17 June 2020 | Volume 79 | Edition 7
THE DIGITAL DEBATE In Conversation: William Barron
Duwayne Esau
Martyn McGrath
VARSITY Newspaper publishes a wide variety of opinions to fulfil our mandate as being the voice of the student populous. As we are a publication for students and academics, we are committed to stimulating and facilitating debate on campus (even if we are not physically there). There are often times where our writers will disagree and challenge each other’s pieces. This sub-edition of the seventh edition for 2020 is just that. William Barron has written his response to two pieces that we have previously published. Martyn McGrath’s “Self-Righteous Immorality: the Dangers of Cancel Culture” (3/11/2019) and Duwayne Esau’s “Lost at sea” the decline of UCT” (20/05/2020). We reached out to these writers and gave them an opportunity to defend their work.
THE DIGITAL DEBATE
Call This The Ungagging
I suppose I don’t tolerate free speech
William Barron
Source: news.cornell.edu (Wendy Kenigsberg)
“You had not yet been able to acquire the ‘Oxford temper’ in intel- trend – which sees universities in the US, UK, and elsewhere as so lectual matters, never, I mean, been one who could play gracefully newly PC as to impede debate and halt progress. A trend which with ideas but had arrived at the violence of opinion merely.” (again we can be credulous) assesses society and its deep contradictions. And diagnoses a lack of freedom to discuss ideas and I have never been easy with this Oscar Wilde quotation. It has al- crack jokes to be its prevailing issue. We must see the parallels beways seemed to me – and here’s a trigger warning – the ability to tween this hackery and that which pretends ‘cancel culture’ should play with ideas is a bit of a privileged one. Obviously, I mean the occupy our consciences. trigger warning for people who dispute the power of privilege. It’s often the same people who scorn trigger warnings – as touchy in- “Self-Righteous Immorality: The Dangers of Cancel Culture”, tosses fringements of free speech. around the buzzy phrase ‘cancel culture’ with a casualness I associate with assuming it is a term in common usage. So prevalent it I think I was first made aware of this quotation when – as a younger doesn’t merit evidencing. This plagues most discussions of cancel person, you understand – I watched Stephen Fry quote it in a Munk culture. Does it really exist? How widely? Who does it hurt? Edgy Debate. He was arguing against political correctness. Something comedians, mostly, it seems. And even then, not really. tells me I’m not unique in YouTube history. I get this sense from the proliferation of voices – this very Varsity Newspaper has borne What insights to these complaints give us to complainants’ posiopinion pieces I would categorise here – claiming free speech is tion and motive? Who would deny people in South Africa the right under threat at universities, by PC. So, I’m going to try to get into to protest grievances over colonialism and racism, and discredit two of these articles to demonstrate why I think these opinions are the ‘victimhood’ of anyone who would protest them with inverted wrong. But also easy, common, and never to my knowledge prop- commas around “oppressed”? Who would thereby whinge about erly substantiated. their own denial of access to rights without a sense of irony? Who would miss the insultingly obvious irony of being allowed to pubThe one is a piece titled “Lost at sea: the decline of UCT” (May 20 lish such whingeings in a campus newspaper? Who is more wor2020) in which Duwayne Esau asserts that UCT used to be “an insti- ried for ‘cancelled’ celebrities than for maligned groups of people? tution with the strongest of liberal roots” and “today [..] is a place of intolerance and silencing”. The other is a piece from November 3, What is more irritating is that we’re guaranteed to see bottomless 2019, titled “Self-Righteous Immorality: The Dangers of Cancel Cul- repackagings of these reactionary fantasies as long as we live. Beture” in which Martyn McGrath recommends that “cancel culture” is cause they’re just so easy to do. These arguments prosper because not in line with “the principles of Ubuntu”. they don’t rely on anything like evidence. Unfalsifiable flourishes of peoples’ ‘feeling’ like they can’t speak up in class. Murky concepIn “Lost at sea: the decline of UCT”, notice the projection of this tions of what it means for free speech to be constricted (a counidyllic liberal UCT into the vague past. It’s crucial that no years are terargument doesn’t count – nor even does light mockery). And specified. No free speech incidents upheld. We could be credulous increasing access to increasingly proliferant right-wing YouTube and credit this piece with enough consciousness to recognise this recommendations. glorious era must have had its onset some time after 1994. My God! The power and speed of this liberalism thing blows the mind! It’s a victim complex, when one’s self-conception is based on being To free a university campus so soon after it belonged to an author- under threat from the PC majority. One feels one cannot offer one’s itarian state? And you’ve already ruined it, UCT! We’ve missed the opinion in a sociology lecture. One writes an article about how one 20-year window in which we could have attended a truly tolerant feels one’s freedom of speech has been curtailed because one’s university. professor is a communist. Another one reads this article. Another one feels one cannot offer one’s opinion in a sociology lecture. But where have we heard this before? Make UCT Discourse Again? Let’s hear this speech, then. Right. It’s easy to locate these claims within a global reactionary
THE REBUTTALS
Another “whingeing”: a response to William Barron “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” - Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Duwayne Esau
In his piece, William Barron responded to the last op-ed I published in Varsity Newspaper on 20 May 2020, Lost at sea: The Decline of UCT. Mr. Barron’s view is that the ability to play gracefully with ideas is a privilege, a privilege to whom and derided from what he does not say. Nevertheless, he continues to say that my opinion or “whingeings” as he calls it, and others like mine, are wrong. Free speech on university campuses are in fact not under threat. This is my answer to his counter. I would propose that it is not a privilege. The ability to play gracefully with ideas is the ability to engage with and discuss different ideas without being a zealot. It is understanding that we are not our ideas and therefore criticisms of our ideas are not criticisms of us. It is a calm and rational demeanor even when faced with entrenched ideologues but most importantly, it is something one nurtures over time. Anyone willing and eager enough to gain the ability to play gracefully with ideas can do so, no one and no institution hands this ability to any individual. I have come across PhD holders who do not have this ability and I have come across high school students who do. Nearly anything can be deemed a “privilege” since there is always someone less fortunate than us who may not possess it, no matter how less fortunate we are. Furthermore, simply deeming something to be a privilege does not in itself make it any less valuable or pertinent. The response that the ability to play gracefully with ideas is a privilege seems more like an excuse to not play gracefully with ideas than a refutation of the ideas being gracefully played with.
“One writes an article about how one feels one’s freedom of speech has been curtailed because one’s professor is a communist.” Apparently downplaying the role lecturers play in creating an environment which is conducive to debate. Lecturers ought to act as the oil which gets the cogs of intellectual debate turning. If they do not, students lose out on the opportunity to sharpen their skills and encounter those with differing views. Here is an incident I experienced myself involving a lecturer at UCT. I was a student in one of the lecturer’s courses and the lecturer, discussing René Descartes, said that: “…if someone tells you are not being rational, tell them you don’t want to think white…” This lecturer was seemingly implying that reason and rationality is a “white invention” and therefore is something people of colour should not adhere to. This is a clear example of imposing one’s views on others without giving them the opportunity to find their own views, or to disagree with yours. A clear infringement on freedom of speech.
My previous op-ed noted the decline of UCT, especially as it relates to freedom of speech. I did not think it is necessary to highlight the specific incidents which are examples of this. They are matters of public record and have been discussed extensively by distinguished academics from UCT and other universities. At a UCT graduation ceremony in December 2019 former University of the Free State (UFS) Vice-Chancellor, Jonathan Jansen, warned students of this very threat in his speech. He said: “…I would be remiss on this grand occasion if I did not warn you that in South Africa today, that ideal of the university is under threat. When you burn down things at a university because you're angry, you undermine what a university is for. When you hide and conceal artworks you don't like, you threaten the idea of a university. When you tell white students and colleagues that they cannot speak in the learning commons, you make a mockery of what a university stands for.” Nonetheless, I will detail two examples now. The most infamous example, and final nail in the coffin, is the rescinding of the invitation to Danish journalist, Flemming Rose. Mr. Rose had been nominated and invited by the Academic Freedom Committee (AFC) in 2016 to be the speaker for the annual TB Davie Memorial Lecture. Mr. Rose gained notoriety when he published depictions of the Prophet Mohammed which he received from the public after asking for submissions of depictions. For those who do not know, depicting the Prophet Mohammed is a sin according to the Qur’an. Once the student body discovered that Rose was to be the speaker, they pressured the university to rescind the invitation. This was, purposely, intended to be a test of freedom of speech on UCT’s campus. As we all know the true test of freedom of speech is not whether we are willing to listen to those we agree with, but whether we are willing to listen to those we disagree with. UCT failed this test, it allowed a section of the student body to silence voices they disagree with. Not only students infringe on the free speech of others, but lecturers as well. University campuses are littered with “social justice warriors” or “progressive” leftists who act as the self-appointed speech and thought police. The abovementioned incident is now widely known but there are smaller incidents which only students were witnesses to. Mr. Barron wrote that:
Source: cartoonmovement.com
While I do not know Mr. Barron well enough to know where his views stem from, my views stem from what he calls “this liberalism thing”. One of the central tenets of liberalism is freedom of speech and an important pillar of freedom of speech is allowing those we disagree with an opportunity to speak. Perhaps Mr. Barron misunderstood the intention and meaning behind my oped. It was not, as he claimed, to “…deny people in South Africa the right to protest grievances over colonialism and racism, and discredit the ‘victimhood’ of anyone who would protest them with inverted commas around ‘oppressed’?” My intention was not to silence anyone but simply to point out that free speech is very much under threat, we are too eager to discard time-honoured principles for the sake of appearing “progressive”. Freedom of speech is not one distinct thing which one can point out, it is a myriad of things which together make up freedom of speech. Freedom of speech entails freedom of the press, freedom of conscience, academic freedom, artistic freedom, and much more. Moreover, freedom of speech does not die by one act or in one day. It dies slowly and by a thousand little infringements. So, to ask me to detail all the moments when freedom of speech died is similar to asking when a cancer patient will die. It happens bit by bit, then all at once.
THE REBUTTALS
Cancel-Culture Observed: Rebutting “The Ungagging”
Source: huckmag.com
Martyn McGrath I was recently contacted by VARSITY with an offer to respond to Mr. Barron’s engagement with my piece they published last year. I welcome the opportunity, naturally, as I highly value free expression and the free exchange of ideas and I am thrilled that someone would seek to enrich my understanding by contesting my ideas (I am the first to admit that I am frequently in need of correction)! Unfortunately, I have struggled to extract many meaningful arguments from Mr. Barron’s piece, which is a complicated mix of academic terminology and false dichotomies. I will do my best, regardless, to extract what I can and respond satisfactorily. Mr. Barron engages two pieces – I will focus primarily on the charges levelled against me and my work. Perhaps Mr. Barron’s most compelling point is that the issue of free speech should not be the primary issue occupying our University’s consciousness. I absolutely do not deny that South Africa’s systematic inequalities should be central to our discourse. I wholeheartedly support the need for transformation and engagement on these issues. Indeed – if the fragile right to free expression is not defended, the space for marginalized groups to be heard are likely to shrink, free expression is a necessary base-level requirement for transformation to happen in the first place. Here we see the first false dichotomy – the fact that people decry one issue does not mean that they deny the existence of other issues. Recognition and discussion of entrenched inequality and the lack of visibility of marginalized groups does not preclude the need for people who focus on the issue of free expression. Surely it is a point of celebration, rather than derision, that our University produces people with a passion for freedom across many issues?
low their script (I encourage lecturers to be respectful, but institutionalising such a policy is dangerous to academic freedom). For another example look back to 2016 when UCT disinvited Flemming Rose from giving the TB Davies lecture on academic freedom due to a fear that the expression of his views might disrupt the “ideological and social fault-lines [that] have become intensely politicised, sometimes violently so”. Mr Rose’s views are controversial – but far from dangerous, he believes that people should not be constrained in what they are allowed to say and publish (so long as it falls short of inciting violence and defamation of character) and is a global advocate for free speech. What is it indicative of, then, if a prominent academic and advocate for free expression is not allowed to speak at our university because of fears that he will destabalise the political atmosphere? I suggest that it indicates an increasingly entrenched acceptance of cancel-culture – which creates an environment in which neither transformation nor free expression are enabled (transformation comes through an engagement with ideas, you can’t change people’s attitudes by publicly shaming them) it violates the principles of Ubuntu (which includes community based restoration) upon which our constitution and nation are founded.
Mr Barron employs a clever technique – he mentions me and quickly moves on to contend with those whom he assumes are my authority on the subject by making assumptions about my ‘YouTube history’ – he even makes wry allusions to a Trumpian slogan. This is a clever, but cheap, technique – by identifying my name alongside those popularly seen as ‘right-wing’ (he even uses the term for good measure) it allows him to construct and contend with an argument that is not the arguThe most serious allegation laid against me is the statement that “the ment I made in my piece – a classic straw-man situation. buzzy phrase ‘cancel culture’ is tossed around with a casualness I associate with assuming it is a term in common usage, the prevalence of which Mr Barron has resolutely avoided actually engaging with my piece bepeople acknowledge enough not to merit describing or evidencing.” yond briefly mentioning that I said cancel-culture is against the value of The prevalence of cancel-culture, both in popular usage and in practice Ubuntu, a point he makes no effort to actually dispute. I am nonplussed is not difficult to prove, especially if people are engaged with the recent by his contention that cancel-culture (the existence of which he seems history and political shifts within our university. Cancel-culture’s influ- to doubt) is not dangerous to free speech (by definition it seeks to drown ence is evident in the campaigns of SRC candidates – especially those out or remove dissenting voices) – or that evidence of it does not exist, belonging to SASCO which contain promises to advocate for discipline a claim that is easily disproved through basic research into UCT’s recent of lectures who do not use specific gender-neutral terminology – thus history and current affairs. threatening to institutionalise the silencing of lecturers who do not fol-