My Take | Free speech is relative, depending on where you are in the world
- While political speech is heavily censored in China, everyday social speech is now curtailed by pervasive taboos in Anglo-American societies
In the often hilariously insightful TV series Silicon Valley, a horrified tech start-up owner told his Chinese-born and culturally maladaptive programmer to put out his cigarette at the office of a venture capital boss. “Jian Yang, we are not as free as you were, here in America!”
In mainland China, and increasingly in Hong Kong, you would likely get into trouble if you publicly challenge the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party or the central government. In Western societies, you can still pretty much say what you like about your political leaders, short of threatening their personal safety.
However, on many major and sensitive social issues, from gender norms to race and discrimination, in academia and outside, the attacks on free speech have been relentless, and often sanctioned by the state and powerful regulatory groups and organisations. The mainstream mass media are especially prone to such censorship.
The Anglo-American sphere has become a world of safe spaces, trigger warnings and “de-platforming”, where self-censorship and “cancel culture” are two sides of the same coin. In this environment, it’s increasingly difficult to call a spade a spade, without risking serious social penalties.
In Canada, governing bodies are increasingly willing to impose a single acceptable position or doctrine on members while threatening to excommunicate those who refuse to play ball. Recently, the Canadian Historical Association announced there was only one acceptable interpretation of the term genocide when discussing the country’s treatment of indigenous peoples. When more than 50 scholars wrote an open letter criticising the association’s stance as a threat to academic freedom and free speech, its president launched ad hominem attacks against some of the letter’s signatories.
The powers of regulatory, funding and licensing bodies, which are mostly obscure to the public in Canada, have come to light recently as Jordan Peterson, the world-famous psychologist, disclosed he could lose his licence as the College of Psychologists of Ontario was investigating him for more than a dozen complaints unrelated to his clinical practice but which stemmed from controversial public statements he had made.
