The New Inquisition -- Policing Private Speech
We say things in private that we may not want broadcast to the public. It is the speaker's right to decide whether their thoughts go public -- not a person they've spoken to in a certain confidence: that of what used to be thought of as private life.
I write about this in a section on privacy in "Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck" -- quoting the famous (and wonderful-to-read Harvard Law Review article from 1898, by Brandeis and Warren).
Brendan O'Neill writes at Spiked that the new speech police want to control what we can say in private:
Slowly, tentatively, today's self-styled warriors against hateful or offensive speech are turning their attentions from the public square to the private sphere, desiring nothing less than the punishment of men and women for saying apparently bad things in their own homes or in utterly cut-off chats with mates. Having outlawed certain forms of public speech, they're now hell-bent on criminalising certain forms of private chatter, and even thought itself.Over the past month, there have been a handful of scary cases on both sides of the Atlantic that have exposed our betters' latent urge to violate the once-sacred space of private life and tell us what we can think and say there. In Britain, the chief executive of the Premier League, Richard Scudamore, was hauled over the coals for things he said in private conversations with, as he describes them, 'friends of many years'. In the course of completely private email chats, Scudamore used fruity or sexist language (depending on your point of view) to describe women. His friends and he referred to someone having sex with 'skinny big-titted broads'. They used Carry On-style double entendres in a chat about golf, with one saying he had spent 'all day fending Edna off my graphite shaft'. (The subject of that somewhat infantile banter, one Peta Bistany, says she wasn't offended by the emails.)
...His emails were leaked to the Sunday Mirror by his (personal assistant), Rani Abraham, who has since become a feminist icon and tabloid star for claiming she felt 'humiliated and belittled' by Scudamore's email banter. It is testament to how far today's poisonous culture of betrayal-sanctioning, Wikileaks-style leaking has gone when a woman who read and then helped to publish a man's private thoughts is treated as the hero of the story. Truly do we live in an Orwellian society when snitching is treated as the highest public duty, and public exposure of someone for having the 'wrong' private thoughts is applauded by media and politicians.
His assistant needs to be fired for violating his privacy in giving those emails to the news media. That f&cking snitch of a bitch!
Charles at May 23, 2014 2:00 AM
Time for making abuse of personal status an example of someone's "honor" and treat them and those that support them appropriately.
For those that are in the public eye, sue the hell out of them if you can afford it. Make war on social networks making the point that Amy does above.
For those not in the public eye, tell your friends the truth and consider a private execution after a year or so.
Bob in Texas at May 23, 2014 6:14 AM
This is no surprise... in America, our public schools explicitly train children to monitor and report their parents for incorrect behavior (e.g. owning guns). In the next step, it won't be necessary for a child or a personal assistant to leak anything, because the government will already have the info via universal surveillance. Administrators will leak information on dissidents or the politically incorrect. Or, failing to find any, they'll just fabricate some; there is nothing the accused will be able to do to disprove it.
Cousin Dave at May 23, 2014 6:39 AM
Wow, Cousin Dave, that is 1984-level chilling.
Do you have a link we can use? Kids ratting out gun-owning parents is just ... beyond bizarre.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at May 23, 2014 8:17 AM
Gog, I believe related this story here, but sometimes it's worth repeating. When my youngest was in kindergarten (15 years ago), she received a DARE (Drug and Alcohol Resistance Education) coloring book from our city's DARE officer. She came home that night convinced she had to call 911 because her step-father and I drank, and he took prescription medications. I couldn't figure out what she was talking about, until I flipped to the center page. There was a double page spread of all the bad things that people shouldn't do, i.e. a wine glass, a pile of pills, a cigarette, a joint, cocaine lines and all with the red circle and line through the item. Talk about sending a message. Even worse, my daughter was terrified at the thought of not only having to report her parents, but that then we were going to go to jail because we were "bad people." Needless to say, none of my children participated in the DARE program after I raised hell at the school with the principal. I think the school also stopped distributing the coloring book to the kids.
sara at May 23, 2014 9:44 AM
"This act requires a parent or guardian to notify a school district,... that he or she owns a weapon within 30 days of enrolling the child in school or becoming the owner of a weapon."
http://www.mississippigunnews.com/missouri-bill-turns-parents-who-own-guns-into-criminals/
Simple for a teacher to ask the kids "Does your daddy own a gun?"
Bob in Texas at May 23, 2014 10:10 AM
Donald Sterling's comments were meant to be private also.
Nick at May 23, 2014 10:17 AM
The American Association of Pediatricians has for some time been encouraging pediatricians to ask children about guns in the home and about their parents' political affiliations. Obama's recent nominee for Surgeon General would very much like to make the collection of that information mandatory, as he has stated.
Cousin Dave at May 23, 2014 10:32 AM
"Donald Sterling's comments were meant to be private also."
He should have known better. He knew who he was talking to. Someone who probably blabs about the size of his dick or how he snores to her friends is not going to be a trusted confidante.
Jim at May 23, 2014 1:27 PM
Gog,
Public schools have been trying to get kids to rat on their parents for years. When I was in grade school (I think it was 3rd grade, 1988ish) we were all asked how much money our parents made. I named the biggest number I could think of at the time, $10k/year. To me that was a huge sum of money. My parents got quite annoyed with CPS and the other groups who then wanted to put us on all kinds of welfare, free shoes/lunches/... Not to mention concerns of taking us kids away.
Ben at May 23, 2014 5:37 PM
If you buy the idea of "hate crimes", then, you automatically back any means to determine whether or not you harbor such hate.
Radwaste at May 25, 2014 9:35 PM
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