Fight or flight is a tough instinct. It has given us great success as a species and some difficult times as we have garnered all that success. I suspect that true freedom, where each person can explore, believe or not, and even speak out their beliefs may be one of the casualties of such that primal instinct. It may not be possible to say what you think without triggering fight or flight in others. That said we are getting better at seeking freedom and the tolerance that is the essence of it.

What a great article! BUT there are some caveats...even at the university :-) One can freely think whatever one wants - but to promote all things only to "defend the freedom of speech" may be both illegal AND irresponsible. An example: I doubt that "freedom" to deny the holocaust, or to promote pedophilia, could or would be extended by any university to any group. Some campuses do allow for divergent political groups - but I can't think of an example where Nazi-ism is promoted or even tolerated. One's use of freedom of association, speech, expression, must always be judged by the criteria of justice, legality and responsible action.

Yuri K (retired senior lecturer).

I think one of the ironies of this article is that the author, who has obviously graduated from university, cannot seem to distinguish between the student union and the university proper. The article conflates the two at every stage and believes that they should both operate under the same rules.

They don't.

Bugsy, I think you are missing the point. Whether it be the student union or the University proper, they should both be guided by the same principles of freedom of speech. The clubs and societies that the Union permits, are reflections on the overall tolerance of the University itself. Even though they come from different governing bodies, they are part of the front face of the University in regards to student experience.

This does seem to be rather silly exercise on the part of those who oppose this new so called pro-life organization to freely exist at the university.

The modern university/academy is founded on and thus promotes the secular world-view. As such it does allow a certain kind of naive religiosity to exist. What is more you will never ever find the Truth with a capital T within the modern academy.

Nor will you ever Truth with a capital T within the dogmas/doctrines of the kind of naive religiosity that this new "pro-life" outfit promotes. Nor within the various "theology" departments associated with the academy. Nor by studying so called "theology". Nor within the essentially self-righteous "Catholic" religiosity that the author promotes.

And speaking of tolerance, such self-righteous zealots are fundamentally intolerant of ALL other perspectives or points of view, including those of other Faith Traditions.

If you Google the authors name you will find that she is essentially a conservative "Catholic" zealot who is very active in promoting the circus events which are falsely called "World" youth days.

But are Christians really as consistently pro-life as they oft times claim to be. Christians have happily been murdering people from other cultures and traditions for forever and a day. And each too in the never ending wars that have been a feature of European history especially since the so called Reformation. ALL of those blood-soaked wars were justified in the "name of 'God'".

Christianity did not become the world dominant religion because its adherents practiced the intrinsic virtues of cooperation, tolerance and peace. Quite the contrary in fact - it became world dominant via the violent imperative of Constantine's famous Sword.

Yuri,

Speech is either free or it is not.

The assumption that people are too delicate and weak willed to be exposed to radical ideas without suffering terminal offense, or blindly adopting them and goose stepping down the concourse, is offensive in itself.

I am not a fan of Nazism or communism, but I believe that neither of them are likely to be actively pursued. If someone did start such an organisation, it would rapidly expose their ideas to the light and ridicule, and almost certainly do their cause more damage.

As for straw man of allowing the promotion of pedophilia, existing laws against inciting illegal activity are sufficient. I find the present climate where the measure for censorship is whether someone somewhere might be offended stifling any serious conversation outside the PC strait jacket.

I presently hold values that probably differ little from present norms, however, unlike most of our youth I know why.