Left-wing censorship is still censorship

The silencing of artistic dissent

Artistic freedom is being threatened across the West. Its traditional enemies in the authoritarian state are preparing an assault. Donald Trump is already dismantling the US National Endowment for the Arts and threatening to defund public service broadcasting. Nigel Farage says he will abolish the BBC, if he wins power – which given our run of bad luck here in the UK, he just might do.

They will find fatally weakened institutions that are unable to put up a fight.

For years, sinister elements within the left have been preparing the ground for censorship. So comprehensive was their attack on liberal principles that when Trump or Farage comes along, they will be able to say that bullying progressives showed them the way.

The level of fear is covered in a new report “Afraid to Speak Freely” by the Freedom in the Arts campaign.

I haven’t been so depressed by a description of British culture in years. The report reveals a kind of progressive McCarthyism, indirectly funded by public money, and presided over by cultural bureaucrats who are too weak or complicit to stand up for basic human rights.

The authors Rosie Kay, Denise Fahmy and Professor Jo Phoenix questioned 483 poets, writers, actors and arts administrators. More than four out of five (84%) said that they never, rarely, or only sometimes felt free to give their opinions. Nuance and dissent about taboo subjects – Israel-Palestine, critical race theory, and, by a long measure, the trans debate – were met with professional and social reprisals, cancellations and career destruction.

“We have to be careful,” one writer told the researchers. “I’ve seen colleagues removed from projects, funding quietly withdrawn, and careers stalled because they rocked the boat. It sends a clear message: stay in line or be forced out.”

The authors warn of the absence of “viewpoint diversity” in the arts. You will never see a drama at the National Theatre critical of the left from a conservative perspective, for example (although you might see one from a far-left perspective).

But the culture of conformity is much more oppressive than that. It does not just censor artistic content on stage or in print — it censors artists’ minds.