Wrong think

I think it's extremely worrying that hundreds of trans activists around the country feel it's perfectly okay to condemn people for having opinions they disagree with and it's perfectly okay to then persecute, harass and abuse them until they change their opinions or keep a strict silence. And it's perfectly okay if the persistent wrong-thinker is sanctioned or sacked by their employer and their life is shattered.

The Irish comedy writer Graham Linehan, who co-created the unforgettable character Father Ted, has been persecuted for years now over his opinion that nobody can change sex, that transwomen aren't women, and that sexual self-identification is a nonsense. As a result of his stance, he has lost lucrative work, become financially destitute, and has seen his marriage collapse.

Just this week his scheduled appearance at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe was cancelled because of his views on transgender. The venue Leith Arches said that "his views do not align with our overall values." Whatever that means.

It's incredible and shocking that in the year 2023 someone's opinions can be ruthlessly monitored and they can be victimised and censured simply for having an opinion that differs from the prevailing view.

Who gives these fanatical activists the right to act as thought police? Why don't they realise that what they're doing is outrageous? And why aren't more people speaking up and saying this is unacceptable behaviour?

It's beside the point whether you agree with Graham Linehan's opinions or not. What matters is that there's a long tradition of freedom of speech in Britain and suddenly that tradition is being relentlessly trampled on.

PS: He performed in front of the Scottish Parliament on Thursday evening.

Pic: Graham Linehan

Non believer

It's about time I nailed my colours to the mast and confessed that I don't believe in gender identity and I don't believe transwomen are women. We're either male or female, we behave in ways that are seen as masculine or feminine, and that's it. And it's absolutely impossible to change sex.

Apparently that makes me transphobic, bigoted, fascistic and anti-semitic (and in some cases even anti-abortion). I need to wise up, educate myself, and show some kindness towards the most oppressed and suicidal minority in the world. And if I try to defend my views, I'll be shunned and no-platformed.

But the way "trans" people are currently viewed is relatively recent and very different from how they were viewed (and viewed themselves) just a few decades ago.

In the last century, male transsexuals, as they were then known, lived as women but never for a moment believed they were real women. Neither did they believe they had actually changed sex. There were very few of them and because of that they were fairly easily accepted as make-believe women.

That's all changed and now it's not enough to see them "living as" women. We're expected to see them as the real thing, identical to those women who've been born and brought up as women. If they "feel like" women, then that's what they are, and it's not open for discussion.

Prominent public figures who oppose the new transgender beliefs have been viciously trolled and denigrated, often the target of death threats and in some cases forced out of their jobs. Their requests for an open-minded debate on transgender, recognising different opinions, are ignored.

A huge number of people actually disagree with the new thinking, but hesitate to speak up for fear of the consequences. So the nonsense proliferates.

Pic: Professor Kathleen Stock, who was forced out of her post at Sussex University after a militant campaign by trans activists.

Write and wrong

The writer Sebastian Faulks is involved in a bizarre argument over whether he should describe the physical appearance of women in his books.

After his last book was published, several people complained that as a man he had no right to describe a woman's appearance.

He had a good think about it and decided not to describe the appearance of the female protagonist in his latest book "Snow Country". He's leaving what she looks like to his readers' imagination. There are one or two hints but that's it.

Other authors have leapt to Sebastian Faulks' defence, saying it's absurd not to describe a woman's appearance. "The idea that writers can't invent characters beyond their own communities is ridiculous" says Bernardine Evaristo. And Dawn French says "The minute we start to police people's imaginations, we go down a very nasty old route."

The logical conclusion of a man not writing about a woman's appearance is that he shouldn't write about women at all, which would be ludicrous.

Surely the real issue is not whether a man writes about a woman's appearance but how he writes about it. If it's merely a matter-of-fact description of her physical features, what's wrong with that? But if he describes her in a sexualised way (big boobs, tempting lips, shapely bottom etc), that's entirely different and obviously annoying to many female readers.

If a man couldn't write about women, or white people couldn't write about black people, or heterosexuals couldn't write about gay people, and so on, where would it end? Books would be stripped to the bone. You could just about mention Jasper the dog and that would be that. Until someone objected that you couldn't write about dogs because you weren't a dog.

Sebastian Faulks should have stood firm and ignored the idiotic criticisms.

Publish and be damned

Controversy rages over whether Woody Allen's Memoir "Apropos of Nothing" should have been published, given he's now got a rather seedy reputation and seems to be something of an unrepentant misogynist. And given that it's published, should we buy it or read it?

Well, the irony is that according to those who've read it, like Catherine Bennett in the Guardian, it's not at all a whitewash job crushing all the accusations and portraying him as a jolly decent chap who's been unfairly maligned. On the contrary, it makes his rampant misogyny crystal clear and destroys his once shiny reputation.

In which case we should all be reading it to acquaint ourselves with his thoroughly predatory attitudes.

But the row once again raises the question, is it right to ban books, or any other artistic product, because of the off-stage behaviour of the person concerned?

To my mind, a person's artistic output should be judged on its intrinsic merit, and however reprehensible their personal life, that's an entirely separate issue.

Once you start saying a book should be boycotted because of the author's "misbehaviour", you're politicising it and weaponising it. Art shouldn't be a political football, it should be a cultural experience pure and simple.

Otherwise what's the difference between right-on politicos shunning the work of a "misogynist" author and a government banning a book it deems "immoral" or "subversive" or "unpatriotic"? They're both claiming the right to decide for the rest of us what's in the public interest and what isn't. And who gave them that right? Not me, for one.

All the controversy has just whetted my appetite to read the book and see for myself just how much unbridled lechery was hidden behind the charming facade.

PS: Here's a more positive review of the book - https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/books/120726348/book-review-apropos-of-nothing-by-woody-allen

Dodgy authors

The regular controversy over whether famous books should be withdrawn or boycotted because of the author's question-able behaviour is once more in the news because publishers are increasingly putting morality clauses into their contracts.

Which makes me ask myself if I should be taking the same censorious attitude and weeding from my bookshelves all those authors whose personal lives are or were reprehensible.

Should I throw out anyone guilty of sexual misconduct or violence? Anyone using pornography or prostitutes? Anyone who has made racist or homophobic remarks? Anyone who supports extreme right-wing groups?

It's a difficult question. I wouldn't want famous books with a huge literary reputation to disappear forever simply because the author's personal behaviour is outrageous. I don't see what's wrong with praising the book while at the same time condemning the way they behave.

But then again, isn't that tantamount to saying the author's personal life doesn't really matter because they're a literary genius and their appalling behaviour can be swept under the carpet? That brilliant turns of phrase are more important than a battered wife?

There's a difference of course between living authors who we're judging by current norms and long-dead authors whose behaviour seems dreadful now but was probably less contentious at the time. Why should they be judged against today's more rigorous standards? It would be absurd to banish Dickens or Shakespeare or Tolstoy.

I don't intend to remove books from my bookshelves, books that I greatly enjoyed and may have re-read several times, because of the author's squalid behaviour. How many authors are beyond reproach in their personal lives? Not many, I suspect.

I'm very torn between strict censorship and a more pragmatic approach. Especially as censorship can all too easily escalate.

Pic: Lionel Shriver, who has been criticised for her views on diversity (Shriver herself says she has been "maliciously misinterpreted")
..................................................................................

Was in Cambridge yesterday (Tuesday) for my mum's cremation. Very simple, no service or tributes, just the coffin being dispatched, as my mum wanted. My niece and I were both crying copiously, the first time I've cried for a very long time. The coffin really brings it home that this is the end.

Trigger happy

When does sensitivity to others become over-sensitivity and censorship? The question that springs to mind after a professor of literature allegedly dropped a well-known book from her curriculum and issued a trigger warning on her other course books.

Supposedly, after consulting with students, Professor Judith Hawley removed Fanny Hill from the reading list on the grounds that it contains "pornographic material" and may "cause offence". Supposedly again, her trigger warning explained that certain texts "sometimes reflect the unpleasant prejudices of their time" (However, Professor Hawley says she never banned the book, and never issued a trigger warning, so what actually happened is unclear)

But it's an important issue. Should a lecturer have to be so defensive simply because some students might be offended by words in a book? Surely the whole point of a literature course is to appraise an entire book, with all its negative and positive points, and not to pre-judge it by banning it or issuing warnings about its content?

Many books contain "pornographic material". Many books might "cause offence" or include "unpleasant prejudices". If all books were banned or given trigger warnings for those reasons, there wouldn't be many books left that were safe to read. Literature courses would be reduced to studying children's books or romantic fiction.

Why are books being considered on the basis of whether they offend people or not, rather than their literary or cultural or creative merits? Why are complex works of art being seen only as emotional triggers?

And if students are so over-sensitive to course material they need protecting from it, maybe they should be taking a less stressful course? Maybe accountancy or bricklaying?

Personally, I would say a book that isn't disturbing is hardly worth reading. I like my cosy preconceptions to be rudely jolted.

PS: Professor Hawley has denied banning Fanny Hill, saying it was never on her reading list in the first place (The Guardian) Unfortunately at least nine media outlets have repeated the "censorship" story so most people will continue to believe Fanny Hill was censored. The Telegraph hasn't published any further story or correction. I sent them an official complaint, asking them to publish a correction or provide the sources for their story. They replied that their story was an accurate account of what Professor Hawley had said, and was not in any way incorrect. Professor Hawley has thanked me for my interest in the issue, but she makes no further comment one way or the other.

Pic: Professor Hawley

A torrent of abuse

I make no apologies for returning to the subject of political abuse, which has reached horrifying levels and deeply worries me as it's a deliberate attempt to censor and silence people you disagree with.

It's now completely normal for public figures with controversial views to be deluged with literally thousands of abusive and threatening messages, both online and offline, and little is being done to stop it.

Women with strong feminist opinions (or any opinions) are targeted. Critics of Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour Party leader, are targeted. Black people are targeted. Sportspeople are targeted. Even school pupils who don't "fit in" are targeted by other pupils. And not just with mild, half-hearted abuse but with vicious, brutal abuse, including death threats and the hope that they're in line for a terminal illness.

Baroness Wheatcroft, who opposes Brexit, says the level of hostility against her during the referendum campaign was appalling. Even now the post and emails she's receiving are unbelievable and "all inhibitions have gone".

It's encouraging that public figures facing this torrent of abuse day in and day out are carrying on and not quitting under the pressure. But many of them wonder if it's worth the relentless hatred, especially if it's affecting their friends and families and not just themselves.

What's really worrying is the fascist overtone of it all. If it gets to the point where people are hiding their views and staying silent to avoid an online lynching, if they're keeping their heads down and playing safe or their lives will be hell, then democracy is in serious danger.

I've already said I don't feel at all British. If I was prone to shame, which luckily I'm not, I think I'd be utterly ashamed to live in a country where such savage, ruthless abuse of anyone you dislike is increasingly seen as normal.

Do not disturb

We should all be exposed to the widest possible range of ideas and opinions, so our knowledge of the world and other people is as complete as it can be. So I'm not in favour of the arbitrary censorship of supposedly "undesirable" and "dangerous" ideas.

Which is why I strongly support the University of Chicago's statement that it won't go along with such censorship, whether it's trigger warnings on books with "disturbing" content, no-platforming of "offensive" speakers, or the existence of "safe spaces" free of upsetting opinions.

All these things are contrary to their commitment to academic freedom, says the university.

Unfortunately the statement has been leapt on by those whose life is dedicated to mocking what they call "political correctness". Or what the rest of us call treating people decently and not crapping on them. So there's a reluctance to say that in this case the anti-PC brigade may have a point.

In general I find the whole concept of "political correctness" odious and mischievous, an ongoing attempt to resist greater equality and maintain elitism and privilege. Same-sex marriages? Transgender folk in the "wrong" bathroom? All-women short lists? Whatever next? It's political correctness gone mad!

However it seems to me that what the University of Chicago and other universities are resisting isn't "political correctness" but something much more familiar - over protectiveness.

They're not opposing tiresome bans and restrictions so much as the over protective indulgence of students too squeamish to deal with ideas and opinions very contrary to their own. Instead of hearing out those ideas and evaluating them, they want to shut them out and pretend they don't exist. Sorry, but that just ain't possible.

There's nothing radical or progressive about trying to silence people you don't agree with. It's much smarter to check out those opposing ideas and then comprehensively demolish them. Listen politely, then whip the rug from under their feet.

All steamed up

This fiasco in Italy is exactly why I have no time for the organised church. Not content to encourage religious beliefs, they too often want to impose those beliefs on everyone else, with utter contempt for people's freedom of opinion. In this case, proselytising has become overt censorship.

The Catholic Church, which owns over 1,100 cinemas in Italy, has decreed that the film "Weekend", from the same director who made "45 Years", is irreligious and has banned it from all their cinemas.

According to the Italian Conference of Bishops' Film Evaluation Commission, the film is "not advised, unusable and scabrous (indecent or salacious)." It claims that the film's main themes - seen by critics as love and identity - are actually drugs and homosexuality.

So now it can be seen in just ten independent cinemas not controlled by the Catholic Church.

The film is in fact about two gay men who meet in a club and spend the weekend together. They talk about sex, relationships, coming out, careers and aspirations, before finally separating.

Says Cesare Petrillo, the distribution company's President, "I cannot see any other explanation than a problem of homophobia in the church. They decided that it was unacceptable, that it should be censored, and they have used their power to paralyse the distribution."

What gives the church the right to censor a film, or anything else, and declare that people can't decide for themselves what they think of it? What gives them the right to say their views are the only valid ones and other views count for nothing?

I have plenty of time for religious teachings in general. People like the Dalai Lama, Gandhi, Buddha and Jesus have helped many troubled individuals to live better and more productive lives. But what repels me is when religions aggressively seek converts and try to control other people. When they turn into ruthless empire-builders rather than spiritual advisers. That's when humility gives way to arrogance and the rot sets in.

Pic: Chris New and Tom Cullen in "Weekend"

No platform

Continuing with the same theme, a National Union of Students officer has refused to share a platform with the well-known progressive campaigner Peter Tatchell, on the grounds that he's racist and transphobic. When he asked her for evidence, she refused to speak to him and wouldn't produce any.

Anyone who knows Peter knows very well he's never been remotely racist or transphobic. On the contrary, he's backed every anti-racist and pro-transgender campaign in his 49 years of human rights work. The accusations are totally absurd.

Yet the NUS officer, Fran Cowling, won't back down and the NUS leadership is supporting her rather than Peter. Peter sees this as another example of the growing censorship of free speech at universities and elsewhere.

He says: "This sorry, sad saga is symptomatic of the decline of free and open debate on some university campuses. There is a witch-hunting, accusatory atmosphere. Allegations are made without evidence to back them - or worse, they are made citing false, trumped-up evidence.

"The race to be more left-wing and politically correct than anyone else is resulting in an intimidating, excluding atmosphere on campuses. Universal human rights and enlightenment values....are often shamefully rubbished as the ideas of Western imperialist white privilege."

He points out that even if he did happen to be racist or transphobic, the best response isn't to shut the person out (what's called no-platforming) but to debate with them and expose their views for the nonsense they are. Open debate is surely what universities are all about.

But Fran Cowling and the NUS are happy to see Peter smeared as some kind of entrenched bigot, and then when he asks for evidence, they're too sneaky and cowardly even to respond. They're beneath contempt.

Pic: Peter Tatchell

All too much

You would think this painting is pretty unremarkable compared to the way women are now routinely depicted in the news media, art galleries, films and advertising. A bit of bare flesh, a bit of cleavage, not much clothing.

But it was all too much for the sheltered folk at the Mall Galleries in London, who took one look at it and decided it was "disgusting" and "pornographic". They removed it from the Society of Women Artists' Annual Exhibition and replaced it with something they thought was more suitable.

They explained that they had had a number of complaints and children who happened to be walking through the gallery on the way to other events might be disturbed by it.

Disturbed by what exactly? The modest patch of pubic hair? The partially-uncovered breasts? The unbuttoned culottes? The self-confident swagger? Is it in any way threatening or violent or deformed or sinister? Why would any child pay any particular attention to it, let alone be disturbed by it?

The artist, Leena McCall, was furious at the removal of the portrait. She said she was baffled as to how a painting with no intimate flesh apart from "the pelvic triangle" could be seen as pornographic.

Art galleries everywhere have copious nude portraits and sculptures of both sexes that attract no complaints whatever. Why the strange over-reaction to this slightly unusual painting?

The journalist Rowan Pelling suggests it's because the subject is not the normal passive, unassuming female but looks assertive and appraising - provocative even.

And she wonders "if the cross-legged Puritans responsible for defenestrating the portrait have ever seen Gustave Courbet's L'Origine du Monde at the Musée d'Orsay, with its splendid sprawl of black-haired vulva." A painting which leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination.

All a bit of a whipped-up storm in a teacup, surely?

Pic: Ms Ruby May, Standing by Leena McCall

Mindless spleen

The journalist Robert Fisk has made a heartfelt plea for action to curb the rising tide of abusive and venomous comments on the internet. He says an increasing number of media sites are suspending or restricting online comments because mindless spleen is taking over from serious thinking.

He is disturbed that privacy and anonymity is becoming more important than responsibility, and instant reaction counts more than considered opinion.

He refers to the personal trauma that such vicious abuse can cause. He mentions the suicide of an Irish government minister. He could also have mentioned the many young people who have killed themselves as a result of relentless online bullying.

Personally, when I read the comments on media articles, I'm often shocked by how vitriolic and brutal they are. Under cover of anonymity, the writers simply lash out like brainless thugs.

These aren't comments in any normal sense. They don't come from a thorough and considered reading of an article. They don't show any respect or sympathy for other people's views or circumstances. They don't have any intelligent thoughts or fresh perspectives to offer. They are simply verbal kickings trying to harm some vulnerable, sensitive human being.

It's the ability to be anonymous that allows the commenters to be as malicious as they like, ignore all the usual conventions of decent behaviour, and not have any comeback. They can burst out of their hiding-places, lob a few online grenades, then disappear again, and nothing can be done to stop them except in very serious cases where the police are compelled to trace their identities.

It seems to me the media either have to ban anonymity or restrict online comments. The first may discourage some worthwhile comments, the second is a form of censorship, but surely either of those is preferable to people being scared that voicing their opinions will just unleash a sickening torrent of abuse.

Shrugging your shoulders and saying "Oh well, that's the internet for you" simply isn't good enough any more.

Just like Ferdinand

Jenny has always likened me to Ferdinand the Bull in the famous children's story. While everyone else is busy go-getting and getting-on, I prefer to sit quietly under a tree and smell the flowers. Or at least ruminate on the meaning of existence and whether it's really true, in every single case, that two and two make four. The really important stuff, in other words.

I've never been especially ambitious. I had no desire to be a mover and shaker, a captain of industry, a cultural icon, or even a glittering celeb. A bit of comfort, a bit of money, a bit of intellectual nourishment and a few friends are all I need.

Everyone expected Ferdinand the Bull to be fierce and frightening so he could star in a bullfight, but he wasn't interested. When he was taken to a bullring, he just sat quietly in the middle of the ring sniffing the flowers in the women spectators' hair. He refused to be fierce and they had to take him back home instead.

At first his mother thought he must be lonely under the cork tree and encouraged him to play with other bulls, but then she realised he was quite happy where he was and left him to it.

And what happened after the bullfight? "For all I know he is sitting there still, under his favourite cork tree, smelling the flowers just quietly."

Ferdinand wasn't always allowed to sit quietly in real life either. Bizarrely, soon after the book was published in 1937, it was banned by several countries on the grounds that it was too pacifist and left-wing. Of course this was a red rag to a bull, and lefties everywhere promptly promoted the book and made it immensely popular.

I can't sit quietly under a tree right now as there's an arctic wind blowing, but I shall sit in my favourite armchair and ruminate. That is, until I feel an urgent need for chocolate.

Pic: Ferdinand the Bull from the Walt Disney film of 1938

Not just a movie

Some films come so close to horrific real-life events that they can cause serious distress to those watching them. But is it justified to pull the films from cinemas to avoid upsetting people? Or should they just be reminded that fiction, after all, isn't reality?

The question arises again with the news that Clint Eastwood's new film, Hereafter, starring Cecile de France, is to be withdrawn from Japanese cinemas because it features a journalist nearly dying after she's caught in a devastating Asian tsunami.

An official at Warner Brothers said that the tsunami sequences in the film were "not appropriate" at the present time, and that the film would therefore no longer be shown.

One blogger has said that her own sister and cousin were caught in the Boxing Day tsunami in Thailand in 2004 and when she watched Hereafter she was very upset by the footage where de France is swept away in a massive wall of water.

It's easy to argue that freedom of expression is sacrosanct and that if people think they'll be upset they shouldn't watch the film, but when huge numbers of people have been personally caught up in an eerily similar disaster and are likely to be highly distraught, perhaps it's right to withdraw it.

It's only a film, it's not essential to show it, and it can still return to cinemas at some later date when emotions have settled down. If that's ever possible, that is, after such a shocking and traumatic experience.

Some 45 films were edited, delayed or abandoned after the Twin Towers attack in New York. They may have been fictional but they were too close to a shattering real-life event to be shrugged off as mere movies.

Of course you can argue that once you start censoring films because they might upset people, where do you stop? But one or two withdrawals out of respect for widespread personal distress hardly amount to censorship. There are thousands more films out there we're still free to watch and be entertained by. It's a very small sacrifice to make.

PS: It is reported that Clint Eastwood supports the decision by Warner Brothers, and is to donate some of the profits from the DVD to charities responding to the Japanese earthquake. He says: “The devastation and loss Japan is facing is almost incomprehensible. I’m glad to join Warner Brothers in this effort to help the Japanese people.”

Pic: Tsunami reaching land in Japan

Mindless ban

As some of you know, my sister Heather, who is 60, has had motor neurone disease for six years. She's remarkably stoical about this dreadful illness, which rapidly destroys normal functions like walking and speaking. She just battles on and enjoys whatever she's still able to do.

The Motor Neurone Disease Association, which provides all kinds of support to those with the illness, has just produced a TV advert to make people more aware of MND and encourage donations and offers of help.

But the body that monitors TV adverts (Clearcast) has inexplicably decided that the ad is too graphic and shocking to be shown on TV.

It's no more shocking than the drink-driving and speeding ads that are shown constantly. It's no more shocking than the grisly sequences of violence, bloodshed and carnage that appear regularly on the news and in films. Yet this faceless body has seen fit to ban it and prevent the MNDA from promoting its work and helping those struggling with desperate circumstances.

The MNDA is trying to get the ban reversed and persuade Clearcast that their decision is irrational and illogical. In the meantime the ad can still be shown in cinemas, where it's getting an excellent response.

It beats me what's so extreme about the ad. A woman collapsing on the floor? A woman confined to a wheelchair? A woman feeling isolated and shunned? A woman in her underwear? The only thing that's shocking is her loss of independence and disrupted life. Which is exactly what MND involves. So why the ban?

If you want to watch the ad, it's here.

NB: Photo is not my sister but a model