The limits on free speech

Free speech is something I am passionate about; legal limits upon it make me feel distinctly uncomfortable. But there are other limits than the law, and other desirables - such as truth, and one of its corollaries, an avoidance of prejudice - which should temper free speech. But what is prejudice? It is not simply a critique which causes offence. As J. S. Mill argued in On Liberty, “if the test be offence to those whose opinion is attacked, I think experience testifies that this offence is given whenever the attack is telling and powerful”. Prejudice is an irrational opinion of a collective group.

Racism, homophobia and Islamophobia are all examples of prejudice - there are, to societies’ shame, many more. Prejudice judges all it includes within a particular collective as innately possessing malign characteristics. Prejudice is to move beyond a critique, however harsh, of practice or certain individuals to unsubstantiated labelling of an entire group. It is to make the leap from a phrase such as “Islam is…” - however harshly such a phrase unfolds - to “all Muslims are…” While criticism, however offensive, should be tolerated, prejudice should not.

Nevertheless, merely uttering prejudice should not be illegal, even if acting upon it, in many cases, should. But that does not that mean prejudice should not be rebuked. To move from the general to the particular - without breaking an undertaking not to disclose detailed content of the incendiary ‘Crucification’ issue of Clareification I was briefly at liberty to peruse - disciplinary action by Clare College would serve to so condemn prejudice, if only Clare’s authorities would be open about the issue’s content. Crucification was devoted to religious satire, but in parts satire as critique slipped into satire as prejudice. The former is a vibrant tool of free debate. The latter has no place in a modern Cambridge College.