Gordon McLauchlan: A columnist should be the last to silence other views

Perhaps the greatest danger facing newspaper columnists is believing their own bullshit, writes Gordon McLauchlan. Photo / File

Opinion

Perhaps the greatest danger facing newspaper columnists, or anyone with a public platform, is believing their own bullshit, and surely I may use that word now a Princeton philosopher has made it a valid philosophical term. Like too many liberals (of whom I am one), Rachel Stewart has decided her own opinion is sacrosanct and those who disagree with her should be silenced.

Thus Dave Witherow who is made irritable by "boring bigots" who, he thinks, inflict te reo upon him should be disallowed from writing publicly because he is deemed guilty of her definition of "hate speech", and the Otago Daily Times which gave him a platform should apologise. Don Brash agreed with Witherow and wrote on Facebook that he is "utterly sick of people talking Te Reo on RNZ".

I wrote a book in the 1970s which noted the fact that almost no Maori words had been taken up by New Zealanders. Well, over the past three or four decades te reo has flourished and a number of words – among them waka, whanau and whakapapa — have filled gaps in our English. I have a journalist friend who is taking classes in conversational te reo, and loving it.

I believe Maori have helped make us distinctively New Zealanders and made most of us conscious of the values they bring to our lives. Australians, on the other hand, have always kept Aborigines at a distance and gained nothing from them except their enduring contempt.

Recently, I listened to the maiden speeches of two new Maori MPs, both lawyers, both women, one from National and one from Labour, and was delighted at the way they both spoke so eloquently and moved effortlessly from one language to the other.

I know Don Brash. I met Dave Witherow once and remember him as articulate, amusing and provocative. However, I think they are both misguided and I think it especially sad that Brash, at the end of a political career, should embrace so pathetic a cause when there are so many socially useful interests he could embellish with his experience.

But it has never crossed my mind that I should try to shut them up because they don't reflect my opinions, and I firmly believe that by silencing them, no matter how wrong-headed we may think them, we would simply encourage the sort of intolerance and suppressed anger making public discourse difficult and dangerous in some other Western countries.

Newspaper columnists should beware of enthusiastic fans distorting their judgment. I wrote between 500 and 800 words weekly for 30 years. Occasionally someone would come up and say they agreed with everything I wrote. Far from being flattered, my unspoken reaction was one of pity that they didn't have minds of their own.

What I tried to do with columns was discuss issues and probably come down on one side or the other. I was not obsessed by myself and my little life as so many contemporary columnists are and I had just enough of that great civilising instinct, self-doubt, to be wary of wanting to shush opposing opinions.

Stewart has written some interesting, opinionated and instructive columns usefully published in the Herald but she should accept that she is not in command of ultimate truths, and I look forward to Federated Farmers claiming her tirades against them should be classed as hate speech and therefore suppressed and the Herald asked to apologise.

Farmers could use her own argument against her.