The recent decision to ban the song ‘blurred lines’ by the University of London Union and the debate surrounding the decision hinges on one important word, increasingly in vogue as the justification for such bans, namely ‘normalisation’. Seemingly unbeknown to those who wield the word to silence anything they consider undesirable or unpleasant, the word ‘normalisation’ makes those who have any knowledge of the history of totalitarian socialism in Eastern Europe shudder as they see the slogan branded by those who mercilessly crushed the Prague spring in 1968 being used by their own student union. Perhaps its not as bad as having a barbeque to burn copies of the song or calling the policy ‘musical re-education’ but none the less this should hopefully be a disturbing choice of words chosen to label an already worrying policy. Even if this the farce that follows the tragedy under the leadership of Michael Chessum and Daniel Cooper ULU has strived in its commitment to be part of the farcical afterglow which has followed the death of socialism the world over. Decisions like these are increasingly making more students look forward to the end of this year when the union that Chessum and his comrades run is finally closed down and their oh so noble insurgency and twilight resistance against the Clegg and Cameron coalition of doom is finally put out to pasture.
To return to the issue at hand, need the argument be restated again as to why some students find the idea of simply banning and outlawing not only a dangerous policy which is a slap in the face of the liberal educational values a university is supposed to uphold and embody but also one that is exceptionally insulting. Call it radical but perhaps it should be questioned whether clumsily banning such songs is a more dangerous normalisation of a culture of censorship and suppression of freedom of speech than Robin Thicke’s atrocious song which supposedly normalises a culture of rape by simply including the words ‘I know you want it/ You’re a good girl’?
Call us old fashioned but some of the subjects of ULU, the author of this piece included, believe that we are grown up and adult enough to listen to such lyrics without them altering our views and beliefs on the gravity of the crime of rape. In the same way feel ourselves being perfectly capable of having a responsible and healthy relationship with the alcohol the union so generously allows us to drink in the ULU bar. An important point does here arise out of that which might seem trivial as to concede the principle that the student union, or any governmental authority, knows best and thus must limit our freedom in order to secure our safety and to act for our own good, is to place ourselves squarely on Mr Hayek’s road to serfdom. To concede that governing bodies are knowledgeable enough as to make such micro managements of society and thus hand themselves the responsibility as well as the authority to do so then there is no limit to the extent to which it can pass arbitrary ruling after arbitrary ruling. Such haphazard attempts to centrally engineer society gain their own momentum as their inevitable creation of more problems requires more disastrous and increasingly indiscriminate measures to salvage the last salvo of blunders. The only thing proved by such irresponsible policy making is the sheer ignorance of government which it was arrogant enough to first presume it possessed.
The only way to cover and deny such ignorance is to resort to the bazar and the mystical which brings us back to absurd terms such as ‘the normalisation of cultures of rape or misogyny’. These terms have no definable or specific meanings and to look for one is to try to nail the proverbial jelly to a wall. However they are terms used to justify the very specific interventions under discussion, because not being able to justify these interventions on the basis of evidence, such as how many rapes are going to be prevented by removing the lyrics ‘I know you want it’ from the union bar, the only defence is to revert into the pseudo religious by indignantly employing such vacant terms, the penalty for challenging which is too often social crucifixion.
Its easy to wonder if all this would be 100% clearer if the politically active students on campus spent less time attempting and pretending to read the 1000 stale and incoherent pages of Marx’s Das Kapital and instead diverted their attention to the remarkably slim and easy to read volume which is The Road to Serfdom, authored by that now sadly all too obscure Austrian economist Friedrich Von Hayek. Perhaps injecting a more liberal streak into the body politic of ULU would teach students that their university experience is an invaluable opportunity to realise that if they support or detest different points of view then open debate or learning the art of peaceful co-existence is superior in the long run to forging rods that might someday bind their backs by banning the opposition or creating ‘cultures of prohibition’.
No comments:
Post a Comment