Sticks and Stones
Scotland's new hate crime laws are descending into folly.
After the Scottish Government implemented its controversial hate crime laws this week, I was mildly relieved. The home of the Enlightenment hasn't neglected its sense of grim irony.
For the last few months, the 'Hate Hurts' campaign has warned Scots to 'be kind.' Another campaign employed a fluffy Hate Monster to show just how apparently backwards the Scottish people can be.
On the website, I watched the Hate Hurts video. Ominous music mingles with smashed glass and thumping fists. Troglodytes scream and abuse their quivering victims. It's all rather grim.
I thought such a campaign would welcome one's input. I wanted to say that violence, intimidation, harassment, racism, abuse, and general knuckle-dragging behaviour are thankfully the preserve of a vanishing few. Ironically, I couldn't express such a hum-drum opinion. Beneath the flagship video: 'Comments have been turned off.'
The law creates new 'stirring up of hatred' offences for protected characteristics including age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, and transgender identity—notably, it leaves out women.
In Scotland, the prosecution need only prove that a remark was 'likely' to offend rather than 'intended' to offend. This hinges on whether a 'reasonable person' would consider such remarks 'threatening or abusive.'
What is a hate crime? According to Police Scotland: "Any crime which is perceived by the victim or any other person as being motivated (wholly or partly) by malice or ill will towards a social group."
The law applies to anything said anywhere—on social media, in newspapers, at the kitchen table, and between bar stools.
Kids can even grass up their parents. Scots can report their thought-marauding friends, colleagues, and neighbours through a network of 400 'third party reporting centres' including several university campuses, a mushroom farm, and even a sex shop. Penalties include fines, and up to seven years in prison.
Authorities are yet to confirm on which breast offenders must display their scarlet letter.
One-third of the Scottish police are yet to receive any training on this sweeping new law. Amongst the rank-and-file, the spectre of threatening and abusive material seeping out of public performances such as plays creeps like sarin gas. Such forbidden filth threatens to mutate ordinary Scots into far-right zombies, parroting Andrew Tate's pitiful jock philosophy.
Police have absorbed over 4,000 reports of hate crimes in the first 48 hours. Mercifully, many Scots are still evidently well-versed in the timeless Scottish art of taking the piss. At the time of writing, the Scottish first minister Humza Yousaf edges J. K. Rowling in the battle for the inaugural title of Scotland's Most Hateful Person. Second prize, I believe, is a set of steak knives.
Not to worry, those coppers recently announced a new 'proportional response strategy'. Police will no longer investigate crimes such as smashed windows, or run-of-the-mill thefts. This 'new approach' to policing, which contravenes the very definition of policing, saves the rozzers 24,000 fewer investigations and 130,000 man-hours per year. That leaves plenty of time to investigate those unenlightened beings poxed with the false belief that women don't have cocks.
Nobody has any idea what is going on. On the first day of the Scottish Unenlightenment, a Scottish National Party minister said J. K. Rowling's gender-critical tweets could bring the coppers to her door.
On Twitter, J. K. Rowling had reeled off a string of photographs of trans people. She then called those biological men 'men.'
Siobhian Brown, the SNP's community safety minister, had claimed referring to a trans woman as a 'he' would not break the new law. Later on, she said the police would decide whether such misgendering would count as a hate crime.
"It could be reported, and it could be investigated. Whether or not the police would think it was criminal is up to Police Scotland for that," said Brown.
You could taste the acrid, small-town glee steaming from the repressive and literal minded. Rajan Barot, a former fraud prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service, warned Rowling that her Twitter posts, many of which state that biological men are not and cannot become women, would most likely contravene the new law and advised her to delete them.
Police later confirmed the very rich and very visible author would not face prosecution for her stubborn grasp of biological reality—at least whilst the universe watched on in a state of unadulterated fremdschämen.
Not to worry, the hapless Humza Yousaf is on the case. Known as Humza Useless, the Scottish first minister is a theatrical tribute to the inadequately medicated. A one-man repudiation of intelligent design.
In the vainglorious patter of the failed-celeb class, Useless assured us: "Solely stating a belief which might be offensive to some people does not breach the criminal threshold," he said. "Through the legislative process, we have created offences that—rightly—have a high threshold of prosecution."
And yet, confusion reigns. On the government website, campaign literature appears to conflate 'painful' words with 'hateful' words. One passage reads, "Words can hurt and can have a detrimental effect on how someone feels about themselves. Other people might go, 'It's nothing, it's just a few words.' It's not nothing. It's a painful and difficult event to go through."
Reader, I know words can and do hurt. But it appears we're blurring the lines between meanness and hatred.
That's unsurprising. Our culture's enlightened high priests routinely sever the lines between unacceptable racism and the voguish kind they so shamelessly vomit upon the oiks.
According to Police Scotland, a Hate Monster lives inside of us, that is—a fluffy demented Elmo who feeds on anger and hatred. Don't feed the Hate Monster!
And where does this demon lurk? Inside the minds of those with a particular skin colour and adorned with particular genitalia. Apparently, our immutable characteristics define who we are. I'm just about old enough to remember when enlightened people deemed such crude thinking passé.
Police Scotland claim the Hate Monster burrows in young males imbued with 'deep-rooted feelings of social and economic disadvantage, combined with ideas about white-male entitlement.' Someone's done a three-day course.
I've witnessed these exotic creatures in their natural habitat—any local boozer with a Sky Sports licence.
What else mars this Buckfast-swilling ne'er-do-well? Adverse childhood experiences, substance abuse, and underemployment. The sociological term you're looking for is poor white males. Perhaps they feel socially and economically deprived because they are economically and socially deprived? Isn't that victim-blaming? Is it not gaslighting? Â
As it stands, reader, this grotesque sub-Victorian caricature offends my sensibilities. Perhaps I should travel up to Scotland, pop into the nearest dildo shop, and dial up the hate crime hotline.
In true authoritarian 'progressive' fashion, these new laws would make Schrodinger's cat laugh. Even if someone accused of a hate crime later proves the claim to be spurious, the police may still file that incident as a non-crime hate incident. In a culture in which lives are often subject to the boiling court of public opinion, such a black mark against one's name is hardly trivial.
After all, is it cynical to suggest a culture which employs the starkest definitions of words would weaponise such laws?
We do this already. We misapply 'misogyny' in almost every usage. Misogyny means or used to mean 'a pathological hatred of women.' Browse online. In today's theatre of the literal minded, 'Misogyny' sticks to any statement which is less than utterly flattering about anyone who happens to be a woman.
Our culture teems with freshly minted isms, illities, and phobias. Last night, a TV advert warned me of the perils of ageism. Per that logic, both 'Snowflake' and 'Okay, Boomer!' are soon to be forbidden terms.
Supporters of such illiberal schlock claim they'll curtail only the bad speech. They'll leave the good speech well alone.
It is immensely difficult to write speech codes. Invariably, such codes militate against acceptable speech. How do we distinguish between disagreeable, upsetting, uncalled for, and that which is hateful and abusive? This is practically impossible in cerebral times, let alone frantic times such as these.
The folly thickens. The Scottish law states that only behaviour or material of which a 'reasonable person' would deem 'threatening or abusive' will count as bad. Reader, perhaps you've noticed that many 'reasonable' people believe and pretend to believe all manner of unreasonable things. You might as well legislate against bad weather in favour of only the good.
Think back to last year when Jeremy Clarkson wrote a column confessing his 'hatred' for Meghan Markle.
The usual people with their usual opinions offered their usual thoughts. Not only was the column distasteful, but misogynistic. Not just unpleasant or grimly humoured, but a treatise of trauma and harm.
That column didn't just mildly upset one person but endorsed and glorified violence against millions of women everywhere. My italics are not sarcastic. Actual people expressed these thoughts.
Clarkson had not simply pushed his right to freedom of expression toward the extremity but had penned a how-to-guide for domestic violence.
His motivation was not a dark, sardonic composition but racism and misogyny. By penning a few hyperbolic provocations, Jeremy Clarkson had attacked all women everywhere.
Ironically, the reaction to that column was, like its Game of Thrones theme, rather medieval. It got worse.
The Very Important People on Twitter foamed in confected fury. One employee of a national broadcaster claimed Clarkson's column was a 'hate crime, pure and simple.' "If there were any sort of justice, there would be laws that would jail him and shut down the publisher," he said.
The good people of Salem sharpened their pitchforks. In an open letter, the loyal servants of received opinion grieved: 'This kind of behaviour must not go unchallenged.' The horrified signatories demanded 'definitive action… to ensure no article like this is ever published again.'
I don't know about you, but such hysteria often piques my interest. I'd like to read that column, but I cannot. Clarkson apologised. The publisher apologised. The column went down the memory hole.
As usual, the illiberals qualify their intentions with 'I support free speech, but…' Which is like saying one is half pregnant. Speech is free or unfree. You're pregnant or unpregnant.
You see, we on the free speech side believe more speech is the antidote to bad and faulty ideas. Sunlight disinfects. Not only is controlling the 'bad' speech like controlling only the bad weather, but it is also pointless and dangerous. Wish away the bad and you'll wash away the good.
Perhaps Clarkson offended some sensibilities. He offended me, too. Clarkson assumed everyone had a working knowledge of Game of Thrones.
A more fitting reference is Arthur Miller's play, The Crucible. Set during the Salem witch trials, Miller's work illustrates the prevailing irrationalities of small-town life and the all-too-human lust for retribution.
Such places employ an ancient form of cancel culture. In those cloistered swamps, they frequently shun shame or shove out those who offend their rigid sensibilities.
Social media has squeezed millions of us into an incestuous small town governed by a perverse and perverting culture of resentment and shame.
In his work, Envy, Helmut Schoeck illustrates how such cultures stagnate. Their suspicious, retributive social policies place a boot on the neck of progress.
In Salem, many 'witches' were townspeople toward whom their neighbours held a trivial grudge. Much of modern cancel culture stems from trivial grudges. As evidenced, these Scottish laws weaponise trivial grudges.
Censorious cultures practise selective stoning. Despite claims of justice, seldom is such behaviour rooted in morality and accountability. After all, if Clarkson had written the same thing about Boris Johnson, his 'hatred' would have amounted to a serrated satirical flourish.
How many of those 4,000-odd calls to the hate crime line are vexatious gripes from vindictive scolds? My guess is more than a few.
It might be bloodless, but social death is still social death. Without context, without nuance, and without trial, the mob summons the hangman. And there's little chance of penance.
As with medieval stoning, the crowd each pelts a pebble until the condemned flops dead. Nobody suggests dropping a boulder on the poor chap's head and ending the spectacle in one blow. The barbarous attraction lies in its anonymity. Nobody knows who launched the fatal pebble.
You'd assume a culture obsessed with progress would covet the red blood cells of progress—free speech and freedom of expression.
Honesty, criticism and even ridicule are the essential feedback mechanisms on which progress often depends. Ridicule, though often unpleasant, is the sharp-elbowed sister of truth.
Censorship is a symptom of an insecure, declining culture stuck in survival mode. When we feel we are losing what we have, we grasp at what remains. Nothing good ever came of censorship. As the late Christopher Hitchens pointed out, no country in which people can say what they like has ever suffered a substantial famine.
We owe most of our progress to those deemed outsiders. Those eccentrics whom the others tried to muzzle. The arguments against free speech are anti-human. The desire to temper only the bad speech is a delusion.
Any progress-minded culture would welcome regular infusions of that which makes all progress possible. Despite history screaming otherwise, we know better. We police thoughts, arrest words, and jail the truth. Believe it or not, adults can handle thoughts, ideas, and expressions with which they may not agree. If you need further evidence, Google 'the Scottish Enlightenment'. Â Â
This censorious culture is sadly inevitable in our narcissistic age. We are all the Main Character. Such self-absorption means a mere difference of opinion can often feel like a criminal assault. When fenced-off behind screens, ordinary people are thin-skinned despots.
The antidote involves healthy doses of humour, ridicule, and mockery of which the pious cannot abide.
Apparently, the Scottish Police have promised to investigate every report of hate crime they receive. Every single complaint.
I'm just one lowly writer. And I would never suggest stirring up trouble for the prigs and the puritans. Mercifully, thousands of free-spirited Scots are doing just that.
Last time at Oxford Sour:
Anatomy of a Fad
At the ancient age of fifteen, I made a firm and lifelong commitment to look and act like an utter buffoon. Radicalised by Eminem's Marshall Mathers LP, we tearaways pilfered pounds and plundered boxes of peroxide to bleach our hair. Council-estate wisdom told us to wrap our heads in tinfoil.
"A one-man repudiation of intelligent design." Deft. And not hateful, merely truthful.
Mr. Gage, I have been waiting for your take on this ridiculousness, and I wasn't disappointed.
You beautifully written line "the Scottish first minister is a theatrical tribute to the inadequately medicated " was funny, and describes so many of our fellow humans. But the real zinger was "A one man repudiation of intelligent design." I am still chuckling.
How disappointing it is, is beyond words. I believe the Scottish enlightenment lead to the American enlightenment. Yet, here we are.
I must laugh at it all, otherwise it is much to sad.