Nobel prize-winning scientist Tim Hunt was forced to resign after an alleged sexist speech – later discovered to have been misrepresented. Photo: Reuters

The window of public discourse seems to be ever more restricted with public perception being continuously skewed in a progressive, leftist mindset. We find ourselves in an increasingly one-sided landscape where people are no longer able to express themselves without being labelled “racist” or “sexist” or “islamophobe”.

Such language is meant to discredit people’s integrity so as to nullify any following argument they make, no matter how reasonable it could be.

We’ve seen this happen to renowned Nobel prize-winning scientist, Tim Hunt, who was forced to resign his honorary professorship at University College London after an alleged “sexist speech”.

This was later discovered to be unfounded and misrepresented by major media outlets for PR reasons.

Who would want to associate themselves with a perceived sexist?

Who would even listen to what they have to say once they are labelled?

This is only one example of unhealthy deliberation plaguing our society, where we insulate ourselves from different opinions by destroying a person’s reputation on the basis that their words are offensive to a particular group of people.

Unfortunately, this is a very grey area and is a slippery slope which doesn’t end well for our freedom of expression.

I find this very worrying, as it is effectively a deliberate attack on free speech. The internet enabled us to have widespread connection to each other, which gave rise to an extended social sphere where more and more people are connected in ways we would never have thought possible.

Unfortunately though, the range of publicly accepted ideas is constantly being narrowed down by language policing, unwarranted labeling, dirty politics and bigotry.

Such tactics are a direct assault on free speech and hinder the functioning of a democratic society at a fundamental level. This gives rise to a change in public perception and behaviour, which then brings about ideas such as positive discrimination and/or affirmative action, safe spaces and a plethora of other toxic, anti-democratic principles which favour diversity over merit, narrative over fact and anecdotes over statistics.

This piece is merely meant to give a little insight into the changing social sphere we find ourselves in and the possible ramifications if we are unable to challenge ideas and each other. It’s quite sad to see the pillars of democracy our forefathers fought so hard for being attacked and policed to such hysterical levels, where different opinions are shut down prematurely on the basis of some kind of twisted, unsubstantiated social justice.