Zafe zpace
Paul reports that the panel discussion on free speech and safe spaces was…lively.
Thoroughly opposing the notion of safe spaces was Maryam Namazie, forcefully declaring that the rise of safe spaces is due almost entirely to identity politics, and that they are really a form of censorship. “Universities should be unsafe spaces for ideas you might not be comfortable with,” she said, arguing that identity politics have a homogenizing effect in marginalized communities, stifling dissent from within.
Twitter featured a lot of strong feeling on this one.
More clarity about the lines of disagreement emerged when the discussion addressed the dis-invitation of certain speakers, something Namazie has had first hand experience with. Namazie and Haider advocated for protest as a way to express opposition for unwanted speakers, though Brewster wondered aloud whether students’ demands for dis-invitations are not themselves an example of free speech. And there seemed to be an agreement that students have the right to ask. (Or, as Ashley Miller the moderator put it, “Isn’t telling someone to shut up speech?”) Burkholder raised the point that protest isn’t a blanket solution, particularly when it comes to black protests on campus, which are often met with hostility.
Everyone seemed to agree that universities are places where debate needs to happen, where protest and argument and challenging ideas are vital, but the clash comes when the discussion turns to where or whether partitions can go up to contain and protect certain identities and/or ideas. At what point does speech morph into, well, something else that warrants cordoning off? And who decides?
How about Gordon Ramsay?
Doesn’t Maryam have to worry about actual unsafety–as in, threats to her life?
That sort of thing could color one’s reaction to university students’ purported needs for “safe spaces.”
Come to think of it, she’s probably had enough of “identity politics” to last a lifetime, too.
Maryam does indeed face actual threats. That’s what made the Islamists disrupting her talks shouting “safe space, safe space,” so horrifying.
One of the speakers on the panel said that the privileged majority should not be able to decide what is said in minority spaces. I think there is confusion over different types of safe space.
Say an LGBT group wants to have their meetings designated a safe space, so that anyone who comes along saying that homosexuality is sinful will be asked to leave. That is a case of a group setting rules of conduct that facilitate its aims.
Now suppose the Christian Union have a speaker coming who thinks homosexuality is sinful. The LGBT society try to get the person disinvited as the presence of this speaker on campus makes its members feel unsafe or just angry and upset. That is a group trying to apply its rules to the whole university.
Incidentally, it’s easy to sympathise with the hypothetical LGBT society in this situation but suppose the Atheist society invite a speaker to talk about why the Catholic Church are a dangerous menace to society generally and women in particular. The Christian Union object as its Catholic members feel unsafe and upset. You see the problem.
On the whole, I would say that these bans should be avoided unless the speakers are advocating violence (which is illegal anyway so actually better to film them doing it). When no-platforming was introduced by the National Union of Students in the UK, it was as a counter-terrorist measure for extreme cases. Even then many argued that it was an unacceptable undermining of free speech. Then, I disagreed. Now I’m seeing that it was the thin end of the wedge and the approach is being used to silence feminists who disagree with prostitution and, of course, Iranian dissidents who are critical of Islamism.
I would say that one is certainly entitled to use one’s freedom of speech to tell somebody else to shut up. But one is not entitled to be surprised or “offended” if one is then ignored or laughed at.
Sure. But, as we find ourselves having to say so often in these discussions, having the right to do something doesn’t mean that it’s the right thing to do.
And more specifically, not every utterance serves to promote the principles of free speech. You have the legal right to lobby for the repeal of the First Amendment, the installation of Dictator Trump, and the formation of speech councils who will decide what the Great Leader will “allow” people to say. That doesn’t make it any less morally abhorrent.
So it seems to me that saying that “well, but students have the right to call for speakers to be banned” is a non sequitur. I don’t think any of the critics of campus culture have been calling for the censorship of demands for censorship.