John Stuart Mill and Censorship on the University Campus

John Stuart Mill and Censorship. Imagine taking a ghost by the hand and leading him through a modern developed city.  Then visualise his expression as he gapes at the spectacle of 21^st Century Western society.  Whose ghost would you summon?  For me it would be John Stuart Mill.  Being shown modern New York or Toronto, Sydney, Paris or London I can envisage his countenance, anaemic perhaps with wonder.  Conflictingly, he might be flushed with the indiscretions of modern civilisation, confused by a machine commonly called a computer, harassed by the density of city dwellers, anxious by the volume of vehicles and certainly puzzled by small appliances held at the side of a person’s head into which they speak!

Okay, okay I guess that any Victorian ghost would be perplexed by such inventions.  Why the ghost of Mill you may ask?  Who is Mill some of you are probably pondering.

Who is John Stuart Mill & Why is he Important?

In 1859 his work On Liberty, populated with rich notions and unique articulations, formulated a framework for individual autonomy.  In short, Mill’s enthusiastic position on emancipation from governmental restraints has become a pivotal essay embraced by libertarians worldwide.  His words, “That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others” neatly substantiates his legacy.

While John Stuart Mill’s notion of liberty and emancipation were embedded in Enlightenment dogma, his ideals still resonate in Western culture.  Desire for an absence of authority is common in libertarian doctrine.  After all, liberty as a concept was celebrated by many of his predecessors and contemporaries.   Governmental constraints have been challenged during both the 19^th and 20^th centuries; intellectually and aggressively, domestically and internationally.  The collision of liberty with Nazism and Communism is a primary example.

And we must remember that Mill did not advocate a state of nature where freedom from all restraint was implicit for securing a fundamental form of liberty.  Mill understood that such freedoms are excessive and can – indeed probably will – lead to impropriety and brutality.

Such circumstances (see Thomas Hobbes’, Leviathan) would spawn misery to the extent there would be an exchange for these ‘natural’ rights for synthetic ones where restraint was necessary to promote safety.  In practice this meant a sovereign or governing body to safeguard the security of individuals and communities.  For modern context, consider alcohol.  Alcohol can be injurious to our health.  Most Western nations permit the consumption of alcohol, but simultaneously prohibit driving a vehicle while being under its influence.  While injury to one’s own body can be induced by its consumption, injury can potentially be caused to others if intoxicated while in charge of a vehicle.  This simplistic notion symbolises Mills contention; an individual should have sovereignty over himself to cause himself harm, but should have no jurisdiction to cause maliciousness to others.

John Stuart Mill on Free Speech

Central to On Liberty is the assertion that individuals should possess a privilege to express their views without persecution.  Mill was not naïve enough to envisage that this contention would encourage truth to succeed in opposition to error, but that for truth to be revealed, opposition or opinion or conjecture must be expressed.  Intrinsically, truth is fluid and not a binary phenomenon but instead flexible in its function. 

Orwell reinforced this notion and elevated it further with the maxim: “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”

Both Mill and Orwell would be incensed and dismayed by the hijacking of freedom of speech by some elements of the elite in modern Western society.  Let’s focus on educational facilities.  Historically, universities have been considered venues for a forthright exchange of ideas and perceptions.  Across Western society this critical principal has been undermined and is now reaching a modern emergency.  “De-platforming” (let’s be honest, censorship!) is a new tactic employed to oppose conflicting views on university campuses which is a fresh manifestation in which people are censored and ultimately prevented from speaking  and engaging in dialogue and debate.

Uninhibited discourse should be the cornerstone of the university condition and an attempt to derail this core principal should be challenged and moreover enforced!  Students do not need to be wrapped in cotton wool and protected from an alternative vision and/or opinion.  Conversely, students should enquire, refute, embrace, oppose, welcome, repudiate, applaud, renounce, and salute ideas of varying degrees.  Argument and enquiry are healthy for the human mind.  We observe and digest arguments and apply critical thinking to challenge them.  Essentially as we battle reason we’re forming mini arguments in our own minds, systematically digesting each component and evaluating its merits and values. John Stuart Mill and censorship is thus a theme that does not sit well for many proponents of liberty.

Who’s Been Censored on Campus?

Sadly in many university institutions debate and the exchange of ideas is being maliciously oppressed.  Aristotle once ruminated: “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”  Western higher educational authorities negate processes of free thought by persecuting social discourse.  They burden aspiring students by refusing them the luxury of acquainting themselves with the opposing thoughts of others.

The concept of liberty and indeed the impact on John Stuart Mill and censorship are paramount to investigate.

Here’s a list of censored speakers on USA campuses to date.  This list is by no means exhaustive:

Ben Shapiro

Ann Coulter

Richard Dawkins

Jason Riley

Steve Bannon

Jordan Peterson

Christina Hoff Sommers

Charles Murray

John Brennan

Milo Yiannopoulos

And on UK Campuses?

Likewise UK campuses regularly shut-down and censor speakers.  Invited guests such as feminist writer Germaine Greer or politician Amber Rudd have been censored by vociferous and spiteful anti free-speech mobs.

I want to look in depth at a couple of these speakers. 

Milo Yiannopoulos has all but vanished from the mainstream media in recent years.  British born Yiannopoulos who now resides in the US was a regular on UK television debates and earned himself a reputation as a provocateur.  Accounting for approximately 25% of all campus cancellations in 2016 Yiannopoulos was loathed and reviled by anti free-speech gangs.  The vitriol and revulsion directed against Mr. Yiannopoulos was apparent in 2017 when he was due to appear at Berkley university.  The university cancelled his appearance amidst protests about his presence.  The protests descended into violence and was responsible for $100,000 of damage. The protagonists were the group Antifa and several injuries were sustained.  On a later appearance at the university, $800,000 was spent on security to ensure there would be no repeat of the earlier violence.

Minor celebrities are not the only victims of censorship.  Established politician Amber Rudd has been a recent victim here in the UK.  Ms. Rudd who was Home Secretary from July 2016 until April 2018 was due to address a group called UN Women Oxford UK.  As has become common on the university campus a group linked to Antifa lodged a complaint and Ms. Rudd was prevented from speaking.  The motion was passed minutes before Ms. Rudd was scheduled to speak at the event. She was travelling to Oxford University when the announcement was made.

Such decisions should not be surprising.  This censorship trend has been the tendency of university campuses for several years.  Whereas in the past minor celebrities and eccentric speakers were the primary victim of censorship manoeuvres, these tactics have now extended to mainstream commentators and politicians.  The fog of censorship it now seems is enveloping everybody.

The Extent of Censorship

Think tank Policy Exchange has revealed that fewer than 50% of UK university students support the precept of free speech.  To quote Spiked Online:

“According to the findings, 41 per cent agreed with Cambridge University’s decision to rescind Jordan Peterson’s fellowship, as opposed to 31 per cent who disagreed. A similar result emerged when they were asked whether Cardiff University was right to overrule the activists who sought to have Germaine Greer disinvited for her supposedly transphobic views. Forty-four per cent opposed the university’s intervention whereas 35 per cent supported it.”

I agree with Spiked that this is evidence of a trend of intolerance that is currently proliferating through university campuses.  The tendency is an alarming indication of how higher-education establishments facilitate both an attitude of prejudice to some ideas, and relent to the vociferous pressure of (normally) left-leaning activists.  Again to quote Mill:

“Apart from the peculiar tenets of the individual thinkers, there is also in the world at large an increasing inclination to stretch unduly the powers of society over the individual both by the force of opinion and even by that of legislation; and as the tendency of all the changes taking place in the world is to strengthen society and diminish the power of the individual, this encroachment is not one of the evils which tend spontaneously to disappear, but, on the contrary, to grow more and more formidable.”

What Would John Stuart Mill’s Response be?

John Stuart Mill and censorship; what would he say? Well, Mill envisioned society where man would be capable of escaping legislation and force of opinion.  Sadly his vision is still far from being recognised on university campuses where a tendency of ‘self-censorship’ is a phenomenon.  Again to cite the Policy Exchange, Pro-Brexit students were unlikely to express their opinion and self-censor to avoid criticism or discrimination and instead retreat into a culture of conformity where ‘correct’ and fashionable social and political dogma is observed.  Such legislation is not being cultivated by governmental regulation but rather from institutional instruction and self-censorship.

Again I ask you to visualise the ghost of Mill.  I want you to imagine leading this committed libertarian on a tour of a higher-education authority.  Picture – if you will – Mill’s firm smile as you guide him towards clusters of students.  Then his unshakable dedication to liberty, emancipation and freedom quickly deconstructed as you steer him into a debating society to reveal an angry mob of students bellowing and protesting raucously.  The students shriek at the lectern where a speaker attempts to deliver a speech.  The orator is vocally drowned and unable to pitch her presentation on a subject of modern importance.  Reason, logic, and rationale descended into a boisterous disorder. 

John Stuart Mill and censorship. A conclusion …

Mill hoped to foster dialogue and ideas.  The presence of an angry mob or the subjugation of self-censorship in higher education authorities would, I’m certain, distress and enrage him.  Our intrinsic thoughts can only be expressed if we feel safe to articulate them.  The university campus has traditionally been a venue for the undiluted flow of ideas.  Sadly this is no longer the case.  Until the West restores and re-establishes its general free-speech principle and encourages universities to replicate its lead, Mill will remain in a state of disillusionment.    

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