Murphy’s Law

Rex Murphy’s column in last Saturday’s National Post hit the nail on the head, but only in part.  He was commenting on the incident which took place in the Unicentre Galleria last week, when a “Free Speech Wall”, on which members of the Carleton community were invited to write messages, was torn down by a student … and unfortunately a FASS student, it seems … apparently in the belief that freedom of speech doesn’t apply in certain circumstances, depending on what is being said.  In other words, this individual believes that you are only free to express your views if he agrees with them.

Sorry, but an emphatic “NO!”  Rights and freedoms, many of which are enshrined in the Canadian constitution, are not qualified in any way by subjective opinions, and don’t apply only to some.  If that were the case, they could be changed at the whim of every new government.  Freedom of speech, and the willingness to tolerate heterodox views, is an important litmus test of a free society.  We don’t have to listen to those whose opinions we don’t share, nor read what they write, but they do have every right to voice those views, however objectionable we may find them … with the only caveat that certain things, for example an incitement to racial hatred, are prohibited by law.  But anything else is fair game … and if it’s not, then we can no longer claim to live in a free society.

The Galleria event, and the Post column, actually the second one in two days on this topic, bothered me for a number of reasons.  The first is that a Carleton student could hold such a view, and especially one who, we are told, is majoring in Human Rights.  But even more worrisome is the fact that this individual seems to have been allowed to act on his views … and I hope that some official investigation will follow.

But I was also taken aback by Mr. Murphy’s comment: “This latest episode at Carlton [sic] is a reminder that some universities are in the business more of promoting attitudes than liberating young minds, and more concerned with fleeting ‘correctness’ than lasting truth.”  The implication is that somehow or other this act of destructive censorship was not only something which the university endorses, but an attitude which in fact we teach.  Sorry, but once again an emphatic “NO!”.  Universities are homes for exceptionally wide ranges of opinion, and, if anything, we attempt to promote the view that understanding any subject requires having the widest possible variety of viewpoints and approaches, not just one.  It is only when we put all ideas on the table, and test them in the crucible of open discussion and debate, that we find the way forward … whether it is understanding the nature of the physical universe or the human one.

Actions of the sort we witnessed on campus last week, and uninformed reactions such as Mr. Murphy’s column, both serve only to hurt us, and hence must never be allowed to stand unchallenged.