Forget free speech, let's have a debate

Last night’s free speech debate featuring Dr Don Brash was both compelling and chaotic.

It was compelling because it brought forth an unanticipated and often unintended level of entertainment and wit. I will come back to that later.

It was chaotic for a raft of reasons—far too many to number or even to list, but here is a start. To start with, who knew it was a debate? Yes, we all knew that Dr Brash would be speaking at Auckland University, that was widely publicised after the Massey debacle; but did we know that Dr Brash would be part of a team and would be sharing the stage with others? It doesn’t matter I guess, except those others were mostly boring and mostly unknown; two of them, both students at the university, were described by the too young and plainly terrified host/moderator/MC as "award-winning debaters of awesome credit to the university.” They weren't. They were, without a doubt, the worst debaters I have come across—rambling and abstruse.

Even if we knew about the above, did we know that the event would be streamed live on Facebook and on the Herald’s website? I didn’t. I came across it quite by chance and if I hadn’t, I like many of you would have missed the most entertaining nadir of New Zealand broadcasting since David Seymour.

Then there was Dr Brash himself. More chaos. As soon as he rose to speak he was shouted down by a group of protesters, one of whom had a megaphone. Let’s look at that: I can understand why they were let in, you leave them out at your PC peril, but with a megaphone? Can you imagine someone being admitted to a performance of Les Miserable with a megaphone? Dr Brash in his response expressed the obvious and in doing so did himself, his argument and those of us who believe in unrestrained free speech few favours. He stood at the microphone for a few moments with his David Seymour smile on (who knew that David Seymour's smile would become a euphemism for insincerity?) and then walked away from it exclaiming that they (the protesters) had proven his argument. They may well have doctor, but in saying that you usurped your responsibility to that argument to express it in your own words and to give those who had come to hear you speak the opportunity to do so. To that end, the protesters won. And when you did get to speak, your argument with its references to the superiority of Jews and other miscellaneous matter was so obscure as to be more chaotic than compelling. An opportunity missed.

Now we turn to the coverage itself, which added to both the chaos. I watched the Facebook option. It ended before the debate did. We weren’t told who won it. We were instead told on Facebook to go to the Herald website for “full coverage.” I did. I went to the Herald website, only to be told the same thing: “Go the Herald website…” I am already here, fool!

The Facebook coverage at least gave us the opportunity to be involved. We were presented with a selection of emoticons that we could press to express what we thought of what was being said. Even that, though, added to the confusion. Take the “angry” emoticon for example; what was that supposed to express? Anger in support of what was being said? Anger that it was being said? Anger at how it was said? Who knows? Not helpful.

But it was another Facebook device that provided the true wit and all the event’s entertainment. Down the right-side of the live feed was a column where viewers could post their comments and opinions—supposedly on what they were viewing. Fine. However, early in the debate that column was “hijacked” by the Ban 1080 Brigade. From there the column escalated leaving the debate far behind and replacing it with the  opportunity to try and outdo each other for the imagination of our mirth. It started innocuously enough with someone suggesting we ban everything and another that we ban Ban 1080. But it then it descended or ascended, depending on your perspective and position to: “Ban Jacinda Ardern”, “BAN CAPITAL LETTERS”, “Ban the apostrophe”, and when Dr Brash got on to his comments about Jewish superiority: “Ban 1080 in Israel”. I guess you had to be there, but it was great fun.

What was I suppose meant to be serious debate on a serious subject wasn’t. Part of me regrets that. But another part of me, having experienced and participated in the events of last night, is delighted at what happened. For me it was compelling, if chaotic, evidence that a large proportion of us are funny—that we can have fun and, given opportunities such as last night, we can take the Mickey out of ourselves and others without malice or forethought.

It was spontaneous. It was fun. Let’s do it again.

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