Nick Cohen talks about defending values and rights against a resurgent culture of intolerance & extremism as exemplified by the Trump White House with leading philosopher & author professor A.C.Grayling @acgrayling How do do we defend those values and rights in a new world of social media and culture warfare?
This is the 2nd part of a 2-part interview with Professor Grayling.
Rights retreat with resurgence of radicalised right
How do we defend our rights against an aggressive authoritarian radicalised right? For years, it seemed that long term issues such as racism, and discrimination had been in retreat - bit sadly no longer. How do we all stand up for our values while avoiding the obvious so-called "Woke" booby traps?
Rights versus interests
A.C. Grayling discusses the battle as being between rights and interests, summarising, "The culture wars are between people who are demanding the rights that would result in their having full inclusion of full acceptance in society on an equitable basis on the one hand and on the other hand, people who were defending their interests, which historically have been interests of privilege... this is a fight between rights and interests. And we all have interests. and interest in not being offended by other people, but we don't have a right not to be offended.
"We all have an interest in being able to have our say, but we also have a right to have our say. So, you know, here again, we see how important it is to distinguish between what counts as a right and what is, as it were only an interest because it is the people who are defending their interests. who have to do the hard work of accepting that other people are genuinely owed their rights."
Finding the right language to defend values
A.C.Grayling stresses the importance of finding the right language to make our values heard above the heat and smoke of battle, adding, "Finding some way to discuss these things and to navigate them is tremendously important. And that only comes if there is goodwill and clear understanding on both sides and in the fevered state of the debate at the moment, particularly in view of the fact that it is really the language and and the perceptions of people on the further wings of both sides of this debate, which seem to be constitutive of the debate that makes it impossible to get real progress going on the substance of the debate."
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Nick Cohen's @NichCohen4 latest Substack column Writing from London on politics and culture from the UK and beyond.
A.C. Grayling's book Discriminations: Making peace in the culture wars is now out as paperback.
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