Brendan O’Neill on the death of Free Speech in the UK.
Have you met the Stepford students? They’re everywhere. On campuses across the land. Sitting stony-eyed in lecture halls or surreptitiously policing beer-fuelled banter in the uni bar. They look like students, dress like students, smell like students. But their student brains have been replaced by brains bereft of critical faculties and programmed to conform. To the untrained eye, they seem like your average book-devouring, ideas-discussing, H&M-adorned youth, but anyone who’s spent more than five minutes in their company will know that these students are far more interested in shutting debate down than opening it up.
This side of the pond is little better …
The ‘no platform’ policy of various student unions is forever being expanded to keep off campus pretty much anyone whose views don’t chime perfectly with the prevailing groupthink. Where once it was only far-right rabble-rousers who were no-platformed, now everyone from Zionists to feminists who hold the wrong opinions on transgender issues to ‘rape deniers’ (anyone who questions the idea that modern Britain is in the grip of a ‘rape culture’) has found themselves shunned from the uni-sphere. My Oxford experience suggests pro-life societies could be next. In September the students’ union at Dundee banned the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children from the freshers’ fair on the basis that its campaign material is ‘highly offensive’.
Barely a week goes by without reports of something ‘offensive’ being banned by students. Robin Thicke’s rude pop ditty ‘Blurred Lines’ has been banned in more than 20 universities. Student officials at Balliol College, Oxford, justified their ban as a means of ‘prioritising the wellbeing of our students’. Apparently a three-minute pop song can harm students’ health. More than 30 student unions have banned the Sun, on the basis that Page Three could turn all those pre-rapists into actual rapists. Radical feminist students once burned their bras — now they insist that models put bras on. The union at UCL banned the Nietzsche Society on the grounds that its existence threatened ‘the safety of the UCL student body’.
Stepford concerns are over-amplified on social media. No sooner is a contentious subject raised than a university ‘campaign’ group appears on Facebook, or a hashtag on Twitter, demanding that the debate is shut down. Technology means that it has never been easier to whip up a false sense of mass outrage — and target that synthetic anger at those in charge. The authorities on the receiving end feel so besieged that they succumb to the demands and threats.
Heaven help any student who doesn’t bow before the Stepford mentality. The students’ union at Edinburgh recently passed a motion to ‘End lad banter’ on campus. Laddish students are being forced to recant their bantering ways. Last month, the rugby club at the London School of Economics was disbanded for a year after its members handed out leaflets advising rugby lads to avoid ‘mingers’ (ugly girls) and ‘homosexual debauchery’. Under pressure from LSE bigwigs, the club publicly recanted its ‘inexcusably offensive’ behaviour and declared that its members have ‘a lot to learn about the pernicious effects of banter’. They’re being made to take part in equality and diversity training. At British unis in 2014, you don’t just get education — you also get re-education, Soviet style.
Who knew that being an observant Jew or Christian would be the radical provocateur against The Orthodoxy.
(I would have said, “The Man”, but that would have been inexcusably heteronormative, sexist and unconsciously submissive to The Patriarchy.)
griefer
I didn’t delete your comment; just put it in timeout.
When you grow up, and act more like an adult rather than a narcissistic troll, you may resume commenting.
i’ll just keep making the comments
it’s what i do
i make the comments
From Around the Blogroll
What would happen if the incoming Congress passed a bill stating that only American citizens and legal permanent residents are eligible for any federal welfare programs, including medical care, and setting up criminal penalties, including serious priso…
British college students need to adopt “Sod off, Swampy!” as their motto.
Oh, and Dar? I would have deleted the hamster’s comment.
And if I had the requisite access I would have put him on probation for it.
What’d I miss ?
In any event, I recall spending an inordinate amount of Twitter time smashing away the mechanisms of the #StopRush group of Media Matters-paid trolls, the ones who harassed advertisers for to shut down any criticism of their left-wing Party’s platforms. I finally got bored with it; but I learned one thing: the only way to keep these Stepford-style practitioners at bay is to stay in their faces, to mock them incessantly, and to get your hands dirty doing so.
If these “Uni” fascists are to be defeated, they first must be challenged. Impossible to do on campus; their coddled environment is protective of the little nascent brownshirts. But they can’t stay campus larvae forever..
Get them out into society, graduated, then mock ’em unmercifully. MockON!
Otherwise, well, we will become England. And there’s no place for those of us who can’t stand that degraded and utterly contemptible ghoul-state to flee to anymore.
i vote not to do the deletings
food for the deleted
‘feets, I’ve seen you speak* to Darleen in worse ways than I would ever treat a StopRush sycophant; just vile and derogatory things that properly belongs buried deep in one of Amanda Marcotte’s numerous litter boxes. You’re lucky votes aren’t taken for commentor retentions.
*(By ‘speak’ of course I mean ‘write from your keyboard comfort zone hundreds of miles distant; if you were to speak that vileness to her face, you’d likely be using broom and pan to recover yout teefs’.)
i vote not to do the deletings
Most criminals would vote not to go to jail for the things they do. Tough shit. If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.
All it would take to avoid such things is to actually act like a grownup, but I have seen nothing to indicate such a course of action is within your skillset, much less your wheelhouse…
you’d likely be using broom and pan to recover yout teefs ‘
I would guess others would have to do it, once the ambulance leaves with what’s left of him. High heels aren’t usually a good substitute for hob-nailed stompy boots, but I have no doubt Miss Darleen could make them work.
I looked at the comment in question and it’s not all that bad at all.
Gotta say though that it does continue with the pattern of immediately derailing Darleen’s threads.
There’s a signal to noise issue that’s always outstanding for some folks.
I do this sorta thing all the time myself but I try to introduce my bullshit sorta late at night and even later into the thread so that people have a chance to talk about the post in question. That just seems like a civilized tradition that we should maybe try to stay with here at pw.
It’s just reflexive, I guess. Sometimes we form habits and don’t even notice and maybe that’s what ‘feets has done here yet again.
But, it’s a pattern. I wouldn’t begrudge D wanting to have her post considered rather than the first comment always leading the discussion.
Gotta say though that it does continue with the pattern of immediately derailing Darleen’s threads.
Thanks, bh. While it was standard griefer boilerplate trolling, I’m tired of offering up something worth discussing (including a fabulous illustration that just delighted me no end) only to have griefer make it all about him and his rabid misogyny. Again.
Damn.Just.Damn.
I wouldn’t begrudge D wanting to have her post considered rather than the first comment always leading the discussion
And yet you have managed to do just that.
Since ya got all the privileges and such, maybe manage some posts of your own? Since Jeff is distracted and all…
Thanks for the advice, Lee.
On the other hand, if you want to pick a fight with me, put it on the table and we’ll have it out.
too scared.
WTF?
You mean WTL?
‘Cuz of the levity.
Yeah.
Wouldn’t mind a bh post. Hell, if I had anything worthwhile to say — other than anybody that doesn’t root for Auburn next Saturday is a damn commie — I might even post something.
Your opinion has been duly noted and will be accorded all the respect it deserves, insect.
You guys have read my posts lately, haven’t you?
They’re not worthwhile.
Dudes out west are super high. Walker will win by a billion.
It’s throw-away trash.
McGehee, make it something I’m interested in, otherwise never mind.
I’m sure I speak for everyone. No pressure or anything…
The privilege I have here I’ve used before and will be more than happy to use again.
If you have something to say, I’ll put it in a post on the main page. Check it out, I’m not pulling your chain. Email me. Comment here. It’ll make it the top of the blog.
Guys, if you want a post, you can have a post. This is the Jeff ethos. This is a Jeff thing. This is what he wants. He wants you guys involved in this primal way.
LB, I can’t even come up with something I’d be interested in.
I like how the Stepford’s arrive to attack and basically provide prime examples of their ridiculousness. Freaking clowns.
Let’s all just compromise so we can get stuff done.
We’ll make it about me.
Now, someone line up some compliant high schoolers.
ok yeah finally somebody with a sense of irony
this was getting weird
Plus, if you like your post, you can keep your post.
Stepfords – among those terribly proud of their ability to see both sides of the same side.