Trigger Warning: Is the Fear of Being Offensive Killing Free Speech? by Mick Hume – review

Should we be allowed to say anything? What about hate speech? Do complaints about verbal cruelty patronise and insult? Yes, but …

Trigger Warning (noun): a statement at the start of any piece of writing, video, etc, alerting the reader or viewer to the fact that it contains material they might find upsetting or offensive.

Trigger Warning is a long and fierce defence of the right to unrestricted freedom of speech including “hate-speech”. A rich resource, it contains nearly all of the key cases and quotations you’ll need to understand this extremely difficult issue. It’s also highly repetitive, and few will finish it in its present form. Mick Hume should hire an implacable copy editor, cut the book by 100 pages in an immediate second edition and spin off a separate incandescent pamphlet (50 pages maximum) aimed at achieving the kind of sales Harry Frankfurt enjoyed with On Bullshit.

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