Pat Condell: "A word to left-wing students"

Post Reply New Topic

They say great minds think alike. That's also true of tiny minds, and it's especially true of closed ones.

I'm always impressed by students who know so much about the world they feel no need to listen to anyone else's opinions, aren't you? Especially when they feel compelled to actively shout them down. That's confidence for you.

We've had a number of incidents like this recently in Britain where people including the leader of UKIP, the political party campaigning for the restoration of democracy in Europe, and also people trying to put a case for Israel have found themselves shouted down by mobs of left-wing students who refuse to allow their arguments to be heard. And there seems to be a growing acceptance of this kind of behaviour in society as a whole, because nobody ever seems particularly outraged when it happens as long as it's happening to the right sort of people, that is those who don't share the current so-called "progressive" consensus.

Whenever I hear about a mob of students shouting down somebody's opinions I can't help wondering how many of them are studying philosophy, or whether it's just the remedial reading group who have been let out for the day. If some of you geniuses spent as much time learning how to read and write properly as you do policing other people's opinions, then perhaps fewer of you would have the literacy level of an 11 year-old. An 11 year-old horse, judging by some of the examples I've seen. But more importantly, anyone who is unwilling to hear an opposing opinion has no business attending a university, unless they're planning to graduate with honours in bigotry. And they have no business teaching at one, either. There's nothing liberal, intelligent, enlightened, civilised or progressive about shutting somebody up because you don't want other people to hear their opinions. Who are you to decide who should and shouldn't be heard? Who made you emperor? It's not only an incitement to public disorder, it's a form of assault and a violation of the civil rights of everyone around you. And anyway, if we deem some opinions unacceptable where do we draw the line, and who draws it? You? No. Everybody will draw their own line and then your opinions will be shouted down. What will you do then? Call the police? Good luck with that.

The more you try to shut people up, the louder they're going to shout. Wouldn't you? So you must know that sooner or later you're going to have to start listening. Besides, it's your moral obligation. The free exchange of opinion and information is the very lifeblood of the society to which you owe everything you have. It's the oxygen that gives us clarity and strength. Restricting it is like closing down synapses in the collective brain. It's an act of sabotage, and nobody has the right to do it any more than they have the right to arbitrarily ration water or air. No judge, no politician, no police officer, and certainly no braying mob of sanctimonious privileged middle class left-wing students who think they know best for everyone.

Years from now when you finally grow up you'll be embarrassed by the people you are today. You'll edit your own history so that you won't be the intolerant know-nothing dickhead you actually are. But we already know who you are. You've made it very clear. And you've shown just how low you're prepared to stoop. Very, very low indeed. Just talking about you in this video makes me want to wash my mouth out with soap. Just thinking about you makes my brain feel dirty. I feel as if I need a thought transfusion, because you've lowered the bar for everyone. You've trampled on the rules of civilised discourse and legitimised mob rule, effectively. If that really what you want for society, you leaders of tomorrow (God help us)? Seriously guys, if you claim to occupy the high moral ground, (and boy, do you ever) you should occupy it, not tunnel under it for a short cut.

Immune to evidence, immune to facts, and blind to anyone else's rights and liberties, you don't seem to realise that your dopey opinions are just opinions like everyone else's. They're not morally superior, and they don't give you the right of veto. In fact, they're morally inferior because they're based on provable falsehoods that you don't have the courage to confront. You're afraid of the truth because you've got such a big emotional investment in the lie and you're too immature to deal with it. You're afraid to be put in a position where you might have to embarrass yourself by descending from your lofty moral pinnacle, admitting you're wrong, and changing your mind. Or even worse, severely embarrass yourself by refusing to change your mind in the face of argument and evidence, which is why you don't want to hear argument and you refuse to look at evidence. Yet you probably laugh at religious biology students who reject evolution, but yours is the same know-nothing bigotry dressed up in different clothes, and you're just as absurdly proud of it as they are, like a toddler is proud of a turd, but from you, woah!, what a stink. It smells like something died.

I don't understand the sense of self-righteousness that one has to have in the purity of one's cause, to be on the Left, especially when you are in your mid-20's, as I am. The founders of America were wrong, the generation that fought the nazi's were wrong, the fathers of the enlightenment were wrong, Jesus was wrong, Buddha was wrong, everyone throughout history has been wrong, except for us... we know what's best for the world, we are certain of the sound resolve of our positions. Or at least that is the ethos of most of these middle-class know-nothings, who are impervious to reason, and have never entertained an antithetical notion that runs counter to their beliefs.