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Freedom of Speech
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Over the last few years there has undoubtedly been a startling crackdown on freedom of speech across multiple mediums. One of the first points I can recall being personally irritated by this was in 2015 when Tyler, The Creator (A US rap artist) was banned from the UK for his supposedly offence lyrics and incendiary behaviour. As artists like Eminem in the past, he has been attacked by social justice warriors worldwide for his topics of choice which can include sexual assault and murder; as well as his frequent use of homophobic slurs such as ‘faggot’. All rational minded people can agree that in real life subjects such as rape and discrimination of sexuality are not funny. The issue is that some are seemingly unable to distinguish a difference between art and the real world. Strangely, discussion and exploration of taboo subjects is often accepted in film or in books; yet music, notably hip/hop, is not given the same licence and artists are often lambasted when others have their art hailed as edgy, even impressive. Interestingly, on his latest project ‘Flower Boy’ [Scum Fuck Flower Boy], Tyler hints that he himself may well be a homosexual or bisexual. This would make no difference to his right to explore certain subjects, but the stigma that has been attached to him has actually led some writers to claim that it is some sort of publicity stunt or ‘trolling’. I disagree and to be honest I think this exposes a huge hypocrisy in these same social justice warrior types as they question and scrutinise him; an act they would surely be quick to condemn if they were on the outside watching this take place between other parties. This ridiculous, contradictory and moral point-scoring attitude towards the speech and art of others is what makes much of modern society so ridiculous. Approaching this from a different angle, we can look at the extreme backlash that has been directed towards people like Jordan Peterson (A professor of psychology at the University of Toronto). He was not only prevented from speaking by misinformed protestors largely constituting of university students and self proclaimed liberals, but also had his Youtube and Google accounts temporarily suspended. All of this was a result of his refusal to personally partake in the use of over 70 different gender pronouns and his claims that recent legislation in America had gone too far in dictating speech. Misinformed and aggressive protesting is one thing, although it could be argued that the right to protest must also be protected. However, for huge global companies to censor and silence people for voicing alternate opinions is a very slippery slope and is potentially dangerous. All positive progress is born out of the sharing of ideas and reasonable discussion. I think that we must wary of this growing trend of people competing to see who is the most politically correct and therefore who holds the highest moral ground. The focus should not be on the specific words and terms that appear across all of our languages, but on the intent behind these words. Hate speech is not simply the use or absence of certain words, but in the message the speaker is trying to convey. Everybody speaks differently and as Richard Dawkins has pointed out, much of this lies in physical neurodiversity. This means that biologically, many many people are bound to use language differently and often these people attend Universities and other places which are increasingly clamping down on their freedom of speech. This itself is a form of discrimination and again shows the extreme hypocrisy that can be seen in the social justice warrior movement. All voices must be heard and we all must be reasonably thick skinned and sharp minded enough to recognise the difference between a disagreement in thought and outright hate.
Categories: Political
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