Free Speech
With respect to the recent protests over David Irving and Nick Griffin at the Oxford Union, a discussion of freedom of expression and the benefits to society of such a policy.
It must be the character of rationality that one listens to those who disagree so that one may learn. One may also be able to correct the speaker. On the other hand, in most cases where people hold varying views, it is not one or the other who is right but that both might be in the wrong, in the whole or in part. Discussion therefore is essential to learning and one who wants to stop the expression of his opponent’s views is guilty of bigotry at worse, or of keeping himself and others in ignorance at best.
Mill also argues, not without reason, that to prevent the expression of others is to assume to oneself infallibility. To err is human and therefore it is likely that we can never know fully all about the situation where we are in conflict with others. Indeed, since humility is a virtue, it becomes us to listen with profound attention to the other and not to judge, trusting that he, if he has the same humility, will also listen to us. So together we may both progress a little way towards a clearer knowledge of the matter and to an understanding of one another.
It is worth quoting the much used famous sentence from On Liberty to end this discussion in the hope that we all can work together toward a more tolerant attitude to each other and to the race as a whole. He says: “If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.”
Of course it will be argued by those who disagree with me, (and they may be right) that we ought not to allow Hitlers, Stalins and assorted rabid demagogues to have their say. One agrees that such people are offensive in the extreme. However no one really listened to them until there was a breakdown in society due to extreme human folly in allowing wars and such to break out. Where rationality and the rule of law hold sway we have nothing to fear from such madmen since they will only be laughed at. It is only in a sick and emotionally diseased society that people in despair listen to such rabid burblings. The cure for the ills of societies lies, not in repression, but in free speech and in open debate and rational argument.
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