Think tank says campaigners are ‘weaponising’ concepts such as ‘hate speech’
A think tank has said campaign groups such as Black Lives Matter and Extinction Rebellion have “weaponised” the concept of “hate speech”.
In its paper, Dictating Words: The Culture-Control Left and the war against free speech, the Institute of Economic Affairs says campaigners on the left have in turn influenced public sector bureaucracies, big business, and politicians, including some on the Conservative side. It says this has stifled the concept of free speech and expression.
It says this is “incompatible with a liberal democracy” because it means topics such as trans rights or the role of religion – which are often hotly contested – cannot be properly debated. Describing campaign groups as the “Culture-Control Left” (CCL), it noted these views have even cost people their jobs.
It said: “Incidents of censorship and speech prohibition are reported with near daily frequency; academics like Kathleen Stock have been driven out of their positions for pursuing lines of academic study relevant to their expertise; campaigns to remove or deface statues have proliferated; and demands that students and employees undergo unconscious bias training have continued.
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“The increasingly public prominence of initiatives inspired by the CCL – for example, the embrace of the Black Lives Matters movement and slogan by the Premier League – has helped to increase public awareness about the nature of the political agenda being foisted on them.
“Opponents of the CCL must achieve something akin to a gestalt shift in the public imagination. This involves exposing the CCL for what they are: a form of authoritarian politics.”
The IEA says a case now needs to be made to restore an idividual’s inherent right to think and peacefully express themselves. Marc Glendening, Head of Cultural Affairs at the Institute of Economic Affairs and the report’s author, said: “British democracy faces an existential threat from those seeking to silence debate.
“This is the result of the emergence of a ‘culture control left’ ideology that sees state regulation of language as the principal way to enforce greater social equality. This necessarily involves violating the speech rights of individuals who wish to express views considered transgressive. Defenders of political pluralism now need to wage a counterattack based upon a foundational, natural rights-based defence of free speech.”
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Dr Julius Grower, convenor of the Karl Popper Society and Ann Smart Fellow in Law at the University of Oxford, said: “A gem of a paper, Dictating Words provides its readers not just with a deep understanding of what has hitherto been an opaque (and yet highly impactful) political phenomenon: what its author calls the ‘Culture-Control Left’, but – crucially – both the terminology and a guide back to the underlying philosophical principles which those who believe in the primacy of individual rights and freedoms will require to challenge it.
“As it so lucidly explains, British society has in several respects strayed far from the classical liberal civil and political culture upon which our civilisation (and our prosperity) has traditionally rested. In particular, there have been disturbing and potentially still-growing moves to limit peoples’ freedom of speech in the name of achieving highly contentious and plainly contestable political outcomes.
“It is only by engaging with the sort of deep-minded and principled reflections that are presented in this paper that true liberals of all stripes can begin the process of pushing back against such change.”
Dr Julius Grower, convenor of the Karl Popper Society and Ann Smart Fellow in Law at the University of Oxford, said:
“A gem of a paper, Dictating Words provides its readers not just with a deep understanding of what has hitherto been an opaque (and yet highly impactful) political phenomenon: what its author calls the ‘Culture-Control Left’, but – crucially – both the terminology and a guide back to the underlying philosophical principles which those who believe in the primacy of individual rights and freedoms will require to challenge it.
“As it so lucidly explains, British society has in several respects strayed far from the classical liberal civil and political culture upon which our civilisation (and our prosperity) has traditionally rested. In particular, there have been disturbing and potentially still-growing moves to limit peoples’ freedom of speech in the name of achieving highly contentious and plainly contestable political outcomes. It is only by engaging with the sort of deep-minded and principled reflections that are presented in this paper that true liberals of all stripes can begin the process of pushing back against such change.”
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