Something has changed in the past five years. When
terrorists killed people in France working for the satirical magazine Charlie
Hebdo, the free world came out in support of those who had been killed and
defended their right to publish cartoons that some Muslims objected to. Five
years later when a French teacher showed these same cartoons and a terrorist
chopped his head off there has been much less support. While President Macron
has defended the right to show religiously controversial cartoons few other
leaders have come to the support of France. What has changed in these five
years?
Political correctness or being woke as it is more
commonly called now has grown in power out of all recognition. When I was a
student political correctness was a joke, the Looney left. But it quietly
worked its way into the heart of university life first in America and then
onwards to the rest of the English-speaking world. Most subjects in the Arts
and Social Sciences are completely dominated by Wokeness now. A few years ago, issues
such as feminism, racism, homosexuality and transgender were on the margins of
most subjects. Now they are the whole subject. There is nothing else.
It is this that has changed the mindset about the Charlie
Hebdo cartoons. The free speech argument that Macron is trying to defend is
that French people have the right to express themselves by writing or drawing
even if this offends Muslims. But it is just this that wokeness is attacking.
While it is clearly wrong to go up to someone on the
street and verbally or physically abuse him because he is a Muslim, transgender
or homosexual this does not mean I am forbidden from saying or writing
something that such a person might find offensive. Five years ago, we defended
this distinction because we defended free speech. Now we defend the right of
the person not to be offended. For the first time since the Enlightenment in
Europe free speech has been limited by fundamentalism.
The issue here is whether one person’s beliefs can
compel another person to act in accordance with them.
It is forbidden on some interpretations of Islam to
make pictures of the Prophet. Now clearly this means that Muslims ought not to
draw such pictures. A Muslim society might even decide to forbid drawing such
pictures by law. But a Muslim rule cannot compel people who are not Muslims in
a non-Muslim society do anything or refrain from doing something. Clearly if I
live in a Muslim society it is reasonable that I may be forbidden from going to
the pub. A Muslim society can justifiably ban pubs and the sale of alcohol if
it so chooses. But Muslims cannot ban others from drawing pictures of the Prophet
or drinking beer in France or Britain merely because they are offended by these
activities. If they can it amounts to them being able to compel us to believe what
they believe.
But the problem with religions being able to compel non-believers
to believe what adherents believe is that religious beliefs are frequently
incompatible. Islam for instance does not allow the Trinity, the Divinity of Christ
or the Resurrection. What if Christians found it offensive that people in
Mosques were taught that Jesus was not the Son of God but was merely a prophet?
What if Christians engaged in terrorist activities against Muslims for teaching
things that were incompatible with Christianity? If you can use terrorism to
compel us to obey your laws, why can we not do likewise? But this will lead to us
each cutting off our heads to spite our faces.
Tolerance requires that we agree to differ. Rules
about drawing pictures of the Prophet can only apply to Muslims. Everyone else
must be free to say that these rules don’t apply to me, because I am not a
Muslim. If that is not the case, then there will be endless warfare between religions
rather than mutual respect.
But what goes for religion goes for all of the other
contentious woke issues. While we all have a duty to be kind to each of our
fellow human beings, we do not have a duty to believe everything that they believe.
It is wrong to beat up or kill someone who is
transgender, but it is not wrong to believe that it is impossible for a man to
become a woman. It may offend transgender people if I write something that
justifies my belief that a so-called transgender woman is not really a woman.
But to force me to believe what the transgender person believes is the equivalent
of forcing me to believe that is wrong to drink alcohol because this is what
Muslims believe.
The tyranny of woke is similar to the tyranny of religion
that existed in countries like Britain hundreds of years ago. At that time people
were compelled to be Catholics then later compelled to be Protestants according
to the religion of the King or Queen. People were burned at the stake for failing
to believe what had previously been forbidden. Both Catholics and Protestants
were martyrs because there was no tolerance and no acceptance that Christians could
agree to differ about debatable aspects of theology.
The tyranny of woke is that anyone who expresses a non-woke
view, such as that homosexuals cannot get married, men cannot become women or that
it is better to focus on character rather than skin colour, is liable to be
cancelled.
While at university expressing the wrong view may mean
you fail the course in the world failure to be woke may mean that you lose your
job or your friends. You find yourself no-platformed not merely by students but
by the whole of woke society. As woke society increases cancellation affects
more and more of us. Five years ago it was safe to ignore it, but what about
five years from now.
While it is right to remember transgender people who
have been persecuted, it is equally important to remember all those people who
have been cancelled because they held the wrong view. A view that was merely
common sense twenty years ago sees someone like J.K. Rowling relentlessly
attacked. But this is just as intolerant as the prejudice that is directed at transgender
people.
In order for people with different religious views and
indeed different views about anything to live together we all have to accept
that we must agree to differ. Christians cannot require Muslims to believe what
Christians believe, but neither can Muslims attempt to apply Muslim rules to
anyone else. Likewise, people who believe one thing about transgender or
homosexuality or any of the other woke characteristics cannot force anyone else
to believe what they believe.
Reasonable people can have different views about race,
religion, gender and sexuality. These topics have not been proved one way or
the other scientifically. Tolerance requires that we allow others to believe what
they please while expecting them to show the same respect for our views.
This is what has changed in the past five years. The tyranny
of woke agrees with the terrorist that the cartoonist did something wrong and
would punish anyone who disagrees with anything woke by calling it hate speech
that justifies cancellation. In Scotland cancellation may well mean jail.
If things have changed this much in the past five years expect them to change still more in the next five. Woke is the greatest threat to free speech since at least Communism and Nazism tried to rule the world. It may well be the worst threat since the Middle Ages.