Not Seeing The Forest

Over at Spiked Frank Furedi looks at the new censorship of the Left. Many of his points are good, but his analysis is a perfect example of having one's nose too close to the problem.

There was a time when those who called themselves radical or progressive marched and struggled for the realisation of the right to freedom of speech. These days, so-called progressives are far more likely to demonstrate against the right of people that they don’t like to speak openly.

This is true as far as it goes, but what Mr. Furedi does not understand is that this is not a bug, but a feature. It's no paradox that elements of the Left once demanded free speech and now demand censorship, because free speech was never what they wanted. It wasn't censorship that the radicals or "progressives" objected to, only that they weren't the censors. The purpose of political correctness was never to avoid offending people, but to turn clearly defined words into meaningless euphemisms and to make every person look over his shoulder for fear of having committed thoughtcrime. The purpose of the new censorship is clear and obvious; to impose a new orthodoxy and to muzzle all dissent from the party line.

In other words; good, old-fashioned despotism.