After only two months in power, the Starmer government is making real advances in embedding progressive values in the life of the nation. One of its first initiatives has been to halt the Tories’ Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023, which, under the guise of protecting free inquiry and expression, would have empowered the dissemination of reactionary ideologies in universities. According to press reports, the government is also considering reversing the Tory policy that prohibited police monitoring and recording of alleged hate incidents that are not criminal offences. In future, the fact that speech may not be illegal will no longer be an excuse for excluding it from the attention of the law.
Archaic conceptions of free speech that tolerate assaults on self-evident liberal principles are being rapidly abandoned. But there is one area that has not yet been brought within the reach of regulation. Comedy is potentially the most disruptive of artistic genres, and here the Starmer government has been dilatory. Banning hate speech in theatrical performances – as implied by Humza Yousaf’s Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act, which came into effect in April of this year but sadly seems not to have been enforced – is plainly necessary, but not enough. As with so many problems facing the government, the remedy is to expand the scope of law. Given its power to inflict psychological harm and its potential as a channel for hateful views, comedy must become a licensed profession.
Every practitioner, current or aspiring, should be required to undergo training and accreditation at publicly funded comedy schools, where proscribed topics can be identified and instruction given in addressing appropriate targets. An Office of Responsible Humour (ORH), composed of experts from the expanding discipline of Hate Studies, would supply the necessary guidelines. A Criminal Levity Act would put toxic humour within the scope of anti-terrorism laws. Unauthorised jocosity in public spaces – street gatherings, pubs – would be subject to the same legal conditions, and failure to report incidents of problematic humour in these contexts would itself be a crime.
Governmental regulation of comedy is the logical implication of liberalism properly understood. In his celebrated essay On Liberty (1859) the canonical liberal John Stuart Mill argued that individuals should be free to act as they please, except where they risk harming other people. He nowhere supplied a definition of harm. But since he stipulated that the principle applies to “man as a progressive being”, anything which obstructs human progress must be regarded as harmful. Why then should a liberal regime shrink from outlawing regressive texts, art works and media content? Right-wing nostalgists will say this will mean losses in what they like to call “civilisation”. But if eradicating white supremacism requires erasing Western “classics” from our culture, it will be a small price to pay for the well-being of the species. Who can deny the immense harm done by Homer and the Bible?
A precondition of any lasting improvement in society is making a break with the past, and there is no more radical breach with that burdensome legacy than to forget it. What the notorious reactionary George Orwell described in 1984 as “the memory hole” performs a vital function in any enlightened regime. Purging texts of noxious content, as has been done in reissues of novels by Ian Fleming, is an obvious starting point. Other suspect authors – PG Wodehouse and Agatha Christie, for example – would benefit from similar treatment.
Expurgating such texts, however, does not prevent them recreating the worlds in which offense was normalised, worlds that – whatever incidental interest they may have for historians – ought never to have existed in the first place. Here again, comedy is particularly dangerous. Television series like Dad’s Army (1968-1977) leave an indelible impression of a society incomparably less developed than our own, which the population nevertheless found worth defending – clearly a harmful message. In keeping with liberal principles, videos of such series should be withdrawn from circulation entirely.
A reasonable argument can be made that the legal regulation of comedy may ultimately be unnecessary. Society itself, operating through economic incentives and peer pressure, can eliminate much that is retrograde or questionable. Facing the prospect of long-term unemployment, most comedians will obey norms that preclude triggering their audiences. A few may cling to an obsolete ideology in which provoking discomfort is an essential part of their art. Comedy, they will say, serves to remind us of the absurdities inherent in the high-minded pretence of virtue. Fortunately, perverse attitudes of this kind belong in another age. Yet vigilance is needed if progress is to continue, and we cannot afford to be complacent.
No doubt unfairly, the Starmer government has been accused of presenting a dour, joyless face to the nation. Surely the time has come for it to show that it understands the importance of humour. Bringing comedy within the control of the law would be a step towards the new country that Labour, now under truly progressive leadership, is committed to building.
[See also: Keir Starmer’s populist smoking ban]
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This article appears in the 18 Sep 2024 issue of the New Statesman, What’s the story?