19 March

Edouard Louis understands nasty people. And that they talk a lot about 'free speech' because they want to say things that civilisation already decided are just hate disguised as words. Every generation seems to forget. “To me, democracy is not about saying everything. Some things, like racism, antisemitism, shouldn’t be issues, they shouldn’t be talked about. Some subjects should be considered obsolete, and yes, let’s shut down the debate because they are obsolete...That would be progress, that would be democracy, not letting people say what they want, not giving their racist, homophobic views the same value, the same credibility as other propositions. Not giving those stupid, unacceptable propositions weight and currency by responding to them. This has been the great tragedy of recent years in literature, the press, intellectual life, this ideology that in a debate all views have the same weight, that we can debate...with the extreme right. That’s wrong....We should say to the...far right: just shut up. Keep your stupid, nasty views to yourselves."