Niall Ferguson isn’t upset about free speech. He’s upset about being challenged | Dawn Foster

Powerful people used to express their views on others unopposed. Now their targets fight back, they find it intolerable

I would pause, for at least a few seconds, if I found myself arguing that my freedom of speech was in a state of extreme jeopardy in this, my column in a national newspaper. The historian Niall Ferguson, it seems, did not pause when making such an argument in his column in the Sunday Times this week. For Ferguson, speaking to the masses online and in print, the ability for him and his fellow travellers to freely speak their mind is in such dire jeopardy that the only answer is to set up a defence treaty, a form of Nato for academics who experience backlash when they express their views.

The people it would protect, he argued, include Roger Scruton, the academic sacked from an unpaid government post for expressing views he’d previously expressed in an interview with the New Statesman; Jordan Peterson, the bestselling author, who had the offer of a Cambridge visiting fellowship revoked after posing with a fan wearing a T-shirt bearing the slogan “I am a proud Islamophobe”; and Roland Fryer, a Harvard economist under investigation for sexual harassment (which he denies). That Fryer has not received a wave of support from academic colleagues Ferguson blames on political correctness.

Surely, anyone accused of sexual harassment in the workplace should be investigated, regardless of their politics – so lumping in Fryer with other people criticised for their views muddies Ferguson’s already weak argument and risks appearing to argue that complainants are politically motivated.

But that aside, the Venn diagram of men arguing that freedom of speech is the central, precious tenet of “western civilisation”, and those who scream bloody murder the second they are subject to any criticism, or are forced to bear any responsibility for their speech, is a single perfect circle.

Free speech does not occur without responsibility: to use the traditional metaphor, if you scream “Fire!” in a crowded theatre, you will be culpable when a stampede ensues. If your arguments are racist, sexist or homophobic, the people you attack will rightly point out your prejudice and query whether your professional position is compromised by holding such prejudices. A government certainly should not claim to represent all people equally, then appoint people who hold incendiary views about certain groups or communities.

Two things are occurring simultaneously that grate with Ferguson, Scruton and their ilk. First, the growth of internet access and the proliferation of social media means that more people than ever can both access your arguments, and argue against them. A greater number of people can read your arguments, but also interrogate your sources and approach, and then proffer their own take.

That means more people will naturally disagree: interpretations are myriad and the flattening of power structures to a small extent online means an individual can find their audience with relative ease, without having to get published by Penguin.

Second, a new generation of academics, writers, journalists, historians and readers is emerging and, as with each generation, critiquing the status quo and the arguments and theories taken for granted by their elders. As ideas about colonialism and nationalism shift, as well as traditional attitudes to gender, sexuality, race, class and ethnicity, they become sites of intellectual contestation between generations.

This can be uncomfortable for anyone accustomed to unquestioned status and veneration: but that’s life, if you believe speech should be free. For years, privileged men have been able to frame themselves as agents provocateurs – often spouting the kind of opinions a roaring, angry drunk on the night bus might, but with a plummy accent, an Oxford degree, and an overreliance on antiquated vocabulary – in columns in national newspapers. Their fury is not that they have been silenced – they have not – but that their victims have argued back, and they have been forced to bear responsibility for their words.

For centuries, powerful people have been allowed to pour their prejudices freely into the public discourse. Their free speech is still not remotely under threat – the pages of many newspapers globally, and the volley of abuse anyone other than a white, straight man on social media receives daily, should assure them of that. But for the first time, the people targeted by the right, especially the academic right, are fighting back. With free speech comes responsibility: borrowing the language and ideology of the far right, but cloaking it in a style lifted from Brideshead Revisited, fools no one.

• Dawn Foster is a Guardian columnist

Contributor

Dawn Foster

The GuardianTramp

Related Content

Article image
Free speech matters, and the people worried about it aren’t all bigots | Tom Clark
It’s more effective to expose the flaw in someone’s argument than it is to label them, says Tom Clark, the editor of Prospect magazine

Tom Clark

26, Feb, 2018 @9:00 AM

Article image
Elon Musk's Twitter is fast proving that free speech at all costs is a dangerous fantasy | Nesrine Malik
Reinstating the likes of Donald Trump and Kanye West looks likely to turn the social media site into an extremist ghetto, says Guardian columnist Nesrine Malik

Nesrine Malik

28, Nov, 2022 @6:00 AM

Article image
Say what you want about Toby Young – no, really, he’ll defend your right to say it | Joel Golby
The grifter who keeps on giving has turned his attention to defending free speech on Twitter. What a brilliant idea, says journalist and author Joel Golby

Joel Golby

24, Feb, 2020 @4:13 PM

Article image
Tommy Robinson’s cheerleaders are hypocrites, but his strategy is working | Julia Ebner
Despite stirring up hatred and silencing opponents, he is still presented as the underdog by the global far right, says Austrian journalist Julia Ebner

Julia Ebner

16, Jul, 2018 @3:45 PM

Article image
No one’s civil liberties are violated by a ban on the far-right Infowars | Michael Segalov
Platforms are not silencing voices or engaging in censorship – they are deciding not to profit from hate, says freelance journalist Michael Segalov

Michael Segalov

10, Aug, 2018 @11:53 AM

Article image
‘Tommy Robinson’ is no martyr to freedom of speech | Owen Jones
Members of the far right are more interested in restricting civil and religious liberties than defending the right to expression, writes Guardian columnist Owen Jones

Owen Jones

31, May, 2018 @5:00 AM

Article image
Hate speech leads to violence. Why would liberals defend it? | Nesrine Malik
Britain’s banning of three rightwing extremists has been criticised, but why not – the right to a platform isn’t absolute, says the Guardian columnist Nesrine Malik

Nesrine Malik

22, Mar, 2018 @6:00 AM

Article image
Distrust of social media is dragging traditional journalism down | James Ball
There is little to reassure mainstream news outlets in a survey that shows the impact of fake news and the big tech backlash on public trust, says the author and former Guardian special projects editor James Ball

James Ball

22, Jan, 2018 @4:43 PM

Article image
The right’s use of trolling is so predictable, why do we keep falling for it? | Richard Seymour
Wilfully provocative posts by your political opponents are hard to resist. But don’t react, it only helps spread the message, says political activist and author Richard Seymour

Richard Seymour

28, Oct, 2019 @8:00 AM

Article image
Excluding the Sun from our festival isn’t censorship, it’s Hillsborough solidarity | Christine Howard
Our festival takes place in Liverpool alongside the Labour conference. Our ‘boycott’ is about standing with local people, says Christine Howard of The World Transformed

Christine Howard

20, Sep, 2018 @2:05 PM