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Tuesday 21 July 2015

Freedom of Speech vs. The Fear of Being Offensive: Go Set a Watchman

"Rather than debate people they disagree with, they pathologise them as 'phobic': whore-phobic, trans-phobic, you-name-it-phobic. Similarly, people are labelled as 'deniers'; for example, 'climate change deniers'. Hume points out that the intention is to shut down discussion - after all, who wants to debate a pathological liar? Hume argues that it is always better to engage [...] than simply to outlaw their speech."

- Caroline Criado-Perez, New Statesman 17-13 July 2015

Where does one draw the line between freedom of speech, and offence? Are they in contradiction of one another? Are they even compatible? Are they synonymous? 

Joining the multitude who ventured out bleary-eyed last Tuesday morning to buy a copy of Lee's much anticipated Go Set a Watchman, the first-draft-come-novel-come-destabilising-sequel to, as Oprah Winfrey wrote in 2010, America's 'national novel', To Kill a Mockingbird, I looked forward to revisiting the characters of one of my favourite (childhood) books - though not without trepidation. Immediately preceding its public release, the novel was tainted by news reports and reviews that the book was a 'revelation' that would 'shock fans' of the earlier novel, given the surprising fact that Atticus Finch, the racially revolutionary hero lawyer of To Kill a Mockingbird, 'is now a racist' (words from The Independent). Contrary to public opinion, I enjoyed it. And, further, I wasn't disappointed. 

The racist undertones (or, to be more precise, overtones) to the novel are undeniable. Atticus' moral sainthood is crucified by Scout, now the grown 26 year old Jean Louise, when she comes across a Nazi-esque pamphlet entitled 'The Black Plague' on his desk, later leading to her discovery of his place on the board of directors of the local citizens' council (these, as Erica Wagner writes (also New Statesman), 'were white supremacist groups in the Southern states largely organised after Brown v Board of Education, the 1954 Supreme Court case that decreed segregation in public schools unconstitutional'). Contrary to the moral motivations of Atticus' earlier law case in To Kill a Mockingbird, where he defends a black man, Robinson, as innocent, his decision to 'take on the case of a black man' accused of murder in Go Set a Watchman is reached only to keep the "buzzards" (i.e. the NAACP lawyers) "who demand Negroes on the juries in such cases" away. At this point, you catch yourself screwing your brows and creasing your eyes in abhorrence. How did the Atticus of To Kill a Mockingbird develop from this racist southern trope? Hats off to Lee's editor.