Two moments last week helped illustrate the contemporary state of public debate. The first was a Brexit spat between Alastair Campbell and the Times journalist Jenni Russell on Newsnight – both are Remain supporters. “No effort has gone into saying to people anything but: ‘You’re mistaken, your lives are rubbish and they’ll be even worse when we leave’,” said Russell. Campbell constantly interrupted: “You’re talking nonsense.” “That is exactly the kind of attitude, that kind of arrogance that is going to destroy the Remain campaign,” Russell responded.
The second was the revelation by the comedian Konstantin Kisin that, having been invited to perform at a charity gig at London University’s Soas, he was asked to sign a “behavioural agreement” form, promising not to say anything that might be deemed to deal in “racism, sexism, classism, ageism, ablesim, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia or anti-religion or anti-atheism”. “Nearly made me puke,” he tweeted.
We are fond of saying that public debate has become too nasty and antagonistic. We are also fond of saying that people have become too sensitive and snowflakey. Both views are true. That’s why public debate has become both too rancid and too comfortable at the same time. Campbell’s talking-over and the student society’s “no offence” demand are two expressions of the same impulse. An unwillingness to open ourselves up to be challenged or be made uncomfortable, an insistence we must be right and those who disagree must be talking out of ignorance or in bad faith. Worse, we can see this impulse in other people, but rarely in ourselves. (True of me, too, no doubt.)
Both the snowflake and the antagonist seek to cocoon themselves in their own kind of safe space. A modicum of certainty is a necessity; too much doubt can be disabling. Nevertheless, being a little more uncomfortable in our views might be good for all of us.
• Kenan Malik is an Observer columnist
