions

When I was a young boy my parents tried to instil some wisdom in me by telling me that while I might not agree with everything I hear or read, everyone is still entitled to their opinion. When I got a bit older and found out some of the absurd and preposterous things many people believe - young earth creationism, scientology, homeopathy, astrology, and most religions, to name but a few, I soon saw that my parents were wrong; not everyone is entitled to their opinion - in fact, no one is, and it is actually better for people if they have no sense of entitlement towards any opinions.

Here's why. Regarding our beliefs, there are two kinds of legitimate entitlements, which we'll call 'rights' - and by ‘our beliefs’ I mean propositions related to facts about how the world is, not, of course, personal tastes like food, music and books (of which more in a later Blog).The two kinds of legitimate entitlements are; the right to something binding, and the right to not be restricted to hold beliefs and express them. Naturally there are grey areas in both of those entitlements, but for simplicity's sake; in the case of binding rights, we'd say that if Jack fills up a trolley full of goods in Sainsbury's with the intention of taking them home then Sainsbury's is entitled to receive payment for those goods. And in the case of the right to not be restricted, we'd say that however absurd or untypical Jack's view is, he has the right to not be restricted in being able to hold that view - but that that right comes with the understanding that others have the right to challenge that view.

What underwrites this point is that we do not choose our beliefs, nor do we choose the force behind what those beliefs are. Opinions are based on beliefs, but beliefs come involuntarily from other people, and from personal experience of the world, so our opinions are, to the greatest extent, beyond our control and cannot be changed artificially. If I point a gun to your head and tell you that I will shoot you if you don't believe that Australia borders Mexico, you still would not be able to arrive at the belief that Australia borders Mexico, however hard you tried, because it is not factual, and we can't trick ourselves into holding views we don't honestly hold. You may lie in the hope that you don't get shot, but that's not the same as actually believing it.

When you change your mind or learn something new, it is because you have been given fresh information that, in your view, yields to reason, compelling argument and evidence-based rationale. In other words, all opinions are held because they are thought to be consistent with evidence and facts about the real world. It is precisely for this reason that no one should be entitled to their opinions, because a claim of entitlement to hold an opinion is, in fact, only a claim to retain an opinion and not have it shown to be wrong - which basically means it's an entitlement to retain opinions contrary to reason, compelling argument and evidence-based rationale .

If you really were entitled to your opinion you would be restricting others from improving that opinion by reasoned argument and evidence-based demonstrations - you would be like a man who has decided to imprison himself in his own home, turn off his electricity, and live a life of self-sufficiency, not allowing himself to even 'hear' of the alternatives. By not stepping outside his front door he doesn't just consign himself to eat, drink and wear only what currently resides in his house, he denies others the ability to bring competition to his ideas by offering new potential considerations and alternative perspectives. Of course, everyone is free to reject any idea if it doesn't make sense to them, but by staying at home and being self-sufficient they only deny themselves the opportunity to hear new ideas and opinions.

If you look at the two kinds of rights I mentioned a moment ago, you'll see that neither applies to entitlement to hold an opinion. You have no binding contract with anyone that disallows them from offering arguments against your views, and you have no business claiming a restriction on others by imposing a duty on them to let you retain your views. The idea that a person is entitled to their opinion is a bit like a self-sufficient hermit being entitled to have no competition for better goods. While we wouldn't want to restrict his ability to be a self-sufficient hermit, we'd be foolish to argue that to protect this man from new ideas and fresh options is best thing for him.

Remember, this is not an insistence that he should take advantage of these options offered to him - that would be as bad as restricting him from his choices - it is simply a claim that this man is no better for having closed himself off from the options. In fact, vindication for his self-sufficiency rests on, and is enhanced by, his having knowledge of the things he chose to reject in favour of his preferred choices. Similarly, beliefs, views and opinions are not stronger by being held from behind a wall that seeks to block out intellectual and epistemological expansion, they are made stronger when they have ran the gauntlet of rigour along with all competing beliefs, views and opinions and still come out on top. For those reasons, no one is entitled to a belief, anymore than a monopoly power is entitled to operate without any competition. If beliefs are held with a sense of entitlement they are held that way to put up a wall against competing ideas, just as a monopoly power operates to eliminate the competition, and thus denies people alternative choices.

Those who want to exclaim that everyone is entitled to their opinion don't actually mean that at all - they merely mean everyone is entitled to not be forced to depart from an opinion. Those who declare that they want to be entitled to hold an opinion are pretty much always those who hold opinions that are contrary to reason, compelling argument and evidence-based rationale - hence they are the people asking to be precluded from intellectual and epistemological expansion, which is no human entitlement or right at all. As I said earlier, just like a monopoly power trying to subjugate competition, in retaining the right to not be forced to depart from an opinion, they are claiming the right to protect their opinions from reason, compelling argument and evidence-based rationale, which, for the good of the human race is something we ought to resist. Given the extent to which people with absurd and preposterous views try to pass on those views by manipulation, distortion of facts, and suppression of contra-considerations, I would argue that the right to an open and honest enquiry is much more of a human entitlement than the right to believe nonsensical things that mislead people and cause pockets of human progression to atrophy.

Far from being a vehicle of merit, the notion that everyone is entitled to their own opinions is, to me, quite socially noxious, because it is an incubator for preposterous, repressive and manifestly false beliefs to survive with less of a challenge than is required. What this notion fosters is a pseudo-politeness whereby people believe that in the spirit of good manners it is favourable to build gilded cages into which people can keep their beliefs sacred, and not have those beliefs subjected to proper scrutiny. Just about all false and stultifying beliefs retain their endurance only because of the way their most influential exponents shield off the majority of adherents from an honest and open enquiry - be they cults, marginalised organisations or religio-political groups in developing countries that are able to repress and dominate their people.

Due to this general outward pseudo-politeness this means someone can live in another country for years, even doing a university degree, without having his or her often absurd beliefs challenged (I say 'outward' because inwardly those beliefs are often felt to be ridiculous, which only foments dishonesty). If there were a greater selection pressure on beliefs that are thought to be absurd it wouldn't be an outrage on the people believing ridiculous things - it would be a helpful, sometimes life-enhancing liberation, just as saving a drowning person or rescuing someone trapped in a mine is life-enhancing. The sooner we develop a much more naturally comfortable (and socially acceptable) way of entitlement to question and enquire rather than perpetuating this entitlement to belief we’ll find increased selection pressure on the more preposterous beliefs, views and onions in the world, and the potential liberation of those who adhere to them, and by extension, the human race.

 

* Photo courtesy of teenmentalhealth.org

Let’s Stop Being So Tentative And Uncourageous When It Comes To Islam

I don't find it difficult to become dissonant at Islam - so when I read two things in a week that astound and anger me, blogs like this just roll off the tongue (or keyboard). 

The first thing I read was that craven officials at Norwich City Council have issued a trading ban against stallholder Alan Clifford because his display contained a booklet criticising Islam (I read it and it seemed to me to be not an inflammatory booklet, just one that cast aspersions over Islam*).

Now I don't think I would have much in common with Alan Clifford - from what I've been told (from trusted sources, and from reading his material) he is a fundie, which means his Islam booklet really amounts to fundie vs. fundie.  But that aside, let's be clear, Norwich City Council's cowardly interjection is part of a disgraceful wider picture, and represents everything that is so timorous and spineless about the emerging politics in this country, and the willingness to concede too much ground to Islam.  Two key bits of information are that it was after a single complaint that Norwich City Council has decided to ban the outreach on Hay Hill, but also that it was cited by Norwich City Council as being for “equality reasons.”

 

“Although the police advised that no criminal offence had been committed, we have a duty under the Equality Act 2010 to foster good relations between people of all backgrounds and religions. By allowing premises owned by the Council to be used by an organisation publishing such material, we would be failing in that duty.”

This is absurdly ignorant – even though, in fairness to the Council, it is not their fault that the Equality Act 2010 and the Public Offence Act is so grossly restrictive and imprudent. I think this equality act has got a lot to answer for, because one kind of equality it clearly isn't accounting for is one of the most important ones - the equality we all should have in our right to freedom of expression.  One thing that diminishes “good relations between people of all backgrounds and religions.” is when people are limited by law in their ability to speak openly and freely about things, and when different concessions are made for different groups (which is what has been tacitly happening with Islam in recent times, and is likely to get worse). 

 

As I've said repeatedly, I think radical Islam is an extreme, patriarchal, repressive, backward and morally stultifying stain on humanity.  It is perhaps the worst human invention of all time - and one that appears to be gaining more and more impetus against political parties and governmental figures with no backbone.   Of course, you’re going to say that many Muslims don’t fit this description, and you’re right.  But that misses the point – it is the ‘religion’ that is all those these things – and the Muslims who are kind, intelligent, liberal, tolerant and progressive can be, and often are, all of those things in spite of Islam not because of Islam.  I would ask for anyone to defend my right to express that critique, just as I would defend any Muslim's right to speak openly about what he or she believes (as long as it is devoid of hate speech).

Here is what opponents of this view do not seem to understand.  Whenever we hear a voice or read an opinion which is vastly different from our own, or the common opinion, not only should we give that person the right to express themselves, we actually deny ourselves the right to hear or read the expression if we choose to seek refuge in the false security of consensus.  There are, I would say, three works which stand up as regards this particular subject.  John Milton's Areopagitica, Thomas Paine's Introduction To The Age Of Reason, and John Stuart Mill's Essay On Liberty.  The summarising central point of all the authors (if I may be so bold) is the following.  It is not just the right of the person that speaks to be heard, it is the right of everyone else to listen; and every time you silence somebody you make yourself a prisoner of your own actions because you deny yourself the right to hear something.  In other words, your own right to hear is as involved as the other person's is to have his or her view.  The freedom of speech is meaningless unless it means the freedom of the person who thinks differently.  We may not agree with everything we hear, but we do ourselves an injustice if we fail to hear the dissenting voices. 

The second thing I read was in James Delingpole's column in The Spectator, in which he talked of his niece's undisclosed "Middle-class state school in a pretty English cathedral city".  Apparently, despite being a school which is only 2% Muslim, the children are taught that whenever they say "Mohammed" they must suffix it with the "Peace Be Upon Him" phrase (PBUH).  Now I won't even get into to all the issues I have with the reverence of Mohammed, and what sort of character he strikes me as, but I will say how astounded I am that anybody outside of Islam would coerce or encourage British non-Muslims to utter words of reverence for a figure for whom they have not the slightest reverence.  This is just the case of more spineless cowardice - it must be, because, underneath, white middle class British non-Muslims do not have any such reverence for Mohammed or Islam, much less do they think he was a prophet. 

What on earth is wrong with so many people in Britain that they would succumb to the insidious dominance of Islamic thinking and give it a protective and exalted cultural niche that it does not merit?  Moreover, surely having people utter PBUH blithely is pretty meaningless - it only has meaning to those who utter it out of reverence; so even Muslims should wish that this kind of cultural ignorance and sycophancy is eradicated pretty quickly.   

Of course, it is important that we say all this with civility, consideration and good manners – and a lot of that seems to be absent in today’s society.  What we need is open and honest critiquing of things that have been given protection from analytical scrutiny for too long – but in a manner worthy of those aforementioned positive qualities that are so often scarce.  Instead what seems to be happening is that legislation is being put in place as an antidote to the pervading loss of respect and good manners. 

Remember, also, one of the best ways to show respect to a person is to be honest with them about what you think of their views and beliefs, and hope they would afford you the same in reciprocity.  The real spectre that needs to be faced is that instances like these almost certainly are the thin end of the wedge – there is worse to come as Governments slowly erode away freedom of expression and duck out of the challenge of facing up to a more open and diverse scrutiny of what people believe and how they came to believe these things.

* You can read Alan Clifford's Why Not Islam here? on his website.