Nick was rightly scathing of the decision to order atheists to remove ironically humorous t-shirts lampooning religiosity of all sorts....he said:
“Public authority should limit free speech only when it incites violence or unequivocally provokes direct and harmful discrimination against a vulnerable minority”
It’s easy to see why the various creeds of rationality are gaining influence, especially when holding up such an apparently clear mirror to fundamentalist censorship.
And that’s precisely why we should remember how loudly history shrieks at us that when one thing looks like the absolute antidote to social, political or economic problems, it is wise to check that it really is what is says it is.
But those standards themselves might be unreachable absolutes, because in the comments the Guardian fell into exactly the same trap by censoring a polite comment concerning facts about current censorship by Humanists. And not just any Humanists either, but a major British Humanist Charity.
Then this crowing tweet appeared from another humanist, Maria MacLaghlan, a Director of the Nightingale Collaboration:
Notwithstanding her rather surprising Humanist terms of address, the tweet was interesting, as co-incidentally an extremely similar thing happened when I tried to post easily checkable facts about the same situation earlier in the year. On that occasion the whole comment thread was removed from a regional paper.
Again in this case I think the tweeter was wrong. I don’t think my comment was “off-topic”, but I do think the circumstances warrant a short examination.
It was up on the site long enough to get at least 8 recommends, yet the tweet above thanks the Moderators for its “prompt” removal. Either that means my comment must have got those 8 recommends very quickly, in which case even more WHOA! or it must point to “prompt removal” not meaning that the moderators saw its irrelevance but something more like, “acted quickly after I contacted them”, which, let’s face it, as the comment was there for most of the day before removal, looks very much like number two.
(I think I’m beginning to understand the deployment of Maria MacLachlan to “deal” with the situation.)
So was the comment about free speech being framed as a personal “threat” off-topic in the comments of an article decrying censorship? Of course not, that would involve a reading of the article as being critical solely of Islamism, whereas Cohen cites other examples of a much wider malaise: the lack of vigour to defend free-speech.
“the supposedly leftwing student union and the establishment it is meant to fight aren't enemies but partners in repression, as the behaviour of the university's private police force shows.”
In fact it was precisely the over-arching sense of importance given to Islamists, among other factions, by the University, that was the very problem being flagged up, as it led directly to censorship, whereas in reality:
“hardly anyone thinks that the ideal university education should be offensive; that the young ought to have their beliefs challenged in the most robust manner imaginable”.
The article went on to detail (with follow up corrections), the terms under which different organisations including the BHA are joining together to fund legal advice for a test case, because “censorship is so common”.
And that made the comment even more on-topic because when the BHA was informed that a speaker of theirs was misrepresenting relevant facts, with a request for inclusion and free-speech, their commitment to it disappeared.
In response to a request to be held to the “same ordinarily impeccable behaviour standards” as others and to be able to ask questions “to exactly the same extent”, the BHA presented themselves as passive recipients of a threat by Dr Lewis not to come on the basis of his Lawyer’s advice:
“We understand that you have made a threat of legal action against Andy Lewis, one of the speakers at this event, and as a consequence he has been advised legally not to interact with you.”
In spite of the fact that his published misinformation is spectacularly easy to find, and in fact anybody, including any potential employer can find Dr Andrew Lewis’ edicts on the matter, as he and his mates have made sure they come up first on a Google search, the BHA parroted the party line:
“As your presence at the event would involve such interaction, Andy has informed us that he cannot be present if you attend. Given these facts, we ask that you not attend this particular event. We are of course entirely happy for you to attend other BHA and CFI UK events on this and any other subject matter.”
The relevant section of the code of conduct reads:
“The British Humanist Association aims to ensure that everyone attending our residential conferences is able to participate in them fully. We are committed to providing a safe and hospitable environment at our events and prohibit intimidating, threatening, or harassing conduct. This policy applies to speakers, staff, volunteers, exhibitors, and delegates.”
Do you see what has been done here? Having contemptuously provoked legal action, Dr Lewis now frames that as a personal “threat”.
In the first place there’s a boringly familiar patriarchal arrogance in forcing someone back to a British Court to re-test a Human Rights settlement that took place in another country, and that he was not any part of, concerning children he doesn’t even know.
In fact I’d like someone to publicly declare which part of his anatomy gives him the right to insist on that before he will, as an “evidence-based skeptic”, agree to simply publish true facts about it.
The added efforts of the obviously well-connected Nightingale Collaboration founder and her contacts has heightened this campaign to the level of approaching press agencies Iike this:
Public interest itself demands exposure of how these perpetrators consistently use the label and consequent assumption by others of being “evidence based” as a veil beneath which to peddle hearsay, innuendo and rumour represented as fact and legitimate comment.
And exactly as Dr Lewis hid the distress that was caused by the ongoing harassment when he originally entered the fray, he is now protected from being publicly asked about it by the Human-Rights-toting BHA.
In the earlier case also, an appeal for help to relieve the harassment was deliberately and immediately misinterpreted as a threat of attack against the perpetrator, providing “justification” for the exclusion of others with legitimate interests, who are still completely unknown to him, while he continues to advertise the platform he seeks to dominate as representing open debate.
That’s why many of Dr Andrew Lewis preferred links and sources contain much more targeted psychological harassment which was ongoing at the time he began publishing about Steiner, and which he touts as reliable hearsay.
As a result, this historic Human Rights settlement with arguably one of the world’s most litigious organisations had to be achieved under relentless cyber-attack from skeptics, critics and humanists, increasingly spearheaded by Dr Lewis as he made his bid for domination of the platform, by adopting the comprehensive title of “What Every Parent Should Know About Steiner Education”, and traveling extensively around the country promoting the need for exposure.
No wonder they want to cover it up.
What we have here, make no mistake, is a factual and on-topic example of secular repression with humanists stretching the terms of their Code of Conduct to the absolute max to shut out the voices of the children Dr Lewis claims to be concerned about.
Thus clearly demonstrating that any label, even the most “progressive”, can still dump all their tenets when it’s time to put the boot in. Which is why, instead of honest questions or factual debate from Skeptics, we instead get so many abusive, yet ill-informed tweets, some of which are nevertheless hilarious, like this one:
Yet the “defame and censor” strategy favoured by Dr Lewis and his buddies is nothing new, it’s just the same old combination of victimising techniques available to those with willing influential contacts, who wish to get away with, for example, publicly championing children as a group, whilst privately targeting them as individuals for their own ends.
But it does provide a useful illustration of how a chain reaction of collusion occurs to protect connected individuals, and exactly how positive assumptions about any progressive label, be it “children’s champ”, ‘‘skeptic”, or “humanist”, can be used to disguise repression.
The ‘censor and defame’ strategy depends on one thing and one thing alone, confirmation bias. The only way such obvious perpetrators can predict that others will buy the lie that there is no actual substance but some personally weird harassing stalkers are inexplicably personally jealous of them, and want to extort money from them, is by thrashing the progressive label to the max and bluffing it out, assuming that it will pass without question. And that’s what these guys do.
But it’s the fact that it does pass without question folks, that should be giving pause for thought. Because just look what you can achieve with large numbers of connected, efficient, invested supporters, prepared to believe what you say on the basis of progressive labels, rather than bother themselves to look at the facts.
It’s a completely standard part of the business of domination that repression should be able to take place “in full sight”, a phrase Dr Lewis is particularly fond of, and it’s not hard to see why, as his influence now includes being able to persuade large public Human Rights charities to exclude others from supposed public meetings and National Newspapers to expunge them.
And maybe these kinds of techniques just might work for skeptics and other pseudo rationalists best of all, because what could be more convincing than standing on a platform of concern for children, except for projecting “evidence-based skeptic” at the same time?
It’s not hard to find Dr Lewis asking questions about evidence, pursuing quacks, eschewing false balance, calling out special pleading, or revealing logical fallacies. And the way he peppers the end of his sentences with the apparent question “OK?”, makes him seem all about questions.
In fact, the ultimate heresy is to refuse to answer him as he will assume that means that you have no leg to stand on.
(@EdzardHonest is not to be confused with Professor Edzard Ernst, whom this account lampoons.)
Just because he likes asking questions though, doesn’t mean he feels he should have to answer any and his lawyers at Bryan Cave confound the CPR by defending his contemptuous ridicule of genuine repeated requests for limitation, moderation, and resolution, while he ups the ante.
Following Libel Reform this firm are now known as champions of free speech which can only further ramp up the confirmation bias: “they must really believe in something” “they must be right.” I expect Dr Lewis is banking on that.
Whereas of course colluding with someone hiding developments in a central area of a subject he’s seeking personal influence on, doesn’t make you “right” : it usually just makes you mates.
It is hard to believe that any honest men or women who genuinely believe in free speech would knowingly hold the welfare of children ransom to such contemptuously censorious, recklessness as to the truth, the more so on an advertised platform of evidence-base and with a motive of personal profit to boot.
Threats and blackmail aside, as bystanders to Dr Lewis’ own “sideshow”, the BHA are responsible for their own collusion. Yet they seem like willing foolish shills, on the one hand paying for a test case to challenge censorship, while on the other, artlessly shutting down debate. Because how can a guy who asks “OK?” at the end of his sentences, possibly be repressing anything, right?
Here’s a question, if the BHA have such a conditional commitment to Human Rights, what use are they?
My investigation reveals that Guardian editors are, to a man, much too busy loudly bemoaning censorship to care. Such are the hubristic times we live in, the National Press ruptures its own irony bypass.
Deleting my comment as not meeting community rules was dishonest and partisan. I stand by what I said that Nick Cohen was decrying censorship per se, with this attempt at a realistic boundary:
“Public authority should limit free speech only when it incites violence or unequivocally provokes “direct and harmful discrimination against a vulnerable minority”
But of course add the proviso that we don’t need actual children anymore to constitute such a vulnerable minority, and indeed there is little room for them, because in this brave new narrative, it’s ambitious grown ups, men like Dr Andrew Lewis, and his well-connected network of skeptics, academics, journalists, doctors etc., who are to be portrayed as the vulnerable minority, and children be damned. OK?
No disrespect to Nick Cohen, as I’m not sure who moderates his comments, but this is less journalism and more pure theatre really.
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