A comprehensive and timely polemic about the various threats to freedom of speech waged by political correctness in the last few years. Mick Hume's book lays into safe spaces, trigger warnings, no-platforming, victimhood, virtue-signalling, and myriad other contemptible cancers on modern life, but the strength of his book is not in 'rah, rah, political-correctness-gone-mad' rantings but in an intelligent libertarian response to often well-meaning but extremely damaging societal trends.

Hume's central argument is, funnily enough, that free speech should be free. When people say 'I believe in free speech, but…' or 'rights come with responsibilities' or that you have 'no right to offend', then they are not supporting free speech. As Hume says on page 28, "Once you forget the meaning of 'freedom' and start cherry-picking which people or what type of speech might deserve it, free speech ceases to be a right." Imagine if we did this with other rights. Imagine if we said, 'you have a right to vote… but only for the right party' or 'you have a right to a fair trial… but only if you're innocent'. Try it yourself: try to apply a 'but…' to any other right we claim in Western society and marvel at how stupid you sound.

Quoting the American judge Oliver Wendell Holmes, Hume champions the need for 'freedom for the thought that we hate'. To do otherwise – to limit or silence speech that is deemed offensive, racist, sexist, or so on – is to open up a Pandora's box. For taking offence is an entirely subjective state: if someone says they are offended, then they are and no one can prove otherwise. It removes all objectivity and principle from the equation and replaces it with emotion and how you 'feel'. It is open-ended because any combination of people could be offended by any combination of things, and therefore any thought could, in theory, be banned if the right emotional justification was found. The only way to stop this rot is to reject it completely, not hope it reforms or 'evens out in the end'. And it also raises the question of who decides which thoughts are socially unpalatable? Once, society considered it intolerable to think that the Earth revolved around the Sun, that kings had no divine right to rule, and that surgeons' unwashed hands caused infections. Where would we be now if the people who make such believers feel 'unsafe' by suggesting otherwise had been silenced? So you're offended. So what? That doesn't give you right to limit or remove other people's fundamental rights. Emotions pass; rights are enduring. Grow up. Get a tissue if you have to. But if you feel 'unsafe' because of what someone has merely said, well – the world's going to be a very hard place for you, precious.

Hume also shines a light on the "creeping culture of conformism" (pg. 17) in our society, of the "self-censoring 'sorry majority'" (pg. 63) who because of the successful campaign of you-can't-say-that are tailoring what they say or do almost as a reflex. Ordinary people who look over their shoulders before they say what they are thinking. What is this if not thought-crime? It is a crime to surrender so meekly to these charlatans and virtue-signallers (Hume rightly points out that "the –ism at work here most powerfully is not sexism or racism, but narcissism" (pg. 194)). It impoverishes our society when any argument or debate can be "short-circuited" (pg. 224) by shouting "That's racist!" or "I'm offended!" or "You're oppressing me!"; people are therefore spared the "awkward necessity of having to come up with an argument of [their] own." (pg. 188). Ideas should be exposed and destroyed, not reputations, but why do this when it is so much easier to do the latter? It forgets or ignores that science and progressive politics would never have broken through without free speech (pg. 238) because free speech is what enables the challenging of prevailing orthodoxy, and this is why the right to be offensive is at the heart of it (pg. 41). Our society is therefore going through a form of intellectual poverty and, to our eternal discredit, our universities are at the forefront of this development. "Once upon a time we had political, historical and scientific debates. Those with alternative views were seen as intellectual opponents to be argued with and defeated." (pg. 223). What a curious idea! When was the last time anyone had a proper debate? How can our society decide whether an idea is right or wrong "unless [we] are allowed to hear it in the first place?" (pg. 169).

This is why Hume's book is so important, because whilst there are voices making themselves known in opposition to intellectual fascism it is usually in the form of occasional op-ed pieces in the newspaper or casual remarks by a prominent figure which are blown out of proportion by a hysterical media and usually result in a hasty retraction, or even the loss of one's job, once the self-righteous mob descends. (Curiously, this public hounding means Britain – and the West in general – now fails Sharansky's famous town-square test about what constitutes a free society). Rarely is the fight codified as thoroughly as in Hume's book. It's not always the most forceful of polemics – Hume repeats his arguments and key phrases quite a lot, and his writing style often lacks the anger and indignation that the subject demands. Hume is always restrained but never a quiet storm in the way that, for example, the great polemicist Christopher Hitchens would be. Furthermore, flavour and variety is often lost in the relentless proselytising and theory. On one occasion, Hume notes how Rangers football fans can be prosecuted for singing 'God Save the Queen', despite it being the national anthem, as it aggravates rival Celtic fans (pg. 142). Hume's book could have benefited from more of these farcical anecdotes. Yahweh knows there are plenty of them. But the book is always muscular and uncompromising, yet fair and lucid, which is what you want any guardian of the good to be.

One of the book's finer qualities is that it emphasizes the "other side of [the] free speech [issue] – the right of the public to hear and see whatever we want, judge for ourselves, and make our own choices." (pg. 247). There is a certain condescending paternalism to go alongside the afore-mentioned narcissism: the belief that the rest of us are all too stupid to make the 'right' choice and need to be soothed and mollycoddled. 'You can say what you like, but only if it's something we agree with.' It forgets that the only way an idea can gain strength and resilience and dignity – and indeed, acceptance – is if it is tested and battle-hardened and seen to be good. Preventing criticism and stifling debate means ideas "risk losing their intellectual dynamism without being tested" (pg. 273). And some of these ideas which are pushed on us are worthy ones – racial equality, gay rights, and so on – but unless they are allowed to grow in a free market of ideas they will never be resilient enough to weather the storm of prejudice they will face. They lose their power to really enact change. Indeed, they gain many unwanted and unsavoury characteristics, such as infantilism, victimhood and tunnel-vision.

It saddens me that a book like this is even necessary in this day and age, and in this country particularly. Once, people who were discriminated against fought for the right to be accepted into all walks of life; now they demand 'safe spaces' where only people 'like them' can be admitted. Once, Martin Luther King had a dream that his children would one day live in a nation where they would be judged not by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character; now affirmative action policies bump you to the top of the list if you're the right colour to match their diversity quota. Once – remarkably – people fought for what they thought was right; now, people complain they are made to feel 'unsafe' if they are even exposed to a contrary idea – that is, if they are even made aware that other people think differently. People, once, fought the battles that mattered; perhaps the immature agitators now stamping their feet in student unions are annoyed that they missed the boat when all the grand and righteous battles were going on. They missed the March on Washington. So, to compensate, they manufacture their own little indignations: more Blank Panthers than Black Panthers.

Against the cascade of sewage which comprises political correctness, it seems that libertarians and other pro-free speech advocates like Hume are essentially King Canute trying to turn back the unrelenting tide. It might seem cynical, but emotion often triumphs over reason, comfort often triumphs over struggle, and the heart often triumphs over the head. But, personally, I am not too cynical because there is an emotion and an integrity in the idea of free speech too; despite the lure of social conformity, the desire for the freedom to think one's own thoughts without shame or stricture runs like a thunderous whisper in the blood. It might sound high-falutin' for what is essentially a short polemic, but Hume's book, whilst not perfect, speaks to the core of what it is we are and what our society is, has been and could be. The cognitive ability to think individually and uniquely separates us from the animals, and the freedom to communicate those thoughts is what makes a society develop (pg. 36). Society's raison d'être, beyond collective security and opportunity, is to safeguard that individuality. A better class of people than the modern-day do-gooders and virtue-signallers fought for centuries for the hard-won liberties we enjoy, and the old prejudices and constraints died hard. When we forget that – when we talk about free speech using the word 'but…' and temper our thoughts so as not to appear 'offensive' – then we dishonour them with our ignorance and our cowardice. ( )