In the West we use freedom of speech to shut each other up

W hat, in the context of society, is "debate"? The question is brought to mind by a report in last Monday's Irish Times of a "debate" at the Cúirt literary festival in Galway about, interestingly, freedom of expression.

I wasn't present at the discussion, and am reliant for my sense of its content and tenor on Lorna Siggins' report in the Irish Times. What struck me was that there didn't appear to be much debate. There were four participants, all of whom addressed, implicitly or explicitly, the subject of last year's controversy about the cartoons of the prophet Mohammad in a Danish newspaper. Judging from the report, none of the four "debaters" sought to defend publication of the cartoons. Ireland's ambassador to Finland, Antoin MacUnfraidh, wondered whether such editorial decisions are informed by ethics or commercial viability. He also criticised western attitudes towards Muslims, as did another speaker, Lara Marlowe of the Irish Times, who said that the cartoons were not about freedom of speech. "Just because you have the right to do something, that doesn't mean you do it," she said, raising interesting questions about the purpose of rights. The Iraqi poet Dunya Mikhail, a former literary editor of the Baghdad Observer, criticised the cartoons for escalating tensions, while noting "ironies" in the vehement reaction to their publication. Egyptian journalist, Mona Elthawy, seems also to have noted contradictions in the responses of Muslim countries, but if she said anything in defence of free speech these remarks failed to make the Irish Times. I mention this "debate" not because it is exceptional, but because it replicates exactly the characteristics of what passes for debate in this society.

Virtually every debate – in the media or the public square – is carefully policed to communicate a selective "moral". In this case, rather ironically, the moral was that freedom of speech is something of an indulgence of pampered westerners. The Irish Times headline said it rather well: "Wisdom of freedom of speech questioned." This, over a report of a "debate" about free speech, protected by indispensable principles which nobody could be bothered defending. It would be hard to locate a more pointed summary of the condition of western democracy, which, being convinced of its own unassailability, takes itself for granted. In other societies, people denied freedoms risk their lives to say what they believe, whereas we, who in theory have unlimited freedom to say what we please, use this privileged position to tell each other to shut up. One would think that editors, producers and organisers of public events would welcome a robust exchange of views on all subjects, but this is no longer the case. Far more important is the promotion of "acceptable" ideas, an objective achieved in the main by ensuring an overwhelming presence on the "correct" side of the argument and at best a token appearance by known heretics on the other.

In most of these pseudo-debates, a narrow range of voices, chosen more for diversity of background than contrast of outlook, is presented as representing the spectrum of reasonable opinion. The principal requirement appears to be that (1) the discussion does not cause offence to any of a lengthening list of protected sensibilities, and (2) that the "right" side must be enabled to win. In truth, of course, nobody "wins" such arguments, since an anodyne discussion is never worth winning. Such neutered "debate" does, however, consolidate the conventional wisdom around whatever its subject may be, by signalling the extent of what is acceptable for all to see. This, in turn, leads incrementally to the degradation of democracy, for even "correct" ideas degenerate by virtue of being untested. Until recently, I had observed this tendency mainly in the capital, and it is a little worrying that it has now spread to Galway, once a place of intense argument about everything.

One of the characteristics of the society in which I grew up in the west was a robust tendency of people to say whatever they believed.

Everyone had eccentric and exotic views about everything and these views were often as sharply nuanced as they were passionately held. It was certainly never advisable to predict the response of an individual to a particular topic on the basis of a previously expressed opinion on a related matter. Anyone wishing to see where this new climate of censorship leads, had only to cast an eye downwards from Lorna Siggins's report to another story from Galway by Michelle McDonagh.

This concerned a play called The Tinker's Blade, which has just opened in Leisureland, Salthill, and runs until Saturday. The play is about a Traveller accused of murdering his father and features a character with strong anti-Traveller views. Two actors have reportedly turned down this role, and a number of venues have declined to stage the play on account of aspects of the script. More worryingly, the producer has been told by the Garda Síochána to "tone down" the play.

He has refused, for which all of us, including members of the Travelling community, should be grateful.