Hitchens (British accent, medium difficulty) full transcript

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Actually say anything in Austria.

 

He wasn't even accused of saying and he was accused of, perhaps, planning to say something that violated an Austrian law that says, "Only one version of the history of the Second World War may be taught in our brave little Tyrolean Republic." The republic that gave us Kurt Waldheim as secretary-general of the United Nations, a man wanted in several countries for war crimes.

 

The country that gave... That has Jörg Haider, the leader of its own fascist party, in the cabinet, that sent David Irving to jail. You know the two things that have made Austria famous, given its reputation, by any chance, just while I've got you? I hope there are some Austrians here to be upset by it.

 

[laughter]

 

Well, a pity if not. But the two great achievements of Austria are to have convinced the world that Hitler was German and Beethoven was

 

Viennese. [laughter] Now, to this proud record they can add, they have the courage finally to face their past and lock-up a British historian who's committed no crime except that of thought in writing. And that's a scandal. And I can't find a seconder usually when I propose this, but I don't care. I don't need a seconder. My own opinion is enough for me, and I claim the right to have it defended against any consensus, any majority, anywhere, any place, any time, and anyone who disagrees with this, can pick a number, get in line and kiss my ass.

 

[laughter]

 

Now, I don't know how many of you don't feel you're grown-up enough to decide this for yourselves and think that you need to be protected from David Irving's edition of the Goebbels’s Diaries, for example, out of which I learned more about the Third Reich than I had from studying Hugh Trevor-Roper and A. J. P. Taylor combined when I was at Oxford. But for those of you who do, I'd recommend another short course of revision. Go again and see, not just the film and the play, but read the text of Robert Bolt's wonderful play "Man for all Seasons". Some of you must have seen it; where Sir Thomas More decides that he would rather die, than lie or betray his faith.

 

And at one moment, More is arguing with the particularly vicious witch-hunting prosecutor, a servant of the king and a hungry and ambitious man. And More says to this man, "You'd break the law to punish the devil, wouldn't you?" And the prosecutor, the witch hunter says "Break it?" He said "I'd cut down... I'd cut down every law in England, if I could do that, if I could capture him." And More says "Yes. You would, wouldn't you?

 

And then, when you've cornered the devil and the devil turned around to meet you, where would you run for protection? All the laws of England having been cut down and flattened, who would protect you then?"

 

Bear in mind, ladies and gentlemen, that every time you violate or propose to violate the free speech of someone else, you in potentia, you're making a rod for your own back because the other question raised by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes is simply this, "Who's going to decide, to whom do you award the right to decide which speech is harmful, or who is the harmful speaker. Or to determine in advance, what are the harmful consequences going to be, that we know enough about in advance to prevent? To whom would you give this job? To whom you're going to award the task of being the censor?"

 

Isn't it a famous old story that the man who has to read all the pornography, in order to decide what's fit to be passed and what is not to be, is the man most likely to become debauched. Did you hear any speaker in the opposition to this notion, eloquent as one of them was, to whom you would delegate the task of deciding for you what you could read? Who to me would give the job of deciding for you, relieve you of the responsibility of hearing what you might have to hear? Do you know anyone?  Hands up.

 

Do you know anyone to whom you'd give this job? Does anyone have a nominee? You mean, there is no one in Canada good enough to decide what I can read or hear? I had no idea. But there's a law that says there must be such a person, or there's sub-section of some piddling law that says it.

 

Well, the hell with that law then. It's inviting you to be liars and hypocrites and to deny what you evidently know already.

 

About the censorious instinct, we basically know all what we need to know. We've known it for a long time. It comes from an old story about another great Englishman, sorry to sound so particular about that this evening, Dr. Samuel Johnson. The great lexicographer, author of the first, compiler I should say of the first great dictionary of the English language. When it was complete, Dr. Johnson was waited upon by various delegations of people to congratulate him. Of the nobility, of the quality of commons and the lords, and also by delegation of respectable ladies of London, who tended on him in his Fleet Street lodgings and congratulated him.

 

"Dr. Johnson" they said, "We are delighted to find that you’ve not included any indecent or obscene words in your dictionary". "Ladies", said Dr. Johnson, "I congratulate you on being able to look them up".

 

[laughter]

 

Anyone who can understand that joke, and I'm pleased to see that about 10% of you can, [laughter]

 

gets the point about censorship, especially prior restraint, as it's known in the United States where it's banned by the First Amendment to the Constitution. It may not be determined in advance what words are apt or inapt. No one has the knowledge that would be required to make that call, and more to the point, one has to suspect the motives of those who do so.