Left and Right both have an intolerance to free speech

It’s been a decade of shouting and not listening, opinion becoming more important than fact and conspiracies around every corner. So can we agree that the culture wars have made losers of us all, asks Michael McGuire.

The scores are in.

A result has been declared. In the matter of the great culture wars of the last decade or so, it’s been decided no one has won. It’s not even a draw. Everyone has lost.

It’s been a dumb decade. A decade of shouting and not listening. A decade when personal opinion became more important than facts, when conspiracies were found around every corner, when we all retreated to whatever small corner of the world we found most comfortable. And once there closed the door on everyone else.

So, we all lost the culture wars. Can we agree on that? Can we declare it all over? Can we return to being something closer to a cohesive society?

How did it come to this? How did we reach a stage where there are people in government, in mainstream media and on social media who are prepared to make excuses for an evil b*****d who murdered his wife and children?

Sorry for the endless questions. But at what point do you stop placing your own warped ideology above human decency, compassion and common sense?

Weirdly, the same people who have also been defending paedophiles like George Pell and rapists such as Harvey Weinstein are often the same people who style themselves as conservatives, like to talk about family values and lament that moral standards are slipping.

The same people who have defended George Pell are often the same people who like to lament that moral standards are slipping. Picture: Con Chronis/AFP

Those on the other side of the culture wars have lesser sins, certainly less rooted in racism and sexism, but they are still there all the same. An intolerance to contrary view, an attachment to breaking down society by raising the importance of belonging to smaller groups based around shared identity. A desire to dull down the language at every turn in case the wrong word causes offence.

Neither will admit it but both Left and Right have a fundamental intolerance to free speech. Both claim an attachment to free speech for precisely as long as no one pushes an alternative view.

Even after the Oscars, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth that film stars dared to have an opinion. Now, nobody in their right mind cares what Joaquin Phoenix thinks about artificially inseminating cows, but being a rich film star doesn’t take away his right to have an opinion.

Then there is all the tedious “whataboutery’’. We see it whenever one side criticises the other. The whole, “if we’re bad, you’re worse” schoolyard argument. We saw it this week in all its splendid stupidity by talking lamppost and Home Affairs minister Peter Dutton. When ASIO chief Mike Burgess mentioned the danger of right-wing terrorism was growing, Dutton leapt in to suggest there were also left-wing terrorists as well. Turned out his definition of left-wing terrorism was Islamic State, which must have raised a few eyebrows in Syria.

This week, Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton suggested that Islamic State could be considered left-wing terrorism. Picture: AAP/Mick Tsikas

Pressed further, Dutton came up with the even more nonsensical, “You can use left-wing to describe everybody from the Left to the Right.’’ Maybe standing where Pete stands on the spectrum, everyone is left-wing.

The point is stupidity, and the need to permanently point score, is overwhelming all else. Even Dutton can’t be stupid enough to believe the stuff he says. Hopefully.

But this desire to grimly stick to your point of view, no matter the facts, no matter the evidence, is damaging our country.

This has been most obvious in perverted ongoing debate surrounding climate change. Labor has now announced a zero net emissions target by 2050. A target already adopted by the UK, France, Switzerland, Japan and Sweden among many others. Not to mentions BHP, BP, Santos and every Australian state and territory government.

It’s a debate Australia needs to have, and you can argue for and against, but those opposed have not engaged in debate, preferring to stick with old scare campaigns.

A Liberal senator from the Northern Territory called Sam McMahon went full stupidity claiming we would be living in “mud huts with no electricity’’ under such a target.

We have to do better. Much better.

Michael McGuire is a columnist for the Adelaide Advertiser.