I had only vaguely heard of US Congresswoman Marjorie
Taylor Greene before Twitter banned her. From what little I have read of her I disagree
with what she has said about Covid, vaccines and many other issues. But I can
only disagree with her if I am allowed to know what she says and thinks. By
banning her from expressing non-mainstream opinions I am prevented from even
being aware that these views are held. But the problem with this is that some non-mainstream
viewpoints have in the past turned out to be true.
The media could argue that it should only allow people
to express views that are true. But the problem with this is who is to
determine whether a view is true or false? The scientific consensus would certainly
argue that Jesus Christ did not walk on water, nor did he turn water into wine.
If a someone today claimed that he could cure Covid by touch, the scientific establishment
would certainly dismiss him as charlatan. But this means that by the standards
of the banishment of Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Pope should be banned from
Twitter for claiming that Jesus Christ rose again on the third day.
Every saint requires miracles, but science tells us
that miracles don’t happen and are contrary to all scientific laws. But then
this means that anyone who expresses reliance on a saint, or who tells us that
a saint helped in this way or that is likewise saying something that is false
by the standards of science and should be given a number of strikes and then
banned.
One of the difficulties with always going with the
scientific consensus is that the history of science is full of theories that
have been superseded. There are scientific theories which nearly every scientist
believed to be true that later turned out to be false. Sometimes a single scientist
has to fight against the whole scientific establishment in order to triumph in
the end.
If I am told that nearly all reputable scientists believe
something I will be inclined to take this as a good reason to believe it too,
but I wouldn’t forbid anyone else from disagreeing as that single voice may
well turn out to be correct. It probably won’t, but it just might.
I have witnessed from within universities being taken
over by a sort of group think. Woke issues that were once peripheral to
academic study have become the whole subject. The topics of race, gender,
sexuality, slavery and colonialism which twenty or thirty years ago were barely
touched on, have become so dominant that scarcely a book in the Arts or Social
sciences is now studies which does not deal with one of them.
Ideas such as “white privilege”, “critical race theory”
and the existence of multiple genders and none, which almost no one believed even
a short time ago have become so mainstream that they are barely even questioned
with those who do question liable to cancelled.
The 1619 Project developed by the New York Times, which
views the whole history of the USA through the prism of slavery, arguing indeed
that the American Revolution only occurred as a means of avoiding the abolition
of slavery, depends on a self-hatred that would have been unthinkable a short
time ago. It is as if an enemy of the USA wanted to undermine its people’s patriotism,
self-belief and will to defend itself. Here is not an impartial sifting of the
historical evidence, but rather condemnation beforehand and a search for
evidence that fits in with the theory.
But if universities can be taken over by odd theories
that no one believed until a few years ago, if trigger warnings can go from
something ludicrous, to something obligatory in the space of five years, then
can we really be sure when establishment orthodoxy represents the truth and
when it does not?
I have been inclined for the most part to go through
the pandemic doing what I have been told to do. We each have different temperaments.
I am naturally cautious. I am shielding my mother and anyway I prefer to stay at
home. I have been vaccinated three times and will get a fourth if offered. But like
many others I have had some doubts about the wisdom of this or that pandemic
policy. I have reflected on the numbers of people who might have died because
they didn’t get treatment for cancer, plus the numbers of jobs lost and school
careers ruined. I have at times questioned. The ability to question the
established orthodoxy is what makes us a free society.
I am not a lockdown sceptic, nor a vaccine sceptic. I disagree
with these views. But I would not ban people from thinking these thoughts or
expressing them. If we ban people for expressing views, we think to be false
this time, what about next time when the banned view turns out to be true?
I want the scientific consensus about vaccines and
lockdown to be challenged vigorously, because if a theory is true it can stand
up to some dissent and counterargument. The only way we can be safe in our
scientific beliefs is if each of them is challenged to the limit.
If man made global warming is real as appears to be
the case it can certainly survive a few voices crying in the wilderness that proclaim
that instead we are heading for a new Ice Age. If our theories are sound and
reflect reality, we don’t need to shut anyone up, nor do we need to ban them
from Twitter.
Free speech is also about allowing people to say
things that are false. If reality does not correspond to a statement, then it
is unlikely to be believed by many for long. We must allow people to say things
that are false, because how else can we protect a future Galileo or Copernicus
or Pasteur from being banned for saying something the establishment believed to
be false, but which in fact turned out to be true.
Who is to be the judge of what is true and what is
false? It cannot be the BBC with its “fact checks”. Global warming is a fact,
but so too the BBC thinks is a man giving birth. Twitter will allow without
question the liberal orthodoxy, but initially forbid anyone from saying that
the virus came from a Wuhan lab leak, until eventually this becomes the
established view. One consensus is overthrown by another.
We all need a bit more humility about the truths we believe.
We could be wrong. Better by far to
allow those I disagree with to express freely what they believe than run the
risk of someone deciding that what I believe is forbidden. So, I protect your right to speak falsely in order
that I may tell the truth.
Neither the BBC nor Twitter can determine what the truth
is. Only reality can do that. Even when there is a scientific consensus it may
be overthrown. The greatest story ever told would have been banned by Twitter
as misleading the gullible public into thinking that they need not worry about dying
from Covid because a man born of a virgin could make the blind see and the lame
walk and so could certainly raise them up again like Lazarus. All of this is contrary
to everything that science teaches.
If you ban Marjorie Taylor Greene you might as well
ban Jesus Christ too.
