Live Academic Discussion: "How Free is Speech?" With Dr. Stephen Law & Hamza Andreas Tzortzis (2021-03-30) #

0:00:09 brothers and sisters and friends and
0:00:11 welcome to today's
0:00:13 live stream a civil discussion a
0:00:15 philosophical discussion
0:00:17 may be a theo philosophical discussion
0:00:20 on the topic
0:00:21 of freedom of speech and
0:00:25 i don't hopefully need to introduce
0:00:26 myself my name is hamza zouzis
0:00:29 and i'm a research student at the
0:00:30 university of london studying
0:00:32 philosophy and we have with us a
0:00:36 respected think and respected guest dr
0:00:38 stephen law i'm going to briefly
0:00:40 introduce him but i want him to tell us
0:00:42 his story because it's quite
0:00:44 inspirational i think especially from an
0:00:45 academic point of view
0:00:47 so dr stephen he's formerly reader in
0:00:49 philosophy at heathrow
0:00:50 college university of london he's
0:00:52 published various books and philosophy
0:00:54 and has a new course on critical
0:00:57 thinking at
0:00:58 udemy and he has an interesting story he
0:01:01 was once a postman
0:01:03 now he's a philosopher called postman in
0:01:05 a way that not only does he deliver the
0:01:06 philosophical message but he writes the
0:01:08 letters himself
0:01:09 so i'm not going to get into it too much
0:01:11 let stephen introduce himself to the
0:01:13 audience take your time stephen
0:01:15 hi well thank you for that very uh kind
0:01:18 introduction
0:01:19 um so yeah so um you're right i used to
0:01:22 be a postman
0:01:24 a long time ago it was a placement for
0:01:26 about four years actually
0:01:28 uh in cambridge and um
0:01:31 the reason i became a postman was
0:01:33 because
0:01:34 um i wasn't sure what to do with my life
0:01:37 i'd had a couple of attempts at doing
0:01:39 a levels and first time i was asked to
0:01:42 leave
0:01:43 and the second time i just gave up
0:01:45 because it was i just found it so
0:01:48 pointless really um and so i ended up
0:01:52 doing various manual jobs i was a manual
0:01:54 laborer on the
0:01:56 m11 when that was built um and then i
0:01:58 became a postman for about four years
0:02:01 and then eventually um i discovered
0:02:04 philosophy i
0:02:05 would read a lot one book would lead to
0:02:07 another
0:02:08 and eventually i found i was reading
0:02:10 nothing but philosophy books and then i
0:02:12 realized
0:02:13 that actually this was what i was really
0:02:15 passionate about
0:02:16 and i applied to get into university to
0:02:19 study philosophy
0:02:20 once i realized you could do that um
0:02:24 and by some miracle i still don't really
0:02:26 understand how i did it but i
0:02:27 managed to convince the city university
0:02:31 in london to take me on um as an
0:02:34 undergraduate
0:02:36 without the a levels yeah without even
0:02:39 an access course or anything i was
0:02:41 very fortunate um and
0:02:44 uh so i did really well so i got a first
0:02:46 and then i went to oxford to do the b
0:02:48 fill which is what everyone does if they
0:02:51 want to teach
0:02:52 almost everyone um and then i did my
0:02:54 doctorate there
0:02:56 and i was a research fellow for three
0:02:58 years at queen's college
0:03:00 oxford um then i got a job
0:03:04 in the university of london this college
0:03:06 called heathrop which was closed down
0:03:08 recently
0:03:09 um and i took early retirement but i
0:03:11 spent most of my career there
0:03:12 and now actually heathrow is a strange
0:03:14 place because it was a
0:03:16 it was founded by the jesuits you know
0:03:18 the catholics
0:03:19 the intellectual branch of the catholics
0:03:22 uh
0:03:22 and it was founded in belgium and then
0:03:24 it moved around
0:03:26 a lot and at one time it was located in
0:03:29 a village called heathrop
0:03:30 in oxfordshire which is where i got the
0:03:32 name and then it ended up in about 1975
0:03:35 as part of the university of london
0:03:37 which point it was the newest member of
0:03:39 the
0:03:40 university of london but the oldest
0:03:41 college funnily enough
0:03:43 in the university of london and then you
0:03:46 know i was very
0:03:47 happy there and i i enjoyed working with
0:03:49 jesuits it was a very liberal
0:03:51 tolerant place um
0:03:54 i my philosophical interests tend to be
0:03:57 in things like
0:03:58 philosophy of mind metaphysics
0:04:00 especially um wittgenstein
0:04:02 i'm really keen on the later philosophy
0:04:04 of wittgenstein
0:04:05 um a chat called [ __ ] key um
0:04:09 but then i've also become more
0:04:10 interested maybe it was the jesuits
0:04:13 maybe the influence rubbed off but i
0:04:15 ended up becoming more interested in
0:04:17 religion philosophy of religion i'm not
0:04:20 a religious person i'm i'm an atheist
0:04:22 probably admit that up front i'm an
0:04:24 atheist
0:04:25 um but not always i i think early on i
0:04:28 was quite
0:04:30 religiously inclined my father was going
0:04:33 to be a religious minister
0:04:34 there's a recording of me about age two
0:04:37 singing onward christian soldiers
0:04:39 apparently
0:04:41 um but uh and then although i wasn't
0:04:44 really a
0:04:45 very religious i was kind of drawn to
0:04:47 new agey hippy-dippy stuff for a while
0:04:49 in my early 20s
0:04:51 um but as i became exposed to more and
0:04:54 more western philosophy that kind of
0:04:56 drifted away
0:04:58 to be honest i'm much more skeptical
0:05:00 about that stuff
0:05:02 now um but i became interested in
0:05:05 religion for all sorts of reasons
0:05:07 and i've so i've published various
0:05:08 papers in philosophy of religion
0:05:10 some of which created a bit of a stir um
0:05:15 and i probably best known for having
0:05:18 just published lots of
0:05:20 introductory books so there's a book for
0:05:22 children called
0:05:23 the complete philosophy files which i
0:05:25 still like very much
0:05:27 there's a book for adults called the
0:05:28 philosophy gym 25 short adventures in
0:05:31 thinking
0:05:32 so and then i wrote a book on humanism
0:05:34 for oxford university press
0:05:36 and lots of other books too so uh that's
0:05:39 probably why i'm
0:05:40 what i'm best known for
0:05:44 sorry that was quite a long no it was
0:05:46 good
0:05:48 you are our guest so you're here to
0:05:50 introduce yourself absolutely that's
0:05:52 fantastic so is a recording of you
0:05:55 singing a hymn you said when you were
0:05:57 two yes
0:05:59 oh so there's some hope even right
0:06:01 there's some hope
0:06:11 you're slightly cutting up i think
0:06:12 because of the internet but you know
0:06:14 we'll tolerate the lag it happens to all
0:06:16 live streams so don't worry if i haven't
0:06:17 heard you i'm just going to ask you just
0:06:18 to repeat yourself
0:06:19 if there's any internet issues okay so
0:06:23 let's get straight into the kind of
0:06:24 conversation i want you to imagine for
0:06:26 example
0:06:27 you know i come from a greek background
0:06:29 and imagine we're on the island of samos
0:06:31 and on the island of summers right next
0:06:33 to the beach there's a coffee shop and
0:06:35 there's usually old men there drinking
0:06:36 greek coffee
0:06:38 and they usually have discussions and
0:06:40 they're open and they're authentic
0:06:41 and they're hopefully committed to each
0:06:44 other's well-being
0:06:45 but sometimes they can get a bit
0:06:47 controversial sometimes they could
0:06:48 basically get a bit loud but then they
0:06:50 hug and kiss
0:06:51 at the end so that's the kind of dynamic
0:06:53 today just imagine it's a greek coffee
0:06:55 shop
0:06:55 and we've been around for a while we're
0:06:57 having this conversation just for
0:06:59 the audience to know me and dr stephen
0:07:01 we had discussions at the mofford
0:07:02 university in kinston i believe as well
0:07:05 and there were very fruitful discussions
0:07:07 actual fact one of those discussions
0:07:08 were quite
0:07:09 important for me in terms of to continue
0:07:12 my kind of intellectual journey
0:07:13 concerning science and religion so
0:07:15 in a way i have to be thankful because
0:07:17 you're thankful for those experiences
0:07:18 because they only
0:07:19 help you grow so freedom of speech
0:07:23 this is like a hot potato there's a lot
0:07:26 of controversy at the moment obviously
0:07:28 with the badly case
0:07:29 i don't know the specific details but
0:07:31 that hopefully has become a motivation
0:07:33 to have
0:07:34 such discourse and also you had charlie
0:07:37 hebdo and you have other things
0:07:38 concerning religion
0:07:40 and the freedom of speech issue always
0:07:42 comes up
0:07:43 well what would be your summary so
0:07:46 then we could start having a
0:07:47 conversation will be a summary on the
0:07:49 issue of freedom of speech
0:07:51 okay well look before we do that am i
0:07:54 coming across okay at the moment
0:07:57 yes okay because i could go and turn on
0:08:00 another router which might
0:08:01 improve the communication it would take
0:08:04 me like 30 seconds
0:08:06 yeah go for it go for it just give me 30
0:08:08 seconds i'll try
0:08:09 no problem
0:08:18 so for those who are just coming on
0:08:19 board just to let you know that dr
0:08:21 stephen has gone to turn another router
0:08:23 in order to make the kind of online
0:08:26 experience
0:08:27 far more better for every single one of
0:08:29 you
0:08:33 [Music]
0:08:36 right well let's hope that improves
0:08:40 the the communication a little bit so
0:08:42 you want to talk sort of generally about
0:08:44 freedom of speech so
0:08:46 um so obviously i'm a fan i mean i think
0:08:49 most of us are really
0:08:50 broadly speaking um
0:08:54 i'm um
0:08:59 i think of myself as fairly liberal um
0:09:02 what i am in particular though which i
0:09:05 think is probably going to be most
0:09:06 relevant here
0:09:08 is i'm a political secularist
0:09:12 so that means
0:09:15 that um i like the state
0:09:19 to be neutral with respect to
0:09:23 religious beliefs so it neither promotes
0:09:27 religion
0:09:28 nor does it promote atheism it should
0:09:30 simply
0:09:32 come out of that particular debate and
0:09:36 it shouldn't privilege relieve religious
0:09:38 voices
0:09:39 but neither should it privily privilege
0:09:41 atheists critics of religion
0:09:43 say um so
0:09:47 um a state in which you have
0:09:50 a theocracy say is obviously not a
0:09:52 political
0:09:53 politically secular state because one
0:09:56 religion is
0:09:56 privileged and its voice has authority
0:10:00 uh in in a way that would be
0:10:02 unacceptable to me as a political
0:10:04 secularist
0:10:04 but similarly um i would disapprove of a
0:10:07 kind of
0:10:08 or totalitarian authoritarian
0:10:11 atheist state you know stalin's
0:10:16 soviet republic for example clamping
0:10:18 down on religious beliefs
0:10:19 stuffing socks into the mouths of
0:10:21 religious people um
0:10:23 i'm very much against that too um
0:10:26 i think the state should be neutral and
0:10:29 i also think that the state should
0:10:30 protect the freedom of religious and
0:10:33 non-religious people to
0:10:35 do what they want to do so long as
0:10:36 they're not causing other people
0:10:38 harm and in particular express their
0:10:41 views so i think religious people should
0:10:43 be free to express their religious
0:10:44 points of view um everywhere in every
0:10:48 context i i
0:10:49 i would not support gagging religious
0:10:52 people
0:10:54 but similarly i think non-religious
0:10:56 people
0:10:57 should be had their speech protected too
0:10:59 and they should be able to criticize
0:11:00 religion
0:11:01 mock religion even um in much the same
0:11:05 way
0:11:05 as um well so i think that
0:11:10 although i understand that people have
0:11:12 strong feelings about religion
0:11:14 and i would never go out of my way to
0:11:16 cause offence to a religious person just
0:11:18 for the sake of it
0:11:19 uh you know you know that would be an
0:11:21 awful thing to do
0:11:23 um i i would insist on the right to
0:11:27 criticize religion and even mock
0:11:30 religion
0:11:31 uh in much the same way as i would
0:11:33 defend the right to
0:11:35 criticize and mock non-religious beliefs
0:11:38 um atheists believes political beliefs
0:11:40 for example
0:11:42 um i don't think that political beliefs
0:11:45 that are non-religious
0:11:46 are deserve any kind of special respect
0:11:49 or protection
0:11:50 or privilege i think it's perfectly okay
0:11:53 to
0:11:54 mock um political leaders
0:11:57 you see cartoons published in newspapers
0:11:59 which
0:12:00 caricature religious people leaders
0:12:04 and political beliefs and because
0:12:07 i think that's acceptable and because
0:12:09 i'm a political secularist i think
0:12:12 that the same is true of religious
0:12:14 beliefs too they shouldn't get any
0:12:15 special protection
0:12:17 they shouldn't get any special
0:12:18 privileges they should be
0:12:20 treated on par with other kinds of
0:12:22 belief um
0:12:24 so this is not an i'm this is not this
0:12:26 view isn't
0:12:27 is not exclusively atheist there are
0:12:29 lots of religious people who are
0:12:30 political secularists
0:12:32 and the reason that they're political
0:12:33 secularists is often because they see
0:12:35 that a politically secular society
0:12:37 protects them
0:12:39 protects their freedom to express their
0:12:40 religious beliefs
0:12:42 um ensures that you know that their
0:12:45 their opponents be their religious
0:12:47 opponents or non-religious opponents
0:12:49 that they they will be kept at bay by
0:12:51 the state um
0:12:52 they will be protected their rights will
0:12:54 be protected by a politically secular
0:12:56 system um so yeah you find a lot of
0:13:00 um a lot of religious people are
0:13:02 political secularists
0:13:04 i'm sure there are plenty of muslims
0:13:06 that the political secularists are for
0:13:08 example biblicals not all
0:13:10 and in fact there are there are
0:13:11 christians and jews and so on who
0:13:13 are who are less inclined towards
0:13:15 political secularism so this is an issue
0:13:17 that cuts across
0:13:18 the religious atheist divide you find
0:13:21 supporters and
0:13:22 critics on both sides um so there you go
0:13:25 that's
0:13:26 that's that's probably gives you a sense
0:13:28 of where i'm going to be coming from
0:13:30 when it comes to this particular issue
0:13:34 okay good my take on this
0:13:37 is it's impossible to say that there's
0:13:41 absolute freedom of speech now i don't
0:13:44 think what really applies in the uk
0:13:45 context but there are some
0:13:46 american ideologies if you like the very
0:13:48 absolutist about freedom of speech
0:13:50 meaning
0:13:51 no restriction whatsoever and
0:13:55 they usually cite the kind of slippery
0:13:56 slope argument they want any
0:13:58 restrictions there's a slippery slope
0:14:00 into tyranny but obviously the ball
0:14:02 swings both ways philosophically because
0:14:04 if you don't have any restrictions at
0:14:06 all it could be anarchy right
0:14:07 so as the academic david van mill talks
0:14:10 about this
0:14:11 and therefore and what and i'm citing
0:14:13 david van mille here
0:14:14 he makes a very interesting point he
0:14:16 says this is not absolute freedom of
0:14:18 speech
0:14:19 it is therefore restricted in some cases
0:14:23 because of values
0:14:26 so the discussion we should be having i
0:14:29 think
0:14:30 is well what are these values because
0:14:32 you've made an interesting point about
0:14:34 protecting the rights of religious and
0:14:35 non-religious people in terms of
0:14:37 expression and you've mentioned about
0:14:40 mockery and that
0:14:41 is something that i would disagree with
0:14:43 i would basically say that
0:14:45 that is slightly problematic because
0:14:48 when we look at freedom of speech
0:14:50 freedom of speech is not intrinsically
0:14:52 valuable
0:14:53 it's instrumental so for example it's
0:14:56 a means to some ends such as truth
0:15:00 accountability scientific progress you
0:15:02 know john stuart mill also talked about
0:15:04 human flourishing and so on and so forth
0:15:07 so i don't think that
0:15:07 there is nothing necessary about for
0:15:10 example gratuitous insult
0:15:12 yeah because there's a difference
0:15:13 between gratuitous insult
0:15:15 and just you know coming across
0:15:17 offensive
0:15:18 so if you intend to gratuitously insult
0:15:22 that's not that doesn't necessarily lead
0:15:24 to the objectives of freedom of speech i
0:15:25 wouldn't argue
0:15:27 dr stephen i want you i want your take
0:15:28 on this if we had a society where
0:15:31 everyone mocked in a gratuitous way
0:15:34 wouldn't that be contrary to the very
0:15:36 objections of freedom of speech because
0:15:37 people be now afraid to
0:15:40 articulate themselves and promote the
0:15:43 version of the truth if you like
0:15:45 and what would be very important in this
0:15:46 context is
0:15:48 it would undermine truth which is an
0:15:50 objective of freedom of speech surely
0:15:52 and what's significant here is if we
0:15:56 look at human nature what we mean by
0:15:57 human nature
0:15:58 is how humans are not how we like them
0:16:00 to be humans want
0:16:02 dignity so if a particular religious be
0:16:05 belief for example
0:16:06 or even an ideological belief even a
0:16:08 secular ideological belief for example
0:16:10 has formed the essence of someone's
0:16:12 identity
0:16:13 and they relate to that those ideas as
0:16:16 part of the kind of purpose of life
0:16:19 surely in order to fulfill some of the
0:16:21 objectives of freedom of speech
0:16:23 we need to at least not to have an
0:16:26 intention
0:16:27 to gratuitously insult that would be my
0:16:30 take so on this issue and then we could
0:16:33 unpack further issues later
0:16:34 what do you what do you think about that
0:16:37 yeah no that's very interesting so
0:16:39 um personally i don't favor just
0:16:42 gratuitously
0:16:44 insulting or offending people um
0:16:48 but we need to separate out a few issues
0:16:50 maybe so there's a legal issue
0:16:52 should it be banned should it be illegal
0:16:55 to mock certain religious beliefs for
0:16:59 example
0:17:00 um should we have a law of blasphemy um
0:17:04 i don't know what you think about that
0:17:06 um would you favor that
0:17:09 i would favor well in the law at the
0:17:11 moment in the uk
0:17:13 basically has already legal restrictions
0:17:16 on offense
0:17:17 right and they even discussed for
0:17:20 example was it
0:17:21 an intent to offend was it gratuitous
0:17:25 and so on and so forth so british law
0:17:27 and law in europe and other places
0:17:29 already stipulates these laws not only
0:17:32 on religious
0:17:33 uh minorities by the way but also
0:17:35 non-religious minorities for example you
0:17:37 have this with the lgbtq and others
0:17:38 right
0:17:39 so from this perspective you know
0:17:41 everyone has their sacred cow
0:17:43 right everyone has you know something
0:17:46 sacred
0:17:46 even in a secular sense and what's very
0:17:49 important here is that what
0:17:51 has been discussed in law is actually
0:17:53 dignity it's not necessarily contingent
0:17:55 on a religious belief
0:17:56 it's about are you dignifying the
0:17:58 individual right
0:18:00 and this is very important so let's talk
0:18:03 so because i was i was asking you about
0:18:05 blasphemy which is
0:18:06 yeah i'm going to address that well so
0:18:09 we need to separate out blasphemy which
0:18:10 is attacking
0:18:12 you know religious beliefs or images or
0:18:14 whatever and on the other hand
0:18:16 um attacking particular communities
0:18:20 people ridiculing them suggesting that
0:18:23 they are less than human or something
0:18:25 like that
0:18:25 uh these are completely different things
0:18:28 so it's very
0:18:29 we want to be very careful that we don't
0:18:31 muddle them up because i am certainly in
0:18:33 favor of laws that prevent
0:18:34 people from inciting hatred against
0:18:36 minorities
0:18:38 but that's not a blasphemy law a
0:18:40 blasphemy law
0:18:41 is a law that prevents you from
0:18:44 blaspheming from saying something for
0:18:46 example
0:18:47 that religious people uh think should be
0:18:50 prohibited and the state says
0:18:51 steps in and prohibits it so that if you
0:18:54 say it
0:18:55 or if you show the image then you go to
0:18:57 jail or you're prosecuted or whatever
0:18:59 so it's it's it's uh so let's not get
0:19:01 into the protecting community
0:19:03 i'm all in favor of laws that protect
0:19:05 communities from being abused and
0:19:07 smeared and
0:19:08 hatred incited against them but i'm
0:19:10 asking you about whether there should be
0:19:12 a blasphemy law a law
0:19:14 that protects religious beliefs and
0:19:16 images
0:19:17 or whatever good good questions just
0:19:20 very quickly about
0:19:22 it's it's there isn't a clear
0:19:24 distinction between
0:19:26 ideas and people in many cases
0:19:28 especially when it comes to people's
0:19:29 beliefs that forms the identity
0:19:31 this is very crucial right uh and i'm
0:19:34 gonna answer
0:19:35 blasphemy's thing i'm not yeah i'm not
0:19:37 sidetracking yeah
0:19:38 but it's very important to unpack that
0:19:40 for example there was a recent study
0:19:43 it was a scientific study and they came
0:19:45 to the conclusion
0:19:46 that that study basically says that
0:19:49 homosexuality for example or sexual
0:19:51 preference
0:19:52 is not dictated by you know directly
0:19:55 dictated by genetics right that's a
0:19:57 scientific study
0:19:58 um and what they did is
0:20:01 they adopted what what what i'm talking
0:20:04 about today they basically
0:20:06 had a scientific communicator they went
0:20:09 to the lgbtqia
0:20:11 plus advocacy groups they discussed with
0:20:14 them they said we have this paper
0:20:16 um our conclusion is we've done this
0:20:18 study that there is no direct
0:20:20 kind of uh link between genetics
0:20:23 and sexual preference and basically we
0:20:26 want to basically be sensitive
0:20:28 to to this and we want to communicate in
0:20:30 a way in order for it to be conducive to
0:20:34 what they consider to be
0:20:37 a representation of reality right
0:20:39 because they believe this this theory or
0:20:41 this study
0:20:41 is as closer to the actual state of
0:20:43 affairs as possible
0:20:45 so even in cases like this well
0:20:48 that idea especially in the uk if you
0:20:50 were to say something like that that
0:20:52 could be seen as homophobic and
0:20:53 therefore illegal
0:20:54 but in the case of uh the the the
0:20:57 scientists here what they did was is
0:20:59 they were sensitive to that and they
0:21:01 and they understood that there's not a
0:21:02 very clear distinction sometimes
0:21:04 between someone's identity and their
0:21:07 beliefs
0:21:07 and sometimes you know how they relate
0:21:09 to themselves their state of being
0:21:11 and the ideas that they have so i don't
0:21:13 think it's as simple as that but
0:21:14 concerning the blasphemy law it's very
0:21:15 simple
0:21:17 the islamic paradigm we have some
0:21:18 certain ontological commitments right we
0:21:21 believe not only as faith but we think
0:21:23 we have good reasons to believe i know
0:21:25 you've engaged with many philosophers on
0:21:26 this issue before
0:21:27 that god exists he's worthy of worship
0:21:29 and there is a final prophet the prophet
0:21:31 muhammad upon whom he peace
0:21:33 and what does that say that becomes a
0:21:34 kind of basis for our
0:21:36 uh meta ethics and our ethical theory
0:21:39 like we're divine command theories from
0:21:41 that perspective what the divine
0:21:43 inductive
0:21:44 instructive says is that you cannot
0:21:47 gratuitously insult and intend to insult
0:21:50 god and all of his prophet not only that
0:21:53 god himself says you can't
0:21:55 condemn or insult anyone else's idol and
0:21:59 the kind of exegesis behind this this
0:22:00 could be a secular idol for example i'm
0:22:02 not going to go to america and start
0:22:03 burning the american flag
0:22:05 so there is a kind of ethic here that is
0:22:08 not only specific
0:22:09 to god and his messengers but
0:22:13 any type of idol even in a secular sense
0:22:16 i think that makes us far more
0:22:17 consistent right because the kind of
0:22:20 as we said freedom of speech is
0:22:21 restricted to values from the islamic
0:22:23 values point of view
0:22:24 we say that you can't intend to offend
0:22:26 anyone you shouldn't
0:22:27 right and we can unpack that later and
0:22:29 have conducive to the objectives of
0:22:31 freedom of speech
0:22:32 so the kind of blasphemy laws from that
0:22:34 perspective obviously
0:22:35 they're not applied properly i know
0:22:37 there's no transparency and due process
0:22:39 in many countries but that's a different
0:22:40 political discussion we're having an
0:22:42 abstract discussion here
0:22:43 i would say is that if you think about
0:22:46 it conceptually
0:22:47 whether you believe it or not is a
0:22:48 different story but conceptually just
0:22:50 stand in the
0:22:51 position standing the possibility that
0:22:52 these things are true
0:22:54 then insulting god and his messengers is
0:22:57 one of the greatest forms of gratuitous
0:23:00 insult you can ever make because they
0:23:01 are the they are the
0:23:02 intellectual basis for your rights now i
0:23:04 know you disagree with that for sure
0:23:06 but i want you to stand in the
0:23:07 possibility so you understand it
0:23:09 intellectually empathize so it's not as
0:23:11 simple as
0:23:12 and you remember this this doesn't mean
0:23:14 you can't have intellectual debate and
0:23:16 dialogue right because
0:23:17 as you know you've probably studied a
0:23:19 bit of the islamic history
0:23:20 medieval baghdad for example when
0:23:22 atheists were getting burnt
0:23:24 in in in europe they were saying and at
0:23:27 the intellectual table we have this
0:23:28 concept of the dhaka
0:23:30 which are like the philosophical
0:23:32 naturalists of the time
0:23:33 there was nuanced debate and discussion
0:23:35 but it was with the intellectual tone
0:23:37 and there was no intent to gratuity
0:23:40 insult
0:23:41 so that would be my answer from that
0:23:43 perspective
0:23:45 well so my question was um do you
0:23:47 support blasphemy laws which make it
0:23:49 illegal
0:23:50 to um
0:23:53 mock or insult certain religious beliefs
0:23:55 and figures and i guess your answer is
0:23:57 yes
0:23:57 yes absolutely based on what you said
0:24:00 yeah absolutely yeah yeah okay
0:24:02 and all and i i don't
0:24:05 um so okay
0:24:08 so do you think that ideally then the
0:24:11 teacher at the batley grammar school
0:24:12 then he should
0:24:13 he should actually be prosecuted and
0:24:16 perhaps into jail for
0:24:18 for doing what he did he would support
0:24:20 that well
0:24:21 lord he would support the introduction
0:24:23 of a law that would see him
0:24:24 his behavior criminalized and no because
0:24:27 i i don't know the case properly there's
0:24:29 different
0:24:29 conflicting scenarios i haven't studied
0:24:31 okay so even
0:24:33 it would be ridiculous right although i
0:24:36 think
0:24:36 if what is being is true he probably
0:24:39 violated the teacher's code of conduct
0:24:41 because the tea because my sister is a
0:24:43 teacher she's she's a senior manager
0:24:46 and she's not muslim yeah just to put
0:24:48 that in there
0:24:49 because you have to be sensitive when it
0:24:52 comes to people's ideas and identity
0:24:53 because there's not a direct distinction
0:24:55 especially at that age
0:24:57 so you have to find it from a
0:24:58 perspective of
0:25:00 we're living in a time where muslim
0:25:01 minorities
0:25:03 especially in europe maybe not more so
0:25:05 this country maybe more so in france
0:25:07 right
0:25:08 but yes in this country too it's a
0:25:10 denigrated minority certain degree if
0:25:12 you look at the kind of academic
0:25:13 research on the media
0:25:14 you know it's it's denigrated and
0:25:17 downtrodden from that perspective
0:25:19 now in that context if you
0:25:22 show symbols of you know for example the
0:25:25 prophet muhammad
0:25:27 that is the basis for the identity and
0:25:29 for the state of being and for their
0:25:31 morals and so on and so forth and
0:25:32 you have islamophobic tropes for example
0:25:35 even if it's in the context of blasphemy
0:25:38 what that can do
0:25:39 that couldn't be damaging from an
0:25:41 edification point of view from a
0:25:42 teacher's point of view
0:25:44 what i would say is there could have
0:25:45 been so many other ways that you could
0:25:47 have used examples
0:25:49 in a teacher setting in order to make
0:25:52 your point but without basically
0:25:54 you know creating the kind of who has
0:25:57 been created notwithstanding
0:25:58 need to put a context i don't know the
0:26:00 full case yeah i don't know
0:26:02 i don't know i don't know if it was
0:26:04 intent i don't know what was going on
0:26:06 and to be honest
0:26:07 i try not to see the media anymore
0:26:09 because you know and that's another
0:26:11 thing about freedom was boots right we
0:26:12 live in a post-truth culture
0:26:14 freedom of speech in this way you're
0:26:16 allowed to mock everybody
0:26:18 it's devalued politics it's the value
0:26:20 truth itself people don't believe in
0:26:21 truth anymore don't believe hang on
0:26:24 hang on all right let's not get carried
0:26:26 away okay
0:26:28 i mean to allow so you've said things
0:26:31 that suggest
0:26:32 that you think that allowing people to
0:26:34 mock beliefs
0:26:36 somehow um
0:26:39 means that what he seemed to think it
0:26:42 was a it was
0:26:42 it was potentially a threat to free
0:26:44 speech because people won't
0:26:46 express their views anymore they'll be
0:26:48 afraid to express their views
0:26:49 so we won't get to the truth this this
0:26:51 is simply not true
0:26:53 um to allow mockery and a bit of
0:26:56 ridicule and satire and so on
0:26:58 is does not stop those whose beliefs are
0:27:02 being satirized
0:27:03 from defending their beliefs and arguing
0:27:05 for their beliefs not at all
0:27:07 and in fact sometimes a little bit of
0:27:09 mockery
0:27:11 actually opens up the possibility of our
0:27:15 seeing something
0:27:17 that we had missed and so a famous
0:27:20 example the famous illustration
0:27:23 which i'm sure you're familiar with is
0:27:25 uh the emperor's new clothes the hans
0:27:27 christian
0:27:28 anderson story where the the king
0:27:32 is duped by a couple of tailors who tell
0:27:35 him
0:27:36 that they can weave clothes that are so
0:27:39 fine
0:27:40 that um anyone without the sufficient
0:27:43 sensitivity
0:27:44 uh won't be able to see them and
0:27:47 if you're wearing these clothes you will
0:27:49 appear naked um
0:27:51 and so they make him an outfit or so
0:27:54 they say
0:27:55 and he can't see it um but rather than
0:27:58 admit
0:27:58 his lack of sensitivity and
0:28:00 sophistication he pretends to put the
0:28:02 clothes on and parades around
0:28:05 naked and um
0:28:08 and then he invites people in to admire
0:28:10 his new
0:28:11 outfit and of course no one wants to
0:28:13 admit that they're not
0:28:15 they're not sensitive enough to to to
0:28:17 appreciate the outfit so they're all
0:28:19 admiring it too and telling him how
0:28:20 great he parades up and down the town
0:28:23 uh in his outfit completely naked with
0:28:26 everyone
0:28:26 applauding the wondrous finery that he's
0:28:29 you know
0:28:30 he's wearing until one small boy points
0:28:33 and laughs and mocks him and at that
0:28:37 point the spell is broken
0:28:38 all right that's what it took a little
0:28:41 bit of mockery a little bit of laughter
0:28:43 to get people to
0:28:45 finally see that they've been a bit
0:28:47 silly that they've been duped sometimes
0:28:49 a little bit of mockery
0:28:50 is extremely useful and it can get us to
0:28:53 take a step back and just pack it in
0:28:56 with all of the deference
0:28:58 and the you know the hand wringing and
0:29:00 the full lock tugging and just take a
0:29:02 step back and think oh hang on a second
0:29:04 maybe
0:29:04 maybe i've got this wrong um and so some
0:29:07 of the some of the greatest
0:29:09 little little insights that have come
0:29:11 from
0:29:12 uh people when it comes to politics and
0:29:15 so on
0:29:15 have been in the form of of satires and
0:29:18 and parodies
0:29:20 um and they've been really useful at
0:29:22 opening people's eyes
0:29:24 in a way that simply would be possible
0:29:26 if you just came at the beliefs
0:29:28 head-on and just treated them as a with
0:29:31 the
0:29:31 respect that they were you know
0:29:34 demanding
0:29:35 so it seems to me that that it's very
0:29:38 often the people
0:29:40 who demand respect
0:29:43 you must respect my beliefs um you must
0:29:46 not mock them
0:29:47 those people are usually the people
0:29:48 whose police need
0:29:50 most need mocking okay people right
0:29:53 but you the most need uh a little bit of
0:29:56 mockery just to open people's eyes to
0:29:58 the possibility that actually
0:29:59 all of this respect and deference and
0:30:01 something might actually be hiding
0:30:02 something that's not true
0:30:04 so it seems to me that mockery has an
0:30:07 important role to play
0:30:09 an important role to play in politics
0:30:10 and if people were to try to prevent me
0:30:13 from mocking
0:30:14 my government and my political opponents
0:30:18 i would consider that outrageous and
0:30:20 most most people would consider that
0:30:21 completely
0:30:22 unacceptable i think well i don't know
0:30:25 what you think about that
0:30:26 but if that is unacceptable then as a
0:30:29 political secularist
0:30:31 i have to say the same about religious
0:30:33 beliefs too
0:30:35 i think it depends what you define as
0:30:37 mockery and what i meant here was
0:30:39 is obviously you can have an
0:30:41 intellectual tone
0:30:42 and come across in a way that is
0:30:44 rhetorical and make your point
0:30:46 but is mockery and gratuitous insult
0:30:50 a necessary in order to achieve the
0:30:52 objectives of
0:30:54 you know getting awakening and creating
0:30:56 awakenings within people and getting
0:30:57 people to see the light kind of thing
0:30:59 no it's not very that's my point so
0:31:02 if it's necessary it's not gratuitous if
0:31:05 it's actually
0:31:06 if it's a youthful tool and often it is
0:31:09 then it's not gratuitous
0:31:11 um so yeah there's a point to it
0:31:14 there was um there is often a point to
0:31:17 satire and mockery and so on
0:31:19 um but even if there isn't it's not
0:31:21 really for me i feel to
0:31:23 to maybe the person thinks that there is
0:31:25 a point i don't want to start
0:31:27 shutting down debate and satire and
0:31:30 parody and so on when it comes to the
0:31:32 political sphere
0:31:34 um i think that would be a very
0:31:36 dangerous precedent
0:31:38 um if you were to say no you cannot make
0:31:40 cartoons of political leaders
0:31:42 and you cannot lampoon political ideas
0:31:46 that's a hallmark of a pretty
0:31:47 authoritarian state
0:31:49 now if we're going to say that about
0:31:51 political beliefs and political figures
0:31:53 then my view is we should say exactly
0:31:55 the same thing about religious people
0:31:57 and religious figures i personally would
0:31:59 disapprove of anyone gratuitously
0:32:01 offending
0:32:02 a muslim you know there's no point to it
0:32:05 but i
0:32:06 but i would protect legally protect the
0:32:08 right of people to
0:32:10 mock religion any religion not just
0:32:12 islam
0:32:13 um and um it seems to me that
0:32:17 so so i guess well to sum up i'm coming
0:32:19 from i'm coming at this really from a
0:32:21 point of
0:32:21 point of view of consistency um i want
0:32:24 to treat all beliefs with
0:32:26 an equal amount of respect i don't want
0:32:28 to afford religious beliefs any
0:32:29 special privileges um what's your view
0:32:33 here do you think that even political
0:32:36 beliefs and political figures should be
0:32:37 prevented from being mocked and
0:32:39 lampooned
0:32:41 yes so i want to be very the islamic
0:32:43 ethical paradigm here
0:32:44 is that you have to consider the dignity
0:32:47 of all people
0:32:48 this is one of what you call the kind of
0:32:50 higher intents of
0:32:52 you know examining ethics now what's
0:32:55 very important here
0:32:56 here is that's why when i mentioned
0:32:57 about the blasphemy case this applied
0:33:00 to other religions and also
0:33:04 the protraction of that is when you
0:33:05 refer to islamic ethics you can't
0:33:07 basically
0:33:09 insult the kind of secular idols as well
0:33:12 so you have to be as
0:33:14 ethical as possible so there's a
0:33:15 consistency here so i would say
0:33:18 but why wait because there's also a lack
0:33:20 of consistency
0:33:21 there's a kind of consistency because
0:33:22 you want to protect all of these beliefs
0:33:24 equally not just your own
0:33:26 but there's also this inconsistency
0:33:29 that you want so you have your religion
0:33:33 uh and it has its requirements as you
0:33:36 understand it i don't think all muslims
0:33:37 agree about
0:33:38 this but let's suppose that they there
0:33:39 was a consensus that you know you
0:33:41 mustn't mock
0:33:42 um religion be it islam or any other
0:33:45 religion
0:33:45 or indeed political figures and and so
0:33:48 on
0:33:48 um that's i forgot where i'm going with
0:33:52 this
0:33:54 but that that's
0:33:58 i've lost my thread
0:34:03 when you remember just just get back you
0:34:05 carry on and it'll carry on
0:34:07 and come to me in a second yeah sure so
0:34:09 with regards to
0:34:10 uh this issue of uh mocking again you
0:34:13 have to define what that means and
0:34:16 we also have to understand that the
0:34:18 default kind of islamic ethical position
0:34:20 is that you always you have to consider
0:34:21 the dignity of people whether the
0:34:22 leaders or not
0:34:23 whether the politicians whether the
0:34:25 religious people whether the
0:34:26 non-religious people
0:34:27 the kind of duty is very important so as
0:34:29 a default position the default position
0:34:31 would be is you
0:34:32 see and you relate to people through
0:34:34 that kind of ethical lens
0:34:36 now what i said earlier about i wasn't
0:34:38 necessarily saying that
0:34:39 you know you can't have some kind of
0:34:41 intellectual lampooning and with an
0:34:42 intellectual tone kind of dismantle
0:34:44 ideas of course not
0:34:46 what i'm saying is imagine everyone was
0:34:48 in a state of mockery
0:34:49 everyone was basically mocking and
0:34:51 insulting
0:34:52 and they were like it was insult to the
0:34:54 degree where there was like a gray area
0:34:56 between insult and gratuitous insult and
0:34:58 all of these things
0:34:59 that would i said in that context that
0:35:02 would prevent
0:35:03 the objectives of um the objectives of
0:35:06 freedom of speech was like truth
0:35:07 accountability and progress and i think
0:35:08 we've seen that in the contemporary
0:35:10 times dr stephen
0:35:11 for example you know kovid deniers
0:35:14 the trump era and you remember when
0:35:17 we're talking about freedom of speech
0:35:19 we're assuming everyone has equal power
0:35:21 not everyone has equal power with
0:35:23 regards to yeah
0:35:25 with regards to like speaking what they
0:35:27 have to what what
0:35:28 what they want to say and express
0:35:29 themselves so that's something that
0:35:31 needs to be considered as well we don't
0:35:32 have it
0:35:33 and one thing i want to bring into light
0:35:35 just and i'll let you continue
0:35:37 is we have to also understand we can't
0:35:40 see
0:35:40 this from and i know you might disagree
0:35:42 with this
0:35:44 a liberal perspective what i mean by
0:35:45 that is if you consider
0:35:47 some philosophers do liberalism to have
0:35:49 a premise which is individualism
0:35:51 we can't see it from the perspective of
0:35:52 individualism i tell you why
0:35:54 because studies have obviously shown in
0:35:57 social psychology
0:35:58 cognitive science and so on and so forth
0:35:59 and just common sense right
0:36:01 is that the human being doesn't is
0:36:03 doesn't live in a vacuum it's not in a
0:36:05 desert island there's this kind of
0:36:06 uh interplay between the individual
0:36:08 society of society and individual
0:36:10 what we say actually really matters and
0:36:12 you know when people say oh
0:36:13 why are you guys so sensitive and all of
0:36:15 this stuff
0:36:16 well in neuroscience neuroscience is
0:36:18 telling us now that the things that you
0:36:20 say can change
0:36:21 your kind of uh you know your
0:36:23 neurochemical patterns can change your
0:36:25 biology right
0:36:26 so what and that's why in the islamic
0:36:28 tradition it takes very seriously what
0:36:30 you say to others and how you say it
0:36:32 i know that's difficult for many because
0:36:34 we've been brought up in a secular
0:36:35 society and liberal society we could say
0:36:36 whatever we want and
0:36:38 mock and insult but now i think it's
0:36:41 time
0:36:42 to start thinking about these things
0:36:43 maybe a little bit more seriously and
0:36:45 thinking you know
0:36:47 just like what david van mill said
0:36:49 freedom of speech is not absolute it's
0:36:50 restricted based on values
0:36:52 what are these values this is important
0:36:54 to discuss and what's the basis for
0:36:56 values no i i agree that you know
0:36:58 freedom of speech is not
0:36:59 um unlimited i mean you you don't really
0:37:03 find
0:37:03 anyone that thinks that you know not
0:37:05 even mill famously
0:37:07 who defends free speech but even he
0:37:09 thinks that there are exceptions
0:37:10 everyone thinks any if any reasonable
0:37:12 person thinks that there are some
0:37:13 exceptions
0:37:14 uh if you go back to if you remember
0:37:16 what i said but at the beginning my
0:37:18 point was about consistency that we
0:37:19 shouldn't treat religious
0:37:21 and non-religious beliefs differently
0:37:23 and it sounds to me like you kind of
0:37:24 agree
0:37:25 actually it's just that you want to
0:37:26 restrict both you want to prevent
0:37:29 mockery on both sides of the equation
0:37:31 whether it whether it's mockery of
0:37:32 religious beliefs or whether it be
0:37:34 mockery of political
0:37:35 um beliefs so in a way you're on board
0:37:37 with my
0:37:38 consistency requirement it's just that
0:37:40 you want to
0:37:42 clamp down on what people are allowed to
0:37:45 say and do when it comes to
0:37:47 certain styles of criticism mockery and
0:37:50 so on
0:37:51 and this is and here's so here's the
0:37:53 point i was going to make when i when i
0:37:55 had my senior moment and what's my
0:37:57 thread
0:37:58 here's my point you're you you're you're
0:38:01 you're
0:38:01 you're saying that you're you're being
0:38:04 fair and even-handed
0:38:06 because you want to protect all beliefs
0:38:09 religious this religion that religion
0:38:11 this political belief that
0:38:13 you want to treat them all equally and
0:38:14 protect them all
0:38:16 ah but there's a sense in which you're
0:38:18 not being even-handed which
0:38:19 uh we're kind of skating over and it's
0:38:21 this it's that your religion
0:38:23 trumps everything else uh including
0:38:27 i'm i don't share your religious beliefs
0:38:30 uh
0:38:30 most people in this country don't show
0:38:32 your religious beliefs and yet you think
0:38:35 that we should have imposed on us
0:38:36 legally constraints on what we're able
0:38:39 to say and do despite the fact that we
0:38:40 don't sign up to
0:38:42 your religion that's an extremely
0:38:45 heavy-handed and authoritarian attitude
0:38:47 it seems to me
0:38:49 most religions don't do that most
0:38:50 religions don't say
0:38:52 okay most people in this country they
0:38:55 they don't they don't sign up to our
0:38:57 religion but nevertheless we insist and
0:38:59 we demand
0:39:00 that your laws restrict everyone's
0:39:02 behavior in accordance with
0:39:04 our religion whatever it might happen to
0:39:06 be that's an extremely demanding
0:39:08 extremely authoritarian
0:39:10 attitude for a religious person to take
0:39:12 and most religious
0:39:14 people are not like that you are um and
0:39:17 that's what i find
0:39:18 that's what that's what i find most
0:39:21 most worrying about your attitude well i
0:39:24 don't know if i've articulated it that
0:39:26 way i don't think i've said that you
0:39:27 have to impose
0:39:29 as a muslim minority the islamic beliefs
0:39:32 on this issue
0:39:33 i wasn't really saying but you know you
0:39:35 asked you're saying you want this
0:39:37 principle of not mocking right you want
0:39:40 it legally imposed you said yeah i'm
0:39:42 signing up to blasphemy i want to
0:39:43 blasphemy law i want laws that prevent
0:39:46 people from mocking islam or
0:39:48 christianity
0:39:49 or political leaders and politicians i
0:39:51 want all of that
0:39:52 imposed in this country but how how
0:39:59 i don't i really don't want that and i
0:40:01 can't and and obviously you're not going
0:40:03 to convince me that this is a good idea
0:40:04 by appealing to your religion because i
0:40:06 don't
0:40:06 sign up to it well i don't feel
0:40:09 i mean i don't feel that i should go to
0:40:13 uh other other places and insist that
0:40:15 they
0:40:16 you know i would make a case for it but
0:40:17 i don't feel that i have some special
0:40:19 authority
0:40:20 by virtue of me being who i am or my
0:40:23 identity or whatever
0:40:24 to go around telling other people how
0:40:26 they need to run their run their regimes
0:40:28 if you don't if you as a muslim don't
0:40:30 want to
0:40:31 um see images of the prophet muhammad
0:40:33 displayed and
0:40:34 you're upset by that i fully understand
0:40:36 that and i
0:40:38 go ahead don't do it um and i certainly
0:40:41 am not going to go out of my way to
0:40:43 gratuitously offend you by displaying
0:40:44 such images
0:40:45 but by what right can you
0:40:49 insist that non-believers
0:40:52 people of other faiths or no faith that
0:40:54 they must obey
0:40:55 your prohibitions well i didn't say they
0:40:59 should do that at all
0:41:00 what i'm saying is that i was taking a
0:41:02 case in order for secular law to be
0:41:04 consistent because it's already in the
0:41:05 law
0:41:06 that's all i was saying the law talks
0:41:08 about often the door talks about
0:41:10 all of these things even when it doesn't
0:41:12 offend to the degree that is gratuitous
0:41:15 so what i'm doing my position was an
0:41:18 ethical position
0:41:19 and yes my ethics have come to happen
0:41:22 happen to come from the divine command
0:41:24 but that's not me saying
0:41:25 everyone has to follow my way i'm just
0:41:27 saying this
0:41:28 is a more consistent way of looking at
0:41:31 the world why
0:41:32 because you don't end up in these
0:41:33 situations because secularism in that
0:41:35 from that context has
0:41:37 kind of failed because in a way what
0:41:40 you're saying
0:41:41 muslims can't impose their ideas on the
0:41:43 masses
0:41:44 well isn't it the case that secularism
0:41:47 when liberalism
0:41:48 imposes itself on the masses look at its
0:41:50 kind of perspective on lgbtq
0:41:53 right you know people can't articulate
0:41:56 and nurse intellectual case about
0:41:58 something without being accused of being
0:42:00 homophobic or whatever the case may be
0:42:02 even though we're committed to the
0:42:03 well-being of all human beings right we
0:42:05 want goodness
0:42:05 and kindness for everybody one would
0:42:07 argue well that's why you have to
0:42:09 see it from the other perspective just
0:42:10 just wear my shoes or wear
0:42:13 another person's shoes and see well the
0:42:15 the door swings both ways on the issue i
0:42:17 could say well on isn't
0:42:18 secularism being authoritative isn't
0:42:20 liberalism being authoritative from that
0:42:22 perspective it's failed minorities it's
0:42:24 claimed to be able to bring everyone
0:42:25 together but when it comes to these
0:42:26 issues it can't even dignify minorities
0:42:29 right
0:42:30 uh from from that perspective what i'm
0:42:31 saying is that islam
0:42:34 is everybody whereas the secular ethic
0:42:37 well it has
0:42:37 you know it's in a bit of a sticky
0:42:38 wicket um
0:42:40 i'm not sure i've followed all of that
0:42:42 so so i said i'm
0:42:44 you know i'm a political secularist so i
0:42:47 think
0:42:47 that um we should treat religious and
0:42:50 non-religious beliefs
0:42:51 equally and we should defend people's
0:42:53 freedoms to express their religious
0:42:54 beliefs
0:42:56 or anti-religious beliefs or you know
0:42:58 whatever it may happen to be
0:43:00 um up to certain limits because everyone
0:43:02 thinks that there are certain limits on
0:43:04 free speech so inciting hatred against
0:43:07 a minority community for example is
0:43:08 obviously completely unacceptable
0:43:11 um and if that's what's going on be it
0:43:13 you know the
0:43:14 uh the gay community or black community
0:43:16 or whatever it might happen to be
0:43:18 i'm fully on board um with protecting
0:43:20 people
0:43:21 um from that kind of hate and then there
0:43:24 is
0:43:24 and there is and that that's in place um
0:43:28 but this is quite different from laws
0:43:31 which
0:43:32 um are designed to prevent um
0:43:35 religious you know margaret thatcher or
0:43:38 the
0:43:39 muhammad or whatever it might happen to
0:43:41 be prevent them
0:43:42 from being mocked and preventing ideas
0:43:45 and beliefs from being
0:43:46 mocked so we constantly want to separate
0:43:49 out these things
0:43:50 i'm all for protecting the muslim
0:43:52 community that certainly has been
0:43:54 abused and vilified and smeared uh in
0:43:57 this country in you know in
0:43:59 very unfairly um i i know that that's
0:44:02 true
0:44:02 i'm not disputing that for a minute but
0:44:04 i at the same time and i would want them
0:44:07 to have legal protections
0:44:09 but at the same time because i'm a
0:44:11 political secularist you know i
0:44:13 i'm i'm unhappy to say the least
0:44:16 i'm unhappy about um introducing any
0:44:19 kind of legislation which would
0:44:22 prevent me from mocking um anyone's
0:44:25 religious belief
0:44:26 in much the same way as i would be very
0:44:27 unhappy about
0:44:29 uh legislation which would prevent me
0:44:30 from mocking political beliefs and i've
0:44:32 explained well and i've explained why it
0:44:34 seems to me that mockery and ridicule
0:44:36 and lamping
0:44:37 um are important and valuable
0:44:41 um tools because of the um you know the
0:44:44 the the the emperor's new clothes
0:44:46 kind of yeah another cases too i mean
0:44:50 you know there's artistic there's
0:44:51 artistic freedom so
0:44:53 sometimes artists like to push the
0:44:55 boundaries
0:44:56 and sometimes they do that in slightly
0:44:58 distasteful ways
0:45:00 um you know there was a famous example i
0:45:02 think of uh there was a
0:45:04 somebody created a crucifix with crying
0:45:07 with christ
0:45:07 on and immersed it in their own urine
0:45:10 and then took a picture of it and called
0:45:11 it piss christ
0:45:13 back in 1987 i think it was um
0:45:16 obviously that was you know it was
0:45:18 pretty offensive
0:45:19 to many christians but um in the same
0:45:23 way you know whenever
0:45:24 david cameron um was portrayed by the
0:45:27 cartoonist
0:45:28 steve bell he had a massive condom
0:45:31 pulled over the top of his head
0:45:32 uh this used to appear in the pages of
0:45:35 the guardian every day
0:45:36 um i i'm you know i
0:45:39 there is a point to allowing that kind
0:45:42 of mockery
0:45:43 and satire there's an artistic reason
0:45:46 for allowing it
0:45:48 it allows us to get a glimpse of the
0:45:50 truth when perhaps we've been
0:45:51 overly duped by too much reverence and
0:45:54 uh you know full lock doffing and so on
0:45:57 um i don't want that restricted you
0:46:00 would have and i think you'll have a
0:46:02 very hard time
0:46:03 persuading anyone in this country that
0:46:06 that kind of freedom of speech should be
0:46:07 restricted and it would
0:46:08 certainly be massively abused
0:46:12 by people in power if you were to
0:46:14 introduce it just look at what this
0:46:15 government is doing
0:46:17 right now in terms of reflecting our
0:46:19 ability to protest
0:46:20 if you even risk annoying somebody now
0:46:24 you can be arrested and locked up
0:46:28 your protest you can be sure that this
0:46:31 government
0:46:32 uh indeed most governments given the
0:46:35 opportunity
0:46:36 uh will seize any tool at their disposal
0:46:39 to shut down opposition to what they
0:46:42 believe and they will certainly use
0:46:44 um any kind of legislation which says
0:46:48 you're not allowed to
0:46:49 mock or satirize um
0:46:52 political and religious beliefs they
0:46:54 will certainly use that to shut
0:46:56 down opposition to to to their beliefs
0:46:58 so
0:47:02 that's a yeah we have to make a
0:47:04 distinction between
0:47:06 how the government will misuse laws
0:47:09 and the kind of ideal application of
0:47:11 laws
0:47:12 just because someone's going to misuse
0:47:14 laws it doesn't mean the laws are wrong
0:47:16 i mean
0:47:17 many past islamic world there's well
0:47:19 called islamic laws but they're
0:47:20 misapplied
0:47:21 misused that doesn't necessarily mean
0:47:23 that the laws are wrong
0:47:25 uh it definitely means that there's
0:47:26 something wrong with those who are
0:47:27 implementing this
0:47:29 if a law is very easily misused
0:47:33 then that's a very good reason for not
0:47:34 introducing it well when it comes to the
0:47:37 issue of speech for example again we
0:47:38 have to define what mocking is so my
0:47:40 discussion was if there is an intent
0:47:44 to gratuitously insult someone if there
0:47:46 is
0:47:48 no no way gratuitously means there's no
0:47:50 point to it but now how are you going to
0:47:51 establish
0:47:52 that you need to look into someone's
0:47:54 mind and this time
0:47:56 you can't establish it
0:47:59 and this happened sorry there's a lag
0:48:03 this happens in law anyway they discuss
0:48:05 intent and intent to offense anyway in
0:48:08 british law so
0:48:09 you know if these legal jurists can do
0:48:11 it i'm sure you know it's not it's not
0:48:13 that difficult so i think that's a
0:48:15 little bit of a red herring
0:48:16 what i would say is the dignity of
0:48:19 people are very important this
0:48:20 this is a kind of uh ethical framework
0:48:23 the dignity of people are very
0:48:24 the dignity of someone is very important
0:48:26 and the examples that you've given
0:48:28 concerning
0:48:29 you know mockery and lampooning
0:48:31 especially the one concerning the
0:48:32 emperor that's like a fictional story
0:48:34 well now when we apply in the real world
0:48:36 remember human nature
0:48:38 humans as they are not as we want them
0:48:40 to be
0:48:41 it gets far more fuzzy and the reason i
0:48:43 said earlier you know if we always have
0:48:45 this kind of narrative of
0:48:46 mocking each other in ways that affect
0:48:48 our dignity
0:48:49 it will be contrary to the objectives of
0:48:51 freedom of speech because
0:48:52 i think what you're trying to do even
0:48:54 which uh doctor is
0:48:56 it's for somehow you're trying to show
0:48:58 that
0:48:59 mockery and lampooning in some cases
0:49:02 like an inherent right or has
0:49:03 some kind of intrinsic value and i think
0:49:06 that's problematic in the discourse
0:49:07 especially from a secular perspective
0:49:09 because you couldn't ground it in
0:49:10 natural rights because that's
0:49:12 uh almost nonsense on stilts as jeremy
0:49:14 bentham said
0:49:15 where's the social utility behind that i
0:49:17 don't know if people are gonna if
0:49:19 if that is necessarily so what about you
0:49:21 demonic
0:49:22 approach to grounding these kind of
0:49:24 values you know
0:49:25 happiness well i don't think people are
0:49:27 happy when they're always mocked right
0:49:29 and especially when there's a misuse of
0:49:30 power
0:49:31 and you remember what you said about
0:49:32 people if the law can be misused
0:49:34 well mockery is also misused a lot it
0:49:36 happened in nazi germany in the
0:49:37 beginning right
0:49:38 it's happening china with the yugas
0:49:40 right so
0:49:42 yeah no no no but again we're slipping
0:49:44 backwards and forwards between
0:49:46 mocking communities and inciting hatred
0:49:50 against communities
0:49:52 on the one hand and mocking
0:49:55 um you know political and religious
0:49:56 leaders and belief systems
0:49:58 on the other these are not the same
0:50:00 thing and you're constantly
0:50:01 having in order to make your case you're
0:50:03 constantly having to
0:50:04 mush them together and although they do
0:50:06 bleed into each other a little bit it's
0:50:08 a great
0:50:09 okay that doesn't mean that we can't
0:50:10 separate out black and white there's
0:50:12 gray
0:50:13 that doesn't mean that black and white
0:50:14 don't exist these are different things
0:50:16 let's not muddle them up let's keep them
0:50:18 separate okay so
0:50:19 i'm all in favor of legislation which
0:50:21 protects minorities from being abused
0:50:23 and vilified and
0:50:24 hate speech against them and so on of
0:50:26 course i am in favor of that
0:50:28 but i'm not in favor of um legislation
0:50:31 which would say
0:50:33 you're not allowed to mock your
0:50:35 political
0:50:36 leaders um i'm i'm not in favor of that
0:50:39 and your argument seems to be that well
0:50:42 but what if everyone did that
0:50:44 all the time i mean what if everyone
0:50:46 mocks everyone all the time that would
0:50:47 be really bad wouldn't it
0:50:49 well yeah but that doesn't mean it's
0:50:51 going to happen i mean
0:50:52 if we're i'm allowed to eat cheesecake
0:50:57 there's no law that says i can't eat
0:50:58 cheesecake but if i ate cheesecake all
0:51:00 the time and we all ate nothing but she
0:51:02 that would be terrible so therefore
0:51:04 there should be a law against eating
0:51:06 cheese
0:51:08 the fact that the fact that if everyone
0:51:10 mocked everyone all the time that would
0:51:12 be really bad therefore
0:51:13 there must be no mockery that's a
0:51:15 terrible argument
0:51:16 okay don't use that one it
0:51:22 and there is a point to allowing mockery
0:51:26 the emperor's new clothes case reveals
0:51:28 gives one nice
0:51:29 illustration of how actually it's very
0:51:32 good at breaking the spill
0:51:33 and allowing people to get an insight
0:51:35 that otherwise would not be
0:51:36 easily available to them a little bit a
0:51:39 little bit of mockery
0:51:40 we know we know that that is can often
0:51:43 be very very
0:51:44 effective and one of the nicest examples
0:51:46 was um
0:51:48 was it jonathan swift's a modest
0:51:50 proposal
0:51:51 i think it i think it is i think it was
0:51:53 um he
0:51:54 has this essay called a modest proposal
0:51:56 and you're reading it and it also
0:51:58 it all sounds terribly reasonable but
0:51:59 then you realize that what he's actually
0:52:01 proposing is that we kill and eat the
0:52:03 children of the poor
0:52:06 it's a kind of a it's a joke it's deeply
0:52:09 it's it's horrible and offensive in a
0:52:10 way and yet
0:52:12 the logic of it is exactly the logic
0:52:15 that you find in many other political
0:52:17 debates and so it provides a kind of
0:52:18 insight
0:52:19 it allows you to see the absurdity of
0:52:22 certain kinds of arguments and
0:52:23 certain kinds of position that kind of
0:52:25 mockery does that in a way that almost
0:52:27 nothing else can and so you should not
0:52:29 prohibit
0:52:31 the people that benefit most from
0:52:34 um constraints on people being mocked
0:52:37 and being laughed at
0:52:39 are the people who are using
0:52:42 um their reverence and respect
0:52:46 and so on like a monarch using that
0:52:49 to effectively control opinion you know
0:52:53 people who rely a lot rather than giving
0:52:55 arguments
0:52:56 and so on that simply rely on their
0:52:59 prestige
0:53:00 and their their their honor and that
0:53:03 that kind of person is often the very
0:53:07 person that you should be mocking
0:53:09 yeah but we really deserve it so i do
0:53:12 not want
0:53:12 mockery banned dr stephen
0:53:16 again it depends on me by mockery i'm
0:53:18 linking this to the dignity of others
0:53:20 okay because mockery is a subjective
0:53:23 look at france at the moment what's
0:53:24 happening i don't know if you know the
0:53:25 political situation right in france very
0:53:28 aggressive secularism right they
0:53:31 are mocking muslims left right and
0:53:34 center you said it doesn't exist it
0:53:35 actually exists in france
0:53:37 and it exists in france to the degree
0:53:39 that you have draconian laws
0:53:42 in france that are preventing
0:53:45 humanitarian muslim charities from doing
0:53:47 their work they're all saying they're
0:53:48 also closing down mosques
0:53:50 just do the research yourself
0:53:54 closing down mosques closing down
0:53:56 mosques is not political secularism
0:54:00 but let's not move away from the point
0:54:02 the point is it started with a misuse of
0:54:05 power
0:54:06 you said if these laws are in place it
0:54:08 could be misused
0:54:09 by those in power but the but the door
0:54:11 swings the other way
0:54:12 if constant mockery and and what i mean
0:54:15 by this is removing the dignity of
0:54:17 others
0:54:18 is constantly happening and it's
0:54:19 happening with religious symbols and you
0:54:21 have to understand
0:54:22 stephen not everyone's a person a
0:54:24 philosophical naturalist
0:54:26 we love god and the prophet muhammad
0:54:28 upon him
0:54:29 it becomes a part of identity more than
0:54:31 my own skin color
0:54:32 so when i see skin color being protected
0:54:35 which of course you should
0:54:36 should never be racist for sure my love
0:54:39 for god and the prophet muhammad upon me
0:54:41 peace
0:54:41 is an essential attribute of mine right
0:54:43 it's become that it's become the way i
0:54:45 relate
0:54:45 right i understand that yeah so but yes
0:54:48 good
0:54:48 so what you need to realize here is this
0:54:51 mockery as well and that's when this
0:54:53 there needs to be this discussion about
0:54:55 values that's so important because
0:54:57 freedom of speech is not absolutely
0:54:58 restricted based on values competing
0:54:59 values
0:55:00 we see what's happening in in france the
0:55:03 symbols are being more
0:55:05 and at the same time we see society
0:55:07 attributing
0:55:08 that mockery and what i mean by mockery
0:55:11 is removing the dignity of
0:55:12 a collective um and that is affecting
0:55:16 law it's reflecting the way muslims are
0:55:18 being treated
0:55:20 and this didn't just happen to muslims
0:55:21 it happened in nazi germany so we have
0:55:23 someone in our institute called doctor
0:55:24 uthman the teeth
0:55:25 he did a postdoctoral research in
0:55:27 dehumanization authorization he wrote a
0:55:29 book called on being human he's
0:55:31 been published by springer and bill he's
0:55:32 an established established
0:55:34 academic when we look at genocide when
0:55:37 you look at other
0:55:38 authorization othering and
0:55:39 dehumanization
0:55:42 it's not as simple as oh we could mock
0:55:45 someone's
0:55:46 beliefs and we could treat people really
0:55:50 nicely
0:55:50 societies just don't work that way we
0:55:52 need to have a more
0:55:53 nuanced human-centric discussion about
0:55:55 this issue yes i agree with you
0:55:57 we must be intellectually rigorous
0:55:58 concerning ideas mean you had a debate
0:56:00 before god's existence problem of evil
0:56:02 you gave your really interesting
0:56:04 argument about the kind of
0:56:05 good bad god and stuff like that you
0:56:07 know i didn't say to you how dare you
0:56:09 you're mocking my beliefs i didn't
0:56:10 respond that way because it was an
0:56:12 intellectual tone
0:56:14 you lampooned me as well and you mocked
0:56:16 me but with another time
0:56:19 you did it with an intellectual tone and
0:56:21 you did it with
0:56:23 hopefully you were committed to my
0:56:24 well-being right and
0:56:26 yeah yeah my interaction with you on
0:56:29 that especially when i talked about the
0:56:30 quran and science helped me develop my
0:56:32 ideas further from i remember
0:56:33 so it was a good thing however
0:56:37 it's not as simple as what you're saying
0:56:39 as well and the whole power thing
0:56:41 the door could swing the other way too
0:56:43 and it's happening in france
0:56:44 if you look at dehumanization studies
0:56:47 it's not as simple as there's a
0:56:48 distinction between someone's beliefs
0:56:50 and someone's um and and and basically
0:56:54 the person themselves so um my point
0:56:58 here is
0:56:59 i see where you're coming from because
0:57:01 europe has had a very interesting
0:57:03 history concerning freedom of speech
0:57:05 you know you had the catholic church at
0:57:07 that time they were using the coercive
0:57:09 arm of the state to prevent any kind of
0:57:11 intellectual discourse and thinking that
0:57:12 was incongruous which is
0:57:14 with with its teachings and then you
0:57:16 know you had the reformation you had
0:57:18 trade issues and so on and so forth and
0:57:20 you had a very bloody history right
0:57:22 but that euro-centric experience cannot
0:57:25 now be
0:57:26 protracted to the whole of the world
0:57:28 because
0:57:29 with all due respect i'm not saying
0:57:30 islamic history has all been rosy you
0:57:32 know whoever
0:57:33 over glorifies the history that's a sign
0:57:35 of a defeated mind in my view
0:57:36 but it didn't have the same issues there
0:57:39 wasn't that
0:57:40 huge problem between thinking progress
0:57:42 truth accountability
0:57:44 and power structures to that degree
0:57:46 right so that's why you have to see from
0:57:48 a different ethical paradigm and if you
0:57:50 see it from that perspective
0:57:51 i think under the islamic ethical
0:57:54 framework
0:57:55 you would you it's it's more consistent
0:57:58 and it's it's more virtue ethics it's
0:57:59 more consistent
0:58:00 as well and it's more what i would say
0:58:02 human-centric from that point of view
0:58:03 because it's about the dignity of others
0:58:04 yes you could intellectually mock with
0:58:06 it with with with the intellectual tone
0:58:09 but there are areas that we have to
0:58:11 discuss because we don't live
0:58:12 on a desert island we are connected to
0:58:14 other human beings and it can
0:58:16 create uh things just like what happened
0:58:19 in nazi germany unfortunately this is
0:58:20 this is part of academic studies
0:58:22 yeah good um
0:58:26 well i mean there's a lot going on in in
0:58:27 what you're saying there so
0:58:31 so to um i mean to tease out a couple of
0:58:34 things so
0:58:35 you're saying that muslims are being
0:58:38 vilified and um
0:58:42 misrepresented and smeared and i think
0:58:44 that's true
0:58:46 um and i want to protect them
0:58:50 from that as much as we can um
0:58:54 as a community i don't want to see
0:58:55 hatred whipped up in that kind of way so
0:58:58 but we do have legislation in place to
0:59:01 protect
0:59:01 them you know maybe there should be more
0:59:03 i don't know but but
0:59:04 that i'm all in favor of now
0:59:08 um you say that in other countries i
0:59:10 don't i mean i'm not following the
0:59:12 situation in france but um
0:59:14 you'll say you said things like um a
0:59:19 um well what did you say this place was
0:59:23 shut down i think you said um
0:59:25 what's happening you have to see see as
0:59:27 a kind of
0:59:29 kind of a holistic approach to what's
0:59:30 happening in society so we don't
0:59:33 certain things away from what is really
0:59:36 going on so what's really happening is
0:59:38 there's this kind of
0:59:39 excessive extreme secular agenda going
0:59:42 on to the degree
0:59:44 that islamic and muslim symbols are
0:59:47 being denigrated to the degree
0:59:49 that people use now to actually affect
0:59:51 the dignity
0:59:52 of muslims right the way they treat x y
0:59:55 and z
0:59:56 it's spoken in parliament it's also
1:00:00 facilitating a kind of environment where
1:00:02 now they're making laws
1:00:04 give me an example of um what you're
1:00:07 talking about
1:00:07 so in in france give me an exam an
1:00:10 example of
1:00:11 the the use of a symbol the denigration
1:00:14 of a
1:00:15 symbol um and how that's impacting on
1:00:18 the muslim community can you do that
1:00:20 well very simple what happened in
1:00:22 charlie hebdo and what
1:00:24 and the depict the depictions of the
1:00:25 cartoons with islamophobic tropes
1:00:28 that you know uh muslims about terrorism
1:00:30 and so on and so forth that if that
1:00:32 continues
1:00:32 right every drop raises the ocean that
1:00:35 creates
1:00:36 so and you know what's interesting about
1:00:38 the social norm dr stephen right so in
1:00:39 social psychology you have
1:00:41 the development of the social norm is
1:00:42 based on your need to feel certain
1:00:44 you need to belong these are fundamental
1:00:46 human things
1:00:47 so if i don't have my certainty from my
1:00:50 subgroup i'm going to go to the
1:00:52 dominant group for example if i'm sure
1:00:54 about these muslims i'm going to
1:00:56 find out what the dominant group is
1:00:57 saying about these muslims yeah so if
1:00:58 these
1:00:59 you know the secular elite and the
1:01:00 politicians and the media are saying
1:01:02 always bad things about them and the
1:01:03 ideas are bad and they
1:01:05 they can't distinguish between the two
1:01:06 and that's how the narrative is being
1:01:07 played out
1:01:08 then you know there's something wrong
1:01:09 about these muslims right and also we
1:01:11 have a need to belong right
1:01:13 and that need to belong if we can't
1:01:14 belong from our kind of a subgroup we're
1:01:16 going to
1:01:17 try and get that belonging from the
1:01:18 dominant group this develops the social
1:01:20 the social norm and
1:01:21 and social dynamics that says a lot and
1:01:25 there's much more to say about society
1:01:27 from that perspective in social
1:01:28 psychology but
1:01:29 that's why it's not as simple as uh the
1:01:32 kind of abstracting the discourse by
1:01:34 saying oh allow him to mock
1:01:36 don't get me wrong i want intellectual
1:01:38 dialogue rigorous dialogue like we're
1:01:39 having today which is fantastic
1:01:41 you want to prohibit all mockery right
1:01:43 across the board including in the
1:01:44 political sphere
1:01:46 i want to stop the the removing the
1:01:49 dignity of people again i depends what
1:01:51 you mean by mockery some people think
1:01:52 that mockery is
1:01:53 saying that you don't believe in god
1:01:55 would you would you
1:01:56 prevent to give you an example say
1:01:59 so would you prevent you would prevent
1:02:01 the artwork pissed christ
1:02:03 from being shown and would you would you
1:02:06 clamp down on cartoons
1:02:08 that um represent david cameron with a
1:02:11 big
1:02:12 condom over his head or margaret
1:02:14 thatcher as a
1:02:15 as an evil witch and would you would you
1:02:17 prevent that kind of
1:02:18 imagery i mean specific examples i would
1:02:22 have to think about
1:02:23 but the general ethical perspective
1:02:25 remember there's a difference between
1:02:26 ethics and applied ethics right
1:02:28 so it would be intellectually shallow
1:02:31 for me to respond immediately as if i've
1:02:33 assessed the whole situation right i
1:02:34 have a position
1:02:35 but i'm giving you concrete examples if
1:02:38 it affects the dignity of someone and if
1:02:40 it could be done
1:02:41 and if something impacts david cameron's
1:02:43 dignity to have him
1:02:44 represented with a massive yeah
1:02:48 his mother is very upset about that so
1:02:51 are we going to
1:02:51 ban are we going to ban that i wouldn't
1:02:54 i wouldn't
1:02:55 recommend anyone putting pictures up of
1:02:58 anyone
1:02:59 whether it's no no no i'm not asking you
1:03:01 that i'm asking you you know that
1:03:02 that should be any any
1:03:06 any um diminishing of the dignity of a
1:03:09 human being
1:03:13 why because it's bigger than just saying
1:03:14 you would ban it i'm not saying you
1:03:16 can't
1:03:17 intellectualize and you can't refute
1:03:19 david cameron and his policies i'm not
1:03:21 saying
1:03:21 i know you're not saying that but you
1:03:22 would say you are saying you would ban
1:03:26 that kind of political imagery you know
1:03:28 the utility here
1:03:30 is i find that quite extraordinary to be
1:03:33 honest but anyway
1:03:34 look let me let me just can i just say
1:03:36 something
1:03:37 um by the way i'm not i'm not
1:03:39 conservative by the way
1:03:41 i don't know no i wasn't suggesting it
1:03:44 um so yeah so
1:03:48 obviously i'm not i'm not keen on
1:03:50 planning any such
1:03:52 um imagery it does seem to be hugely
1:03:55 heavy-handed unnecessary a restriction
1:03:58 on free speech
1:03:59 invaluable free speech which are for
1:04:00 reasons i've spelt out and it will
1:04:02 clearly be abused um so i i'm not
1:04:06 i'm not persuaded by that but i do
1:04:09 understand
1:04:10 um that muslims feel under attack
1:04:14 uh and that because they are frankly i
1:04:16 mean there's an awful lot of
1:04:17 anti-muslim propaganda in the press um
1:04:21 and you can be sure that some people
1:04:24 will
1:04:25 kind of use um hepto type imagery say or
1:04:29 whatever it may happen to be
1:04:31 in order to sort of smear muslims as a
1:04:34 community you know
1:04:35 they're all terrorists or whatever
1:04:36 something somehow awful like that i mean
1:04:39 and i don't i don't approve of that
1:04:41 clearly
1:04:42 and it and possibly there was an element
1:04:43 of that in the hebto and if there was
1:04:45 then i really i'm not happy about that
1:04:46 at all
1:04:47 um i certainly don't offend it um
1:04:51 but on the other hand the fact that
1:04:54 one of the arguments you're making for
1:04:56 kind of this really severe clamping down
1:05:00 on any kind of mockery or
1:05:03 be it religious or politicians or
1:05:06 whatever
1:05:07 is that um well the case that you're
1:05:11 making is that very often these
1:05:12 these beliefs are tied up with people's
1:05:14 sense of identity
1:05:16 so that if you attack the belief or the
1:05:18 symbol you're attacking something
1:05:21 that is kind of constitutive of who they
1:05:25 are
1:05:25 as a person and so it is much more
1:05:28 personal
1:05:29 for them and i can i kind of i can
1:05:32 understand that
1:05:33 but i'm not i mean to think of some
1:05:35 other illustrations
1:05:36 um for example um there are
1:05:40 um political beliefs for which people
1:05:42 are prepared to die
1:05:44 i mean there are political beliefs which
1:05:45 i am prepared to die um
1:05:48 i and there are political beliefs
1:05:51 so there are politicalities that people
1:05:53 feel very very strongly
1:05:55 about are very powerfully committed to
1:05:58 and their sense of identity is bound up
1:06:00 with them very often because
1:06:02 politics and nationalism are often fused
1:06:05 together so you find that
1:06:06 um you know brexit an incredibly
1:06:10 emotional
1:06:11 issue for many people and it goes to
1:06:13 their sense of who they
1:06:15 are and what it means to be a british
1:06:17 person
1:06:18 okay and yet i i am completely relaxed
1:06:22 about taking the piss
1:06:24 out of those people i will agree with
1:06:26 them or not i have no objection to
1:06:28 people
1:06:29 lampooning them with all of their flag
1:06:31 waving and their
1:06:32 xenophobia and you know be my guest
1:06:37 um but your position it seems to me
1:06:40 dignified everyone would would require
1:06:43 that any such lampooning
1:06:45 of that kind of xenophobic nationalistic
1:06:48 [ __ ] that we're seeing because
1:06:50 because it's bound up with people's
1:06:51 sense of who they are and their own
1:06:53 sense of worth and identity
1:06:55 uh no no no we can't allow that well
1:06:57 again that just seems to be
1:06:59 ludicrously heavy-handed and restrictive
1:07:01 and i wouldn't want to see laws like
1:07:02 that
1:07:03 introduced well the issue here is
1:07:06 remember
1:07:08 you're using the mockery and clamping
1:07:10 down a lot yeah and it's it makes it
1:07:12 makes you get
1:07:17 i actually think you are quite
1:07:19 authoritarian i know you don't think you
1:07:21 are well actually because
1:07:24 examples that even with your position it
1:07:26 can be abused
1:07:28 and it has been abused and it has caused
1:07:30 the suffering of thousands of people so
1:07:33 i would argue well you not having an
1:07:35 ethical dimension to your legal theory
1:07:37 is authoritarian and it's damaging
1:07:39 people and it's actually
1:07:40 could could you know it's actually
1:07:42 locking people up for no reason and
1:07:44 so the door can swing both ways on this
1:07:46 issue you have to be able to
1:07:48 add in the possibility that allowing
1:07:51 and forget the word mockery allowing the
1:07:53 diminishing of
1:07:54 of of of the dignity of human beings in
1:07:57 a collective
1:07:59 that can lead to authoritarian harm as
1:08:02 well
1:08:02 so it's not necessarily the case just
1:08:04 because i said that everyone has to
1:08:05 be aware of people's dignity and you
1:08:07 know the law can have
1:08:08 a stipulation such as we take each case
1:08:11 on its own merit there's actually more
1:08:13 nuances so it's not as if
1:08:15 it's slightly strong manning me here
1:08:17 making me think you know
1:08:22 take jeremy corbyn as example i think
1:08:24 you're a bit of a corbin like i've been
1:08:25 following you on twitter right
1:08:27 um so jeremy corbyn was mocked to hell
1:08:30 right to the point that it went against
1:08:33 the objectives of freedom of speech
1:08:35 because many would argue
1:08:36 it didn't represent his ideology it
1:08:38 didn't represent his policies and it
1:08:40 didn't represent the the claims that he
1:08:42 was making or what he what kind of
1:08:44 society that he wanted
1:08:45 but mockery was to the degree right the
1:08:48 mockery was to the degree
1:08:50 forget even the word makri because we
1:08:51 haven't defined you haven't defined it
1:08:53 yet
1:08:53 the removing of his dignity was to the
1:08:56 degree
1:08:57 they actually prevented people from
1:09:00 understanding the truth about jeremy
1:09:02 corbyn
1:09:03 and therefore it is is counterproductive
1:09:06 and it's self-defeating
1:09:08 and that's as a philosopher you need to
1:09:10 you know this better than i do
1:09:11 you are assuming there's some kind of
1:09:14 intrinsic value behind mockery
1:09:16 it it's an interesting place for it i
1:09:19 did give you an argument
1:09:20 and an illustration so it's not like i
1:09:21 haven't provided
1:09:23 yeah but this was was that wasn't
1:09:25 applied in the real world it was about
1:09:26 some emperor
1:09:27 you know in some fictional story but
1:09:30 when you talk about human realities
1:09:32 when you talk about human realities it
1:09:34 is far more new yeah we could provide
1:09:36 plenty of real examples but anyway look
1:09:38 um the jeremy corbyn corbin yeah no so
1:09:41 so jeremy corbyn so yeah so as you point
1:09:44 out you know i was a
1:09:45 i am a bit of a fan of his um politics
1:09:51 and many people um on the right on the
1:09:54 left and so
1:09:54 even on the right i mean people like
1:09:56 pito
1:09:58 oborne who's who's a telegraph used to
1:10:01 be a telegraph journalist i mean
1:10:02 he has written scathingly about the way
1:10:05 that jeremy corbyn was misrepresented
1:10:07 and smeared and so on
1:10:08 in the media um obviously i'm not very
1:10:11 happy
1:10:12 about the fact that he was
1:10:13 misrepresented and smeared
1:10:16 um but that's not the same as mockery
1:10:19 yes
1:10:23 i have no problem with people um mocking
1:10:26 jeremy corbyn
1:10:28 drawing caricatures of jeremy corbyn
1:10:30 which is made to look very unattractive
1:10:33 can't be my guest i don't care about any
1:10:35 of that
1:10:36 people can do that mockery is completely
1:10:40 fine
1:10:40 but that's not what happened what
1:10:43 happened was that accusations were made
1:10:45 that he was a terrorist
1:10:46 sympathizer various other things he was
1:10:50 he was he was deeply anti-semitic um
1:10:53 none of there's no good evidence to
1:10:55 support any of these claims none of them
1:10:56 were really true
1:10:58 and yet the mainstream media largely
1:11:00 gave a free pass to people who endlessly
1:11:03 repeated these
1:11:04 smears over and over or front pages of
1:11:07 newspapers on
1:11:08 being on bbc news even more or less
1:11:11 without challenge
1:11:12 um and that i have a big problem with
1:11:14 but that's got nothing whatsoever to do
1:11:16 with mockery no he wasn't treated with
1:11:18 dignity and respect
1:11:20 um i think but i think but a lot of the
1:11:22 people but a lot of the people who
1:11:25 i i don't think everyone does deserve to
1:11:27 be treated with dignity and respect i
1:11:28 mean
1:11:29 some people um are just pretty awful
1:11:32 um i don't think hitler deserves to be
1:11:35 treated
1:11:36 to picnic the classic cliched example
1:11:39 some people are really awful and we
1:11:41 don't have to respect them
1:11:43 and we can go no this is a terrible
1:11:45 person
1:11:46 and and and it's clear that some people
1:11:48 genuinely and sincerely believe that
1:11:50 jeremy colbyn really was a terrible
1:11:52 person and i have no problem with them
1:11:54 saying that
1:11:54 and expressing that opinion let them let
1:11:56 them do that
1:11:58 it's just that um it's just that it
1:12:00 wasn't true and it was never
1:12:02 properly challenged by the mainstream
1:12:04 media in this country and as a result
1:12:06 um we probably you know we might well
1:12:10 have had i think a labor government
1:12:11 now had it not been for that campaign
1:12:14 against him that was going on now listen
1:12:18 but you're not gonna solve you're not
1:12:20 gonna deal with that no you need to
1:12:22 define
1:12:22 mockery because there's like two types
1:12:25 of mockery we're talking about here one
1:12:26 is about
1:12:27 mocking an argument and actions right by
1:12:30 showing it's you know
1:12:31 reduction absurdo your actions are
1:12:33 reduced you know your
1:12:34 your arguments are that they reduce uh
1:12:37 things to absurdity
1:12:39 or or the difference between mocking
1:12:41 people and figures basically insulting
1:12:43 right and
1:12:45 so insulting in some cases doesn't serve
1:12:47 any purpose from that perspective so
1:12:49 that's why i was really clear about
1:12:50 dignity because you mentioned it and
1:12:52 again with corbin
1:12:53 people lacking the dignity of corbyn to
1:12:55 be honest calling him a terrorist is is
1:12:57 actually attacking his dignity as well
1:12:59 of course that that affected the
1:13:01 objectives of freedom of speech
1:13:05 yeah god i have no problem with people
1:13:09 accusing jeremy corbyn of being a
1:13:10 terrorist sympathizer i mean if people
1:13:12 want to do that
1:13:13 in the press let them go ahead i i don't
1:13:16 i don't want to stop
1:13:18 that exchange of ideas what i have a
1:13:21 problem with is the fact that
1:13:22 um claims such claims were made and were
1:13:26 never adequately challenged not even by
1:13:29 people in the bbc now now that
1:13:32 you've been dr stephen you've proven my
1:13:34 point idea
1:13:36 the powers the powers that be people who
1:13:38 had the power on the platform
1:13:40 misused it and misused mockery they
1:13:43 would they became authoritarian
1:13:46 mokkri and what i mean by mokki as we
1:13:49 just i discussed it was the dignity
1:13:51 they they diminished the dignity of
1:13:52 jeremy corbyn
1:13:54 and they used that ability to do so and
1:13:57 they used their power to do so
1:13:59 so when you argued when you said i was
1:14:01 authoritarian well the door also swings
1:14:03 the other way that they were
1:14:04 authoritarian by misusing the power by
1:14:06 lying about someone
1:14:07 they're not authoritarians they just are
1:14:09 very powerful
1:14:10 yes well that's what authoritarian is
1:14:12 you're using your power
1:14:16 no they are very i mean these are these
1:14:18 are clearly very powerful people
1:14:20 the newspapers are owned by a tiny group
1:14:23 of
1:14:23 billionaires really absolutely so here's
1:14:26 my point
1:14:27 this and let's bring it back to freedom
1:14:30 of speech and the objectives of human
1:14:31 speech truth human flourishing
1:14:33 accountability scientific progress etc
1:14:35 yeah what this discussion has brought to
1:14:38 light is
1:14:39 when you want to affect the dignity of
1:14:41 other people and so-called use your
1:14:42 freedom to insult
1:14:44 to the degree where you affect someone's
1:14:46 dignity that that actually creates and
1:14:48 you have the power to do so
1:14:50 and it becomes like a big narrative and
1:14:52 that goes against the truth about
1:14:54 someone
1:14:55 then that is actually self-defeating
1:14:57 it's going against the very objectives
1:14:59 of freedom of speech so there's only a
1:15:00 few ways
1:15:01 we could get out of this sticky wicket i
1:15:03 think one way is by saying that freedom
1:15:05 of speech has an intrinsic value it's
1:15:07 not instrumental which i don't think
1:15:08 anyone believes if they're a secularist
1:15:10 secularist unless you believe in natural
1:15:12 natural rights which is very hard to
1:15:14 to defend or you would have to say
1:15:17 freedom of speech is not intrinsically
1:15:19 valuable but
1:15:20 [Music]
1:15:21 mockery in the context in this context
1:15:23 which is to diminish the dignity of
1:15:25 other people
1:15:26 that has intrinsic value which would be
1:15:28 very difficult to philosophically
1:15:30 justify
1:15:31 so i know so so yeah you need to
1:15:35 use now okay let me break that up try
1:15:37 and make it simple yeah
1:15:39 so the jeremy corbyn case and i used to
1:15:42 record because i know you're a fan of
1:15:43 him right
1:15:44 um because i think it would just make
1:15:45 maybe make more sense because you're
1:15:47 more connected to it
1:15:48 so we have an environment
1:15:52 where you can affect the dignity of
1:15:54 other people
1:15:55 whether you want to call it mocking or
1:15:56 not is neither here or there because my
1:15:58 issue wasn't about mocking per se it was
1:15:59 about the dignity and i mentioned that
1:16:00 many times
1:16:02 so you could you could affect the
1:16:03 dignity of many people
1:16:05 the power structures are not equal so
1:16:07 you have a powerful e
1:16:08 or powerful platforms that are using
1:16:10 this so-called freedom
1:16:12 to affect the dignity of a particular
1:16:14 person it creates a narrative
1:16:16 and that narrative creates a kind of
1:16:19 social norm if you like or some kind of
1:16:20 collective
1:16:21 uh agreement to a certain degree that
1:16:24 this person is a terrorist he's
1:16:26 anti-semitic he's so on and so forth
1:16:28 so what that has done it has gone
1:16:31 against
1:16:33 the objectives of freedom of speech
1:16:34 which no i don't think anyone would deny
1:16:36 which is truth
1:16:37 because it's not it's not creating it's
1:16:39 not saying something truthful
1:16:41 about a political leader or his
1:16:43 ideologies and his perspective
1:16:45 so what i'm saying here is this
1:16:47 so-called freedom to continuously mock
1:16:49 to the degree and again mocking here
1:16:50 means
1:16:51 diminishing the dignity of people it can
1:16:54 lead to
1:16:55 a self-defeating situation where you
1:16:59 actually don't have
1:17:00 a you don't you don't have the
1:17:01 objectives of freedom of speech
1:17:02 fulfilled in the first place
1:17:06 yeah if you mean that um the freedom to
1:17:09 um represent people as being bad people
1:17:13 when when when perhaps they're not um
1:17:17 um can in a situation where one side has
1:17:21 the megaphone
1:17:22 and can do all of the speaking and the
1:17:25 other side
1:17:26 lacks it um in that that's a that's a
1:17:29 bad situation clearly
1:17:32 um but my solution to that would be
1:17:35 to um um give both sides a megaphone
1:17:39 or uh change the power structure so that
1:17:42 we're not
1:17:43 we you know the public opinion isn't
1:17:45 shaped to a very large
1:17:47 and by uh you know two or three
1:17:50 individual billionaires
1:17:51 whose fortunes have to be offshore i i
1:17:54 that that would be the solution the
1:17:56 solution is not
1:17:57 to prevent anyone um
1:18:00 saying stuff about other people that
1:18:02 puts them in a bad light because
1:18:04 some people deserve to be put in a bad
1:18:06 light i mean i don't i happen not to
1:18:08 think that
1:18:09 that's not true of jeremy corbyn but
1:18:11 still i would want people to be
1:18:13 able to say it about jeremy corbyn but i
1:18:15 would also want there to be some
1:18:17 pushback so people will defend him and
1:18:19 point to the facts and correct the false
1:18:21 narrative and so on
1:18:22 the problem was that none of that
1:18:24 happened okay
1:18:26 um because of the um
1:18:29 it seems to me uh the the the the unfair
1:18:32 power structure so
1:18:33 it's the power structure that's the
1:18:35 problem and if you were to introduce
1:18:37 your favored
1:18:38 restrictions on what people are allowed
1:18:40 to say in a situation where you have
1:18:43 that very unbalanced power structure
1:18:46 it's obvious isn't it what's going to
1:18:48 happen
1:18:49 the powerful people will use the
1:18:51 restrictions that you want in place
1:18:53 to shut down criticism of them
1:18:56 um very it's going to become an even
1:19:01 more dangerous situation than we have so
1:19:03 the
1:19:03 so the solution is to
1:19:06 deal with the huge imbalance that exists
1:19:10 in the way that public opinion is being
1:19:12 formed
1:19:13 um so we have muslims we have immigrants
1:19:17 we have benefit scroungers
1:19:20 we have you know black people we have
1:19:23 them on the front pages of certain
1:19:24 newspapers day after day after day week
1:19:27 after week
1:19:28 year after year drip drip drip drip into
1:19:31 the british
1:19:32 psyche this endless repetition of the
1:19:36 perception of these people anecdotes
1:19:39 about these people as being bad
1:19:41 and also about the left the left is just
1:19:44 yet another group that's endlessly
1:19:46 constantly being
1:19:49 represented in that way that that is
1:19:52 disgusting and extremely dangerous
1:19:55 yes i have no problem with that saying
1:19:58 that i'm not defending it
1:20:00 okay but i don't think the solution to
1:20:03 that
1:20:04 is to um have some kind of law
1:20:06 introduced
1:20:08 where you'll you'll not only you're not
1:20:10 even allowed to say that some people are
1:20:11 bad people
1:20:14 we're not saying that obvious be very
1:20:16 careful no but if you
1:20:17 no no no no but you want you say you are
1:20:19 not allowed to denigrate
1:20:21 you cannot diminish the dignity of other
1:20:24 people
1:20:25 and doctor what's easy so we've got
1:20:28 somewhere now right we're both in a
1:20:29 corner right
1:20:31 what's easier giving everyone the same
1:20:33 equal micro uh
1:20:34 megaphone or getting a society to
1:20:37 basically
1:20:38 articulate in themselves that doesn't
1:20:40 remove or diminish the dignity of others
1:20:43 i think your case is a non-existent
1:20:46 utopia
1:20:47 it just doesn't exist it's never existed
1:20:49 right but i think
1:20:50 there are plenty of there are plenty of
1:20:52 there are places where actually i mean
1:20:54 places in europe where the press is is
1:20:56 the press
1:20:56 is far more even-handed in scandinavian
1:21:00 countries for example
1:21:01 um right yeah so
1:21:04 so so you know there are things you can
1:21:07 do
1:21:08 to prevent the um excesses that we've
1:21:11 seen
1:21:11 um in this country um
1:21:15 i i i it i do not want to
1:21:19 um we've moved from mockery through to
1:21:23 demeaning people saying things that are
1:21:25 demeaning about people well
1:21:27 any kind of criticism of anyone is
1:21:30 potentially demeaning
1:21:31 about them you're saying something
1:21:33 negative about them
1:21:34 and once you introduce i mean mockery
1:21:37 was bad enough but now you've really
1:21:39 opened the envelope up to demeaning
1:21:44 and at that point um this is
1:21:48 this is extremely scary stuff so far as
1:21:50 i'm concerned it would certainly be
1:21:52 abused
1:21:53 um by those in power that's only if you
1:21:56 assume those who are in power
1:21:58 i do not have the adequate you know uh
1:22:01 kind of
1:22:02 ethical and even maybe ontological
1:22:04 commitments in order for them to
1:22:06 believe that they're accountable and for
1:22:08 them to basically treat people
1:22:10 with dignity i understand i'm putting
1:22:12 their money online
1:22:14 on the fact that they write you're
1:22:16 seeing it from a very kind of
1:22:18 naturalistic secular paradigm because
1:22:20 there have been other traditions in the
1:22:22 past people who have been in power
1:22:24 that actually wanted people to take into
1:22:26 account for example in the islamic
1:22:27 tradition
1:22:28 the rulers not all of them of course but
1:22:31 the rulers
1:22:32 in history not today they were begging
1:22:34 for people to take into account for
1:22:36 example a companion of the prophet
1:22:37 muhammad
1:22:38 upon me peace he basically
1:22:42 was so happy that when he said to his
1:22:44 people if i deviate from
1:22:46 our ethics what are you going to do they
1:22:48 said we're going to straighten you
1:22:50 basically right
1:22:51 he was so happy by that we have an
1:22:54 ethical system and a dimension you have
1:22:56 to stand in the possibility that
1:22:57 you're coming from a perspective where
1:22:59 yeah this is the nature of kind of
1:23:02 i don't know secular politics
1:23:04 politicians are not
1:23:05 ideal people generally speaking and you
1:23:08 know when you try and get someone who
1:23:09 is you believe is decent like jeremy
1:23:12 corbyn you know he's he's painted as
1:23:14 someone evil
1:23:15 and people have power they get corrupted
1:23:17 maybe there's something wrong with the
1:23:18 secular model that is
1:23:20 not good enough to basically ensure that
1:23:22 we have good ethical role models as
1:23:24 leaders
1:23:25 i don't know that's another thing to
1:23:26 unpack but let me just bring this back
1:23:27 down to
1:23:28 um let me bring this back down to
1:23:30 freedom of speech because remember it's
1:23:32 about freedom of speech
1:23:34 forget the mockery because i you didn't
1:23:36 define mockery
1:23:38 my issue here was not not demeaning
1:23:41 people
1:23:41 but removing the dignity of people
1:23:43 diminishing the dignity of people which
1:23:44 was a different kettle of fish
1:23:46 so and and case in point was jeremy
1:23:48 corbyn because it was great to the
1:23:50 degree that it went against the
1:23:51 objectives of freedom of speech which
1:23:52 was truth
1:23:54 so my thing is this let's end on maybe
1:23:57 more of an ontological meta-ethical
1:23:58 discussion since
1:24:00 you're a greater philosopher than me i'm
1:24:02 still researching but
1:24:03 to be honest i'm no political
1:24:05 philosopher as anyone that knows
1:24:06 anything about political philosophy will
1:24:07 probably have managed to figure out i'm
1:24:09 i just have
1:24:10 you know i've written about humanism and
1:24:12 political secularism a little bit but
1:24:14 don't take me as
1:24:15 any sort of authority i'm not really
1:24:17 yeah
1:24:18 so you would you agree
1:24:21 that freedom of speech obviously we said
1:24:25 we agreed that it's not absolute
1:24:26 it has to be kind of tailored to compete
1:24:29 other competing values as academic david
1:24:31 van mil said which is something that
1:24:33 it's not controversial
1:24:35 would you agree now that maybe a
1:24:37 discussion should be had in
1:24:39 what kind of these values how do we
1:24:41 ground these values so for example
1:24:43 let me just let me articulate something
1:24:45 to you in about two minutes and let me
1:24:47 get your take on it
1:24:48 so to ground values because you have to
1:24:52 talk about values now because that's the
1:24:53 thing that's restricting speech right
1:24:55 so to ground value rather have natural
1:24:57 rights so according to kind of you know
1:24:58 philosophical naturalism or secular
1:25:00 paradigm does it make sense can we
1:25:02 ground these values
1:25:04 uh in nature there's a massive debate as
1:25:06 you know in meta ethics on this issue
1:25:08 but let me just summarize it with jeremy
1:25:10 bentham it's nonsense on stilts
1:25:12 okay the other way to go is maybe social
1:25:15 utility
1:25:16 it increases the kind of well-being to a
1:25:19 degree of the collective and it removes
1:25:21 the kind of harms
1:25:23 i would argue when it comes to freedom
1:25:25 to insult
1:25:26 does it actually increase the well-being
1:25:28 collectively of society
1:25:30 there is an argument to be had that's
1:25:32 types of insults like gratuitous insults
1:25:34 and removing the dignity of human being
1:25:37 diminishing the dignity of human beings
1:25:39 is not something that society wants
1:25:42 there's someone say fine okay social
1:25:43 utility doesn't work we can't ground our
1:25:45 values that way
1:25:46 what about eudaimonia are you demonic
1:25:48 kind of the happiness of
1:25:50 society the happiness of individuals
1:25:53 now well human nature remember human
1:25:55 nature is people as they are not as we
1:25:57 want them to be
1:25:58 humans are not happy when their dignity
1:26:01 is being affected
1:26:02 look at the megan marco case that is
1:26:04 case in point
1:26:06 the media were free to say what they
1:26:08 want and
1:26:09 affected her to the degree that she
1:26:11 wanted to commit suicide
1:26:13 are we saying that's that's that should
1:26:15 be allowed to that degree
1:26:17 like forget law for one moment let's
1:26:19 talk ethics
1:26:20 you know we live in a very troubling
1:26:22 society where the media can say whatever
1:26:24 they want to the degree
1:26:25 that it would make people want to kill
1:26:27 themselves with all due respect
1:26:29 this is something that is unacceptable
1:26:32 in
1:26:33 any parallel universe and even in this
1:26:35 universe hey the point here is
1:26:37 we can't really ground our values in
1:26:39 natural right source utility and eu
1:26:40 dynamonia from the point of view of
1:26:42 justifying
1:26:44 the the denigration of someone's dignity
1:26:47 the removing of the diminishing of
1:26:48 someone's dignity
1:26:50 and uh and and basically saying that
1:26:53 we have this kind of right to
1:26:55 gratuitously insult and
1:26:57 to to to diminish the dignity of others
1:27:01 that can't be grounded in natural rights
1:27:02 social utility or even eudaimonic
1:27:04 approach yeah
1:27:06 so what the islamic situation says as
1:27:09 you know
1:27:10 you know the divine command theory which
1:27:11 we can unpack maybe another session
1:27:13 because i've really enjoyed our session
1:27:15 today by the way thank you
1:27:17 muslims do all muslims go for the divine
1:27:19 command theory i bet they don't they
1:27:21 don't do they
1:27:22 uh okay so there's a very good question
1:27:24 thank you so in the
1:27:25 i don't know okay so in islamic
1:27:26 tradition there's three main
1:27:28 schools of creed so you have what you
1:27:30 call the asha rights
1:27:32 you have the matrides and you have the
1:27:35 atharys
1:27:36 so the ashrites are divine command
1:27:38 theorists but from the point of view
1:27:39 they go
1:27:40 with one of the horns of the dilemma
1:27:42 they said it's good because god
1:27:44 commanded it so one would argue
1:27:45 that seems to be quite arbitrary because
1:27:47 it means that
1:27:48 god could command that anyone who's got
1:27:51 the name dr stephen law should be shot
1:27:54 god forbid yeah so they yeah so that's
1:27:56 one thing
1:27:58 the other one the maturities have the
1:27:59 same view from the perspective
1:28:01 of that they believe that you know it is
1:28:05 about god's commands but they believe
1:28:06 that human rationality can also coincide
1:28:09 with understanding some of god's
1:28:10 commands
1:28:11 but it's still based on god's arbitrary
1:28:13 commands the authorities have a
1:28:14 different position which is maybe closer
1:28:16 to what the
1:28:17 modern christian philosophers are saying
1:28:18 which is yes it is the
1:28:20 divine command but it's not dislocated
1:28:22 from his nature
1:28:23 because it's in line with who he is who
1:28:26 is he
1:28:26 so in the islamic narrative is based
1:28:28 upon his names and attributes he is the
1:28:30 knowing the loving the the merciful
1:28:32 the wise and so on and so forth so it's
1:28:34 not arbitrary
1:28:36 and good it's not external you know the
1:28:39 argument yourself right
1:28:40 so yeah sounds like minecraft it is very
1:28:43 similar to that but
1:28:45 but there's also basically what you call
1:28:47 a metaphysical stopping point because as
1:28:49 you know in metaphysics is based on
1:28:50 first principles
1:28:51 uh you can't continue the regress you
1:28:53 need a metaphysical framework to try and
1:28:55 understand
1:28:56 the moral reality if and only if you
1:28:58 believe that there are morals that are
1:29:00 external to the human mind the mind
1:29:02 independent which is a more realistic
1:29:03 position
1:29:04 but that is for another day for sure um
1:29:07 i'll drag you off the subject
1:29:08 i apologize i just yeah
1:29:11 so that would be kind of a quasi summary
1:29:13 there's much more nuances even within
1:29:15 the
1:29:16 tradition and i think this is good it's
1:29:18 a very good question because it shows
1:29:19 that
1:29:19 yeah sorry though i just checked it yeah
1:29:23 but it shows the islamic
1:29:24 field philosophy is actually quite
1:29:26 nuanced and it's broad
1:29:27 questions on these issues anyway so
1:29:30 what's the time it's probably time to
1:29:33 stop i feel
1:29:34 oh don't imagine yeah i imagine that we
1:29:37 i don't know if you've said very much
1:29:38 light on anything here
1:29:40 um but i think i've got a but i think
1:29:42 i've got a
1:29:43 slightly clearer view of where you're
1:29:46 coming from
1:29:47 um human dignity yeah now i understand
1:29:51 that and
1:29:52 i mean and who's who's against that
1:29:54 nobody it's like apple pie isn't it
1:29:56 human dignity thumbs up all right now
1:29:58 we're all in favor of human dignity and
1:30:00 respecting people's human dignity
1:30:02 um i'm just not convinced that the right
1:30:04 way to to do that is to introduce
1:30:06 laws that effectively ban
1:30:10 people from you know satirizing
1:30:13 um mocking and um
1:30:16 so on um admittedly david
1:30:19 cameron's dignity is somewhat dented by
1:30:22 steve bell's
1:30:23 cartoons but i don't really have a
1:30:26 problem with that and i don't have a
1:30:27 problem with
1:30:28 um i mean i happen to lean towards
1:30:32 jeremy corbyn's politics as you know and
1:30:34 i don't have a problem with people
1:30:35 satirizing and unmocking him in that way
1:30:39 either and i think it would be a very
1:30:41 dangerous development to have someone
1:30:44 step in and say
1:30:45 sorry we're introducing laws which mean
1:30:47 that you know to protect
1:30:49 human dignity uh you're you're not going
1:30:52 to be allowed to
1:30:53 um um say these things and present these
1:30:56 arguments and so on
1:30:57 um i think that would be it's just it's
1:31:00 just
1:31:01 too dangerous and too nebulous i mean
1:31:04 you know are we i don't you know some
1:31:06 people really are awful
1:31:07 uh some some people really do have
1:31:10 dangerous
1:31:11 political views and it's right that we
1:31:14 should point a finger at them and say
1:31:15 you know this is absolutely outrageous
1:31:17 this is racist
1:31:18 you you you know it's not on um i'm i
1:31:21 and and if somebody says oh no hang on
1:31:23 stephen i think you'll find you're all
1:31:25 infringing their human dignity at this
1:31:27 point by accusing them of racism
1:31:29 i'm gonna and i i'm gonna be in a lot of
1:31:31 trouble um
1:31:32 you by introducing this piece of
1:31:34 legislation it seems to me
1:31:36 that you've basically given the powers
1:31:38 that be the ability to interpret it in
1:31:40 pretty much any way they want
1:31:42 to silence these people to give those
1:31:44 people a voice and so on it's just too
1:31:46 nebulous
1:31:47 it's it's it's unenforceable it's either
1:31:49 unenforceable or it will be enforced in
1:31:51 the most
1:31:52 authoritarian and unpleasant ways by the
1:31:55 most powerful people
1:31:56 so i just sorry i just can't support it
1:31:58 yeah i mean i wouldn't even advise
1:32:00 cooking these laws in our current
1:32:02 secular paradigm anyway because as you
1:32:04 know
1:32:05 politicians uh frankly unfortunately
1:32:08 they seem to not have the kind of
1:32:10 ethical foundation to even be able to
1:32:13 apply these laws in a way that i would
1:32:14 deem ethical so
1:32:15 i i do see i so i do empathize with what
1:32:18 you're saying if we were to apply these
1:32:19 laws in this context
1:32:21 it would be crazy but then i said the
1:32:22 door does swing the other way as well
1:32:24 because if you just lay
1:32:25 as it is at the moment then the problem
1:32:27 is
1:32:28 then you'll end up having things that
1:32:30 are a negation of the very objectives of
1:32:33 freedom of speech like truth
1:32:34 accountability and progress like we saw
1:32:35 in the case with jeremy corbyn in terms
1:32:37 of the truth
1:32:38 um and remember you you need to define
1:32:41 mockery
1:32:42 my forget lampooning and mockery
1:32:46 in some context is fine so there's two
1:32:47 types of mockery isn't there as i said
1:32:49 before
1:32:50 there's actually dealing with ideas and
1:32:52 actions and actually dealing
1:32:54 with people so there's a subtle
1:32:56 difference
1:32:57 and you could easily articulate a case
1:32:59 for one of them and
1:33:00 that could be linked to someone's
1:33:02 dignity and it already exists in law
1:33:04 that's the thing it exists in british
1:33:06 law there's things to do with insult and
1:33:08 offense and intent
1:33:10 it already exists doctor so the thing is
1:33:12 this is not and what i'm saying is not
1:33:14 uncontroversial and it's not
1:33:15 authoritarian
1:33:16 or it's only authoritarian if you assume
1:33:18 that any type of criticism
1:33:20 is is going to be banned no i'm not
1:33:21 saying that at all and i want to be very
1:33:22 clear
1:33:23 i was assumed no it's not that i assume
1:33:25 that all criticism
1:33:27 of anyone will be banned it's just that
1:33:29 um currently it's just too nebulous i
1:33:31 don't even really to be at this point
1:33:32 i'm not entirely sure what it is that
1:33:34 we're restricting and how we're
1:33:35 restricting it
1:33:36 it's just that we have to respect
1:33:38 people's dignity well okay but
1:33:40 you know that bloke really is an awful
1:33:42 anti-muslim racist
1:33:43 and by saying that i am impugning his
1:33:46 dignity so am i not allowed to say it
1:33:49 who's going to decide whether i'm
1:33:51 allowed to say this or not
1:33:52 it's much better it seems to me that you
1:33:54 know you let him let him express
1:33:57 his views uh up to a point as long as
1:34:00 he's not actually inciting hatred and
1:34:02 someone against
1:34:03 against the particular community well um
1:34:06 and and and and we will respond and we
1:34:09 will ensure that
1:34:10 that that we live in a society in which
1:34:14 well let's i you know i i think we're on
1:34:17 the same page that you know there is a
1:34:18 real problem
1:34:20 with a few powerful individuals being
1:34:24 able to shape
1:34:25 the narrative about human beings and in
1:34:28 many cases
1:34:29 really misrepresenting them and smearing
1:34:31 them and
1:34:33 um there's no pushback at all because
1:34:36 they have the megaphone
1:34:38 not no one else i think we're agreed
1:34:40 about that we're just
1:34:41 disagreeing about what the best way
1:34:42 forward is would that be
1:34:45 maybe we should agree that that's a good
1:34:47 place we can at least agree about
1:34:49 that much and we've also kind of agreed
1:34:51 on a principle of consistency which is
1:34:53 that
1:34:54 you know i started off with political
1:34:56 secularism and saying
1:34:57 i don't think that religious beliefs
1:34:59 should be given any special treatment i
1:35:01 don't
1:35:02 understand why i mean i understand that
1:35:04 very often that
1:35:06 related to a sense of identity and
1:35:08 people feel very strongly about them and
1:35:10 so on but that's also true of many
1:35:12 political beliefs
1:35:13 and i don't think that just because the
1:35:14 beliefs are religious that they should
1:35:16 get special privileges and special
1:35:18 protections and so on and it sounds to
1:35:19 me like
1:35:20 you agree with me about that so maybe we
1:35:22 actually agree about quite a lot
1:35:25 well the good thing that what i've
1:35:27 captured from this is that
1:35:28 obviously we agree that freedom of
1:35:30 speech is not absolute freedom of speech
1:35:32 when it's restricted it has to be
1:35:33 continuous and values
1:35:35 uh competing certain values as david van
1:35:37 mil said and that's what the main
1:35:38 discussion has been about is
1:35:40 your ethics and your values how do you
1:35:42 ground them and how do you use them and
1:35:44 apply them and how do you link them to
1:35:45 law
1:35:46 so where i think our difference has has
1:35:48 come across
1:35:49 is from the perspective of diminishing
1:35:52 the dignity of others
1:35:54 it already exists in law in different
1:35:56 language so it's not kind of
1:35:57 you know neither here or there and i
1:35:59 wouldn't even say it's not even
1:36:00 authoritarian because remember as we
1:36:02 said the
1:36:03 the door can swing the other way as well
1:36:04 but we could talk about this until the
1:36:06 cows come home the philosophical cows
1:36:08 come home
1:36:09 so what i would say is first and
1:36:11 foremost
1:36:12 huge thank you for your time the most
1:36:14 important thing i think
1:36:16 that we have is time because if i said
1:36:18 you had 10 minutes left to live
1:36:20 and in order to get another 10 days you
1:36:22 have to give me all of your wealth i
1:36:23 think you will give me all of your
1:36:24 wealth
1:36:25 um so you gave me an hour and a half of
1:36:28 your time and i'm
1:36:29 extremely grateful for that and
1:36:32 i don't want this to be the end i you
1:36:34 know i think we should
1:36:35 i i i did my thesis on the philosophy of
1:36:39 the mind on the heart problem of
1:36:40 consciousness i would love to get you
1:36:41 ideas on that
1:36:43 um let's talk about that maybe one day
1:36:45 uh it would be great to do so and
1:36:46 hopefully when this covered mess is gone
1:36:48 we could do it face to face
1:36:50 um but yeah thank you for participating
1:36:52 i really want you back again and you
1:36:54 know
1:36:54 i could even come to your platforms one
1:36:55 day as well because i think what
1:36:57 if anything is very important and
1:37:00 obviously i'm gonna
1:37:01 bring a religious discourse here the
1:37:03 quran says that were created for a male
1:37:04 and female many different tribes and
1:37:06 nations
1:37:06 in order to know one another lead to
1:37:08 araful what people think this means
1:37:11 to know what makes us the same the quran
1:37:13 is saying no trying to find out what
1:37:15 makes you different
1:37:16 because really we need to be brave now
1:37:18 it's the differences that cause the fear
1:37:20 and the anxiety
1:37:21 if you educate on the differences even
1:37:24 if you disagree with them
1:37:25 at least you might see some relevance or
1:37:28 some humanity behind them or some
1:37:30 you'll be able to see their paradigm and
1:37:33 that
1:37:33 would at least diminish some fear and
1:37:35 anxiety so if anything that has happened
1:37:37 today
1:37:39 it's that we're able to discuss what
1:37:41 makes
1:37:42 our certain values distinct we've agreed
1:37:44 on a lot as well
1:37:45 and i think what is shown to people
1:37:47 muslims and non-muslims that we can have
1:37:49 these conversations
1:37:50 without diminishing our dignity from
1:37:53 that perspective
1:37:57 i'll give you the last sentence say
1:37:58 bye-bye to everybody and uh
1:38:00 oh okay well uh thank you very much that
1:38:02 was really enjoyable i've only just
1:38:04 um noticed that there are lots of um
1:38:06 comments being made i should have
1:38:07 i should have clicked the link and seen
1:38:09 those earlier on i might have responded
1:38:10 to some of them had i
1:38:12 so yeah so yeah so i didn't so i
1:38:13 apologize for that i should have been
1:38:15 paying attention
1:38:16 but anyway it was um it was fun and uh
1:38:19 yeah i enjoyed it and uh yeah maybe
1:38:22 we'll do it again
1:38:23 yeah there's lots to unpack for another
1:38:25 time and definitely thank you very much
1:38:26 for your time dr stephen you take care
1:38:28 of yourself
1:38:28 stay safe take care bye
1:38:32 bye