Newsroom’s series of articles on the Free Speech Union has been illuminating.
Perhaps the most entertaining was David Williams’ account of their AGM in Christchurch, which featured the Wizard of Christchurch, Brian Tamaki and ‘prominent conspiracy influencer’ Chantelle Baker as well as Jordan Williams from the Taxpayers’ Union and Eric Crampton from the New Zealand Initiative.
Note the subtle put down of using the word entertaining.
[…] Separately, in an article in the New Zealand Herald about the new curriculum, Jonathan Ayling, a former chief executive and ongoing consultant to the FSU writes: “Humility before truth is the essence of education. Its purpose is not to confirm what we already believe, but to challenge how we think.”
I agree with that statement. In their campaigns, it would be good if the Free Speech Union and fellow travellers like the New Zealand Initiative and Taxpayers’ Union showed that kind of modesty.
Instead, while instructing the universities’ vice-chancellors on academic freedom and now schools on how to manage their affairs, they exhibit a fixed belief in the virtue of their own convictions.
Pot – Kettle – Black.
In many ways, however, these are self-contradictory.
In supporting David Seymour’s decision to remove a reference to Te Tiriti o Waitangi from the Education and Training Act, Ayling goes on to argue for “an Enlightenment approach to education grounded in universal reason”.
But “universal reason” suggests there is only one right way to think. How does that fit in with freedom of thought, and speech?
Classic straw-man argument. We’re not talking about freedom of speech here. We’re talking about the best way to teach our kids.
And is there such a thing? One of the most profound ways to discover what we already believe, and to challenge how we think is to engage with different languages and cultural traditions.
Well actually there is. It’s why we teach (or ought to) things like Shakespeare, mathematics, the scientific method, etc, in schools. These are universal.
The ways in which languages partition and shape the world vary across different cultural trajectories, and these patterns frame how we think and what we believe in ways that are so deeply taken for granted that they are often invisible.
The process of becoming immersed in a language and a culture very different from our own may challenge these hidden assumptions. As they begin to shift, new possibilities for understanding emerge. Such exchanges can be very creative.
Please let me know if you can understand that word salad, because I can’t.
In recent years, I’ve had the privilege of joining a series of workshops at the University of Cambridge led by Sir Geoffrey Lloyd, an authority on ancient Chinese science, Greek science, the formation of the disciplines in the Enlightenment and cognitive science, among other subjects.
[…] Based on the evidence presented at these workshops, Ayling’s claim that there is a single “universal reason” cannot be sustained.
A rigorous, evidence-based inquiry into the variability of human ways of knowing, past and present and across different cultures, reveals that human understandings of the world do differ, sometimes quite radically; and are always limited (if only by our biology) and provisional.
Forgive me if I’m wrong, but I think this means that, instead of teaching maths the normal way, you should do something like ‘If Rangi has an ounce of weed and gives half to his mate and smokes half of the rest how much weed does he have left over in grams?’
The debate is about the extent of that variability, and its limits. As any historian of science will attest, truth claims vary through time, and paradigm shifts can be profound.
Yes, but science isn’t about truth and has never claimed to be about truth. It’s a methodology for knowing the best we can based on the evidence available at the time. Theories change as we discover more; a classic example is what gravity is and how it works. In fact the correct response to any new theory is ‘How very interesting and how very likely to be very, very, wrong.’
[…] To argue, as Ayling does, that the New Zealand curriculum should be based on an ‘Enlightenment approach grounded in universal reason’ is simplistic, and ill-informed.
Education should be evidence-based with the aim of giving our kids the best education possible. Where’s the evidence that having the TOW as something that permeates everything from teaching science, literature, etc, does this?
[…] The practical effect of claims about ‘universal reason’ is to shut down open-minded inquiry into how human ways of knowing might vary, and enrich each other – for instance, by cutting research funding for the humanities and social sciences in New Zealand.
One of the first principles of scientific investigation is that knowledge claims should be based on rigorous research, and tested against evidence by those with relevant expertise before they’re judged to be reliable.
Excuse me, but I just got a headache reading that. It reminds me of how trannies change the meaning of the word gender and then change it back to the original meaning whenever it suits them. Again we’re talking about the best way to give our kids the best education possible.
[…] The key question to ask about ‘free speech’ is freedom for whom, and about what? Across the country at present, as well as in schools, Māori interests are being marginalised, and Māori voices silenced.
Actually no, the key question is whether we have it or not, and if we do have it, how can we protect it. I’m not even going to comment on the ‘Māori are oppressed’ bullshit.
Basically Anne’s argument is that we should teach the TOW in schools and give it holy status ’cos freedom of speech. I’d admit it is a creative argument, but totally wrong. What we should be focusing on is giving our kids the best education possible, based on what we know works.
Link: https://newsroom.co.nz/2025/11/18/anne-salmond-free-speech-but-only-one-way-to-think/
