Colin the Barbarian @[email protected]

Trying to do better

[Colin the Barbarian @[email protected] @OxSoc]

@LucyHunterB @WeCareAboutMH Yes, I missed that bit as well. I think he consigned it to the flames.

[Colin the Barbarian @[email protected] @OxSoc]

@GrahamSmith4 If it is all puff & huff why should you give a damn what I think? Why not just tend your own garden?

[Colin the Barbarian @[email protected] @OxSoc]

Let's list the arguments I've seen: it wasn't a proper lecture; nobody was there; only 5 were there; it was a book promotion; he's a TERF, he's a Catholic, he's an associate of some obscure Harvard Professor; it doesn't matter; it does matter; it's a grift; he was paid to do it;

[Colin the Barbarian @[email protected] @OxSoc]

@rejserin @FaredaVandeKaap @RichardDawkins Those words were read out in the lecture itself. You know that. Pretending the delivery context is irrelevant is just a dodge. The issue is not whether the quote existed on X; it is whether an academic event should be used as the vehicle for it.

[Colin the Barbarian @[email protected] @OxSoc]

@CaraPac46808618 @runthinkwrite @UniofOxford @WilliamJHague No. It is free speech for everyone. It is not a licence to hijack someone else’s lecture and then whine that people objected to the sabotage. But I've made the same point several times and you seem unable or unwilling to understand the distinction.

[Colin the Barbarian @[email protected] @OxSoc]

@CaraPac46808618 @runthinkwrite @UniofOxford @WilliamJHague ? I'd give you an answer, but I can't understand your grammar

[Colin the Barbarian @[email protected] @OxSoc]

@rejserin @FaredaVandeKaap @RichardDawkins Even if they are what you believe. They are still insults when delivered in that setting, at that time, for that purpose. The issue is not whether you can dress them up as ‘truth’; it is whether an academic event should be turned into a denunciation platform.

[Colin the Barbarian @[email protected] @OxSoc]

@rejserin @FaredaVandeKaap @RichardDawkins "...he denies trans people their identities, argues for exclusion, he associates heavily with transphobic pressure groups... he masks his transphobia under a thin veneer of academia..." Sounds insulting and derogatory to me & I imagine it would to anyone with no skin in the game.

[Colin the Barbarian @[email protected] @OxSoc]

@rejserin @FaredaVandeKaap @RichardDawkins ? That seems to be an answer to a different question, not the one I asked you. You mentioned that context was important. What is the context that would make insults and derogatory comments acceptable to you?

[Colin the Barbarian @[email protected] @OxSoc]

@rejserin @FaredaVandeKaap @RichardDawkins OK. So what context makes it acceptable? That you agree with the comments? Or is it something more principled than that?

[Colin the Barbarian @[email protected] @OxSoc]

@rejserin @FaredaVandeKaap @RichardDawkins I see. It is legitimate because you agree with the political aims of those that disrupted the lecture. Got it. Very principled.

[Colin the Barbarian @[email protected] @OxSoc]

@rejserin @FaredaVandeKaap @RichardDawkins Your personal preferences are not the norm in Oxford. How do you feel about insults and derogatory remarks being made about you before the talk. Don't you expect respect for common norms of civility?

[Colin the Barbarian @[email protected] @OxSoc]

@rejserin @FaredaVandeKaap @RichardDawkins security and had them removed.

[Colin the Barbarian @[email protected] @OxSoc]

@rejserin @FaredaVandeKaap @RichardDawkins I chaired one myself earlier this year, as it happens for a trans colleague who had just written a book. If anyone had tried to interfere with their right to give their lecture to those who wished to listen I would not have been impressed. In fact I would have rung university

[Colin the Barbarian @[email protected] @OxSoc]

Just seen someone over in the other place invoke the "inherent violence of the state" as a justification for random people interfering with public lectures by people they don't like. Takes me right back to the 70s. They'll be quoting Althusser next.

[Colin the Barbarian @[email protected] @OxSoc]

It's a damning indictment of UK Universities in 2026. I don't know how we got here, but unless we get a grip, the future looks grim.

[Colin the Barbarian @[email protected] @OxSoc]

2) Employers should not collude with students or staff to enable such abridgment.

There are people with Chairs on here who pretend these simple principles are either outrageous or incomprehensible.