I have been trying to get my head round this business at the Oxford Union, where some undergraduates have been actively rejoicing in the killing of Charlie Kirk, the American conservative controversialist.
I am not saying that the students should be prevented from expressing their views. I do not say that they should be sent down, or in some way punished by the authorities.
The whole point of the Oxford Union – where I spent so many happy, drunken, ribald evenings – is that you should be able to express your views, no matter how imbecilic they are. It is the one of the great advantages of UK universities that they are meant to protect intellectual and academic freedom.
At Oxford you have the right – within the law – to say whatever the hell you like. If these privileged young kids want to celebrate the brutal shooting of another human being, that’s for them.
It’s repulsive. It’s sickening. But it’s their choice.
Anyway, it would be pretty odd if we responded to the foul murder of a free-speech campaigner by cracking down on free speech.
No, the interesting thing for me is the wellspring of these emotions, this unholy glee at the assassination of this innocent 31-year-old father of two. Why do these young people feel as they do?
They know murder is wrong. In fact, they have the advantage of weekly tutorials in moral philosophy, with some of the most brilliant minds in some of the most beautiful buildings in the world. And I bet not a single one of their dons is willing to suggest that the shooting of Charlie Kirk on that Utah campus, with a high-velocity rifle, was anything other than an appalling crime.
Charlie Kirk, 31, who was fatally shot last week, debating at Oxford in May
Charlie Kirk at the Oxford Union debate. The union’s president-elect faces disciplinary action after making remarks celebrating Kirk’s death
These young undergraduates are not just clever. They are also kind. They aren’t sadists or thugs or brutes. They don’t take pleasure in the spilling of human blood. On the contrary – they have a horror of suffering. They have a horror of pain, physical or psychological – and that is the whole problem.
What upsets them is the offence caused by the views espoused by Charlie Kirk, the emotional reaction he has apparently triggered, not just in themselves, but also in everyone else of the same acute sensibilities.
As far as I understand their logic, it is that he said such awful, hurtful, painful things about – say – abortion that he deserved to die.
He said such awful, painful things about – say – trans rights that he deserved to die.
He said such appalling, wounding, callous things about feminism, immigration, race – whatever – that he deserved to die.
Now look: I don’t insist that everyone has to feel the same about Charlie Kirk’s views, or indeed about his passing. I strongly disagree with some of the things he said, though I sympathise with others. But as far as I can make out, he was expressing views that are very widespread in the US.
Nothing he said broke the law. So why the jubilation among young people in this country? Does it really matter what some guy says in America? Insofar as he said things they dislike, can’t they take it in their stride?
Can’t they cope? Can’t they bounce through it? It seems as if young people have become so super-sensitive that they would rather someone got shot than say something they find offensive.
Oxford undergraduates have the advantage of weekly tutorials in moral philosophy, with some of the most brilliant minds in some of the most beautiful buildings in the world
And that is what really worries me. I don’t think I am alone in thinking that this culture of general wokery and offence-taking is connected with a growing and damaging culture of risk aversion.
The younger generation today are – as I say – much nicer, kinder, and more in touch with their feelings than my lot – sharp-elbowed, sex-crazed, acnoid Thatcherite generation that we were.
But there is increasing evidence that younger people are so mollycoddled and air-bagged and swaddled with political correctness that their general levels of anxiety are not falling but rising.
Young people don’t drive cars any more, or nothing like as much as my generation used to, when we were their age. Why is that? Yes, of course, cars are theoretically dangerous. But the truth is that they are far, far safer than they were when I first learned to drive, and fatal accidents are getting ever fewer; and yet young people are failing – often through sheer nerves – to acquire this basic qualification.
The number of under-25s with a driving licence has fallen by eight per cent in the past four years. What are we going to do in an emergency? Who is going to drive the ambulances?
Young people are drinking much less booze than we did at a similar age. Why? Are they worried about their health? Are they worried about losing control and embarrassing themselves? Surely drinking in moderation is the very essence of conviviality, at least in our culture. Alcohol is part of the Christian sacrament, but more and more of our young are now complete abstainers – absolute temperance fanatics.
What’s got into them? Before you say that it is all to do with economics and that impoverished young people these days can’t afford either to drive or to drink alcohol, I would point out that they are also having less sex, and sex, after all, is free.
A recent NATSAL survey found young people had less sex per month than their older counterparts at the same age. The phenomenon was intensified by Covid and activity has still not returned to pre-pandemic levels.
What’s up with these people? Are they worried about the emotional entanglements of sex, and all the consequent risk to their psychological wellbeing? How feeble can you get?
It feels as though they are taking refuge in the relative safety of the electronic world and refusing to endanger themselves in any way – physically or emotionally – with the result that they are turning into the wettest generation since the Flood.
When the students of the Oxford Union voted in 1933 that they would in no circumstances fight for King and country, they appalled the older generation and encouraged Nazi propagandists, who said it was a sign of Britain’s moral decay.
The same young men and women then proved everyone wrong a few years later. They fought like lions for their country, against fascism, and they won. I don’t believe there will be another war in our lifetime, and if there were, tragically and unnecessarily, to be such a war I am sure that the spirit of the British people would be roused again, and we would prevail.
But we must at all costs prevent such a thing, and to prevent a new war it is vital not just that we are able to fight but also that our potential adversaries – Putin for example – do not think when they look at Britain that we are sinking into a blubbering sea of risk-aversion, political correctness and wokery.
They must believe that we are mentally and physically robust, that we are willing to stand up for freedom. I am sure we are, and that the students of the Oxford Union are in fact bursting with all the zap, confidence, pluck and gumption the nation is always going to need.
It’s just that they aren’t giving much sign of it today.
