Editor of the online magazine, Spiked, and regular columnist with publications as varied as the Big Issue and The Spectator, Brendan O’Neill is no stranger to controversy. With a ‘telling-it-like-it-is’ attitude, he speaks his mind freely, and without pretense. Nothing is off-limits, nothing is sugarcoated and rather than “a right to offend”, in his latest appearance at the Oxford Union, O’Neill went a step farther – arguing for a “duty to offend”, and be offended. Freshly primed, always ready to pounce on the latest ‘student activist’ preaching in “posh cut-glass tones”, O’Neill was very forthcoming about his views. And, with Oriel’s recent decision concerning the statue of Cecil Rhodes, our exchange could neither have been livelier, nor could it have come at a more pivotal time.
Commenting on the ‘safe space’ trend that has been sweeping across campuses up-and-down the country, O’Neill observes how it has been “growing for quite a while now; perhaps for twenty years or more.” The telltale signs were evident, but only now has it reached a fever pitch. The situation has “weirdly intensified over the last couple of years” he explains, “we seem to have a new intake of students on campus who arrogantly, narcissistically believe that they have the right to go through their three or four years of university life without ever hearing a word or an idea that challenges their belief system.
“There’s been a lot of [media] coverage over the last year in particular about the censoriousness of student leaders and the insanity of student unions who want to ban hats and newspapers and songs and everything else.”
Picking up on this theme of “backwardness”, we quickly moved into a discussion about media presentation, and whether or not the press really had ‘the full scoop.’ In other words – to what extent were such depictions misunderstandings, or even willful misrepresentations.
“The media is now giving a skewed impression that all students are like this” says O’Neill, “Perhaps they’ve pushed the boat out too far because, to my mind, when I go to campuses – as I do quite a lot – I’m always struck that most students are still very normal. Most think that freedom of speech is still a pretty good idea. They either dislike their unions or just have nothing to do with them.” With a 14.2 per cent turnout in the most recent OUSU election back in November, some would argue that such claims are not too far wrong. Those other students, the four-fifths or more that chose not to cast a vote, are what O’Neill term “the silent majority”; the ones who “are not offered opinion pieces in the Guardian.”
Keen to disparage against “tarring all students with the same brush” O’Neill warned against two things: one, the media, who “always on the lookout for something scandalous and sexy” and two, “neo-colonialist” student activists; “shameless self-promoters” and spin-merchants in their own right. Neither of these groups do justice by students, argues O’Neill.
Likening student activists to Mary Whitehouse, “an old social conservative from the 60s and 70s who wanted to ban everything”, O’Neill writes off the ‘countercultural left’ as being “deeply conservative, deeply Victorian [and] deeply regressive.” To this end, he does not recognise any of these activities as “being left wing.” Rather, they stultifying and authoritarian.
Posing the question of an ‘educative’ intent behind these campaigns, of their self-professed desire to enlighten and raise awareness, O’Neill is broadly dismissive. “I think it’s about elitist campaigners cutting themselves off from the rest of society and distancing themselves from the average person”, he responds.
“And so, that’s why I think they’ve developed their own language, which makes absolutely no sense to the man or woman on the street. That’s why they’re constantly fretting about the impact of tabloid newspapers on peoples’ mushy minds; why they are suspicious of mainstream pop music – which they think is sexist – and why they hate big corporations and McDonalds, and all these other things. They’re constantly thinking: ‘how can I demonstrate my moral, ethical superiority to everyday society?’ It’s not about educating the public; it’s about expressing contempt for the public. They really fear and loathe ordinary people – and that’s normally the case with people who want to censor things.”
Yet, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction; or at least, so the saying goes. To hang the ‘student left’ out to dry would not only be unfair, but underhand, too. The rise of the ‘safe space’ has been matched, if not in scale, then in character and scope, by contiguous ‘right-wing spaces.’ Of course, I am referring to the likes of Open Oxford, and what it has, as of late, devolved into – a suitable counterpoint to the excesses of ‘the Stepford Student.’ O’Neill expresses a worry that those who are against safe spaces, “which is a very reasonable position to hold, are effectively creating their own safe spaces where you can be as knowingly offensive, as knowingly disgusting and as knowingly misogynistic, as you want.” This is “an infantile response” scoffs O’Neill, “it brings to mind Frankie Boyle, and those ridiculous, offensive, unfunny jokes of his.” But it all comes back to the same motif: the need to try and “wriggle free of the politically correct straitjacket of modern times.”
Unfortunately, there are now “two firmly entrenched camps; one which says we don’t like offensive material and we’re going to ban it, and the other which says, ‘because you’re banning offensive material, we are going to be as offensive as possible just for the hell of it.’ And, it’s just completely vacuous and empty and nonsensical.” That is the negative side to all of this.
As a solution to the problem, O’Neill argues, “the whole of university just needs to be an open, free arena, where anything can be said and anything can be discussed. Creating special zones in which things can be debated is divisive and actually reproduces the idea that there are some ideas that are so dangerous that they need, and must, be kept in their own little space.” Newly founded organisations then, like the ‘LSE Speakeasy’ – a clever play on words of Prohibition-era liquor stores – has the right idea, but the wrong end of the stick in practice.
To the point of discrimination and inequality, again O’Neill proposes a clear and simple programme: free speech. No censorship. No privileging of voices. No advocacy work. Only individuals, treated equally. Let those who wish to speak, speak. And for those who do not speak, that is their decision – one cannot, and should not, assume their voices. “There should just be an open sphere… there’s nothing stopping you from speaking, that’s the whole idea of free speech.”
There exists “this horribly paternalistic approach of putting a soapbox in front of ‘the poor little people’ and helping them stand on it and speak to the world,” adds O’Neill. “I mean, get over yourselves. I think it’s a horrible argument. The aim for radical politics in the past was for those sorts of people – particularly women and working-class people – to force their own way into public life; that’s what Second Wave Feminism was about in the 60s and 70s. It was about saying, ‘Actually! Women are perfectly capable of negotiating independent, public lives without needing chaperons or without needing police guarding them from wolf whistles and everything else, so we’re going to do it.’” Now, what we have instead contends O’Neill, is “a complete flip-reversal…a new type of radical feminist, who say that women aren’t really cut out for public life because it’s scary and society is full of lads who listen to Robin Thicke and want to touch your ass.”
The final part of our interview dealt with Rhodes Must Fall. When asked about what progress has or has not been made with a view to BME movements, O’Neill brushed off this terminology – “Aw man, I hate the term BME.” It’s too contrived, too unnatural – and actually inverts the original intent. O’Neill coins it “an inhumane turn of phrase to describe someone.” Rather, “the people that are doing the most damage to black students” are of that aforementioned ‘altruistic’ variety – the white middle-class, well-to-do and educated, who “infantilise” black students, ascribing to them “a lesser form of moral agency than white students.” With specific regard to Rhodes Must Fall, O’Neill commented on how “they are essentially saying that [black students] are psychically vulnerable that they cannot walk past a statue without feeling harmed by it.”
Such activities sooner hinder the cause of anti-racism, than help it, urges O’Neill. These activists are the ones promoting racial division, by “arguing that because of their culture or their heritage, [black students] are less prepared for robust public debate than others. I find that a repulsive idea, and the problem that I have with Rhodes Must Fall is not that I think Cecil Rhodes was a great guy; of course he wasn’t – it’s because it is so paternalistic to minority students, and it gives this impression that they are simply objects shaped by the forces of history, harmed by statues, whose everyday lives are impacted upon by historical events. It’s all very deterministic. And, in the past, old racists argued that black people were weak or stupid or fickle on the basis of their biological heritage.
“I don’t think it’s much of a step forward from that for campus activists to say that black students are fickle and weak and easily harmed, on the basis of their cultural heritage,” points out O’Neill. “It’s the same argument, it’s just been given a bit more spit and polish to make it politically correct to a contemporary audience.”
Hypothesising, putting himself “in the position of a black student” O’Neill decries “so-called anti-racist activists who are basically patronising, paternalistic white kids who’ve read too much Noam Chomsky and should be given a slap.”
