Liam Neeson and the rise of mob hysteria
The court of public opinion should make way for quieter, more sober legal justice
As the MeToo movement unfurled, I watched in horror – but not surprise – as right gave way to might. This was hashtag politics, after all, and what began as a muchneeded wake-up call quickly became the baying of the mob. Rumours circulated, allegations followed and heads began to t fall at a rate of knots, all before the law could get a look in. It soon became becam clear that the hordes of the digitally equipped righteous weren’t interested intere in legal justice: they wanted nothing n less than a total moral cull, cu enacted through the terrifying dynamics dyn of virtual stoning. A few brave br souls – including writers Margaret M Atwood, Germaine Germain Greer, and Lionel Shriver – wondered out loud what had ha happened to due process. process In a powerful moment of feminist femi dissent, Atwood voiced concerns about the treatment treatm of the Canadian creative creativ writing professor, Steven Galloway, who was dismissed dismiss from his post at the University Univer of British Columbia following followin allegations of sexual misconduct. miscond “Temporary vigilante justice can morph into a culturally culturall solidified lynch-mob habit,” she noted, warning that legal justice was being “thrown out the window” window and “extralegal power structures” put in their place. She was immediately i accused of “s------- on o less powerful women”, and an plenty more besides. Meanwhile, Meanwhile Lionel Shriver, bestselling author of We Need to Talk About K Kevin, became the pin-up of evil ev for “woke” literary types after she, s too, criticised MeToo’s substitution sub of “the modern shaming mill” mi for the court of law. And the cele celebrated American film studies professor prof Laura Kipnis, who in a 2015 201 article questioned – like Atwood – the suspension of due process in the case of a male colleague accused of sexual misconduct, was swiftly put under investigation by Northwestern University. She has only recently escaped the shadow of the nightmarish proceedings.
The cost of defending due process in the face of hashtag outrage has been made clear. So I was heartened last week to read that due process still has its fans. Speaking at the Berlin film festival, where she is head of the jury, the beautiful Juliette Binoche went so far as to wish for the end of mob rule on Harvey Weinstein, MeToo’s first and biggest monster. She suggested that even in his despicable case, the court of public opinion, and the punishments it metes out, should now be suspended to make way for quieter, more sober legal justice. “A lot of people have expressed themselves,” said Binoche. “Now justice has to do its work.”
Sadly, such a bold defence of legal over mob justice seems likely to remain the outlier. While Binoche was standing up for due process, the actor Liam Neeson found himself globally pilloried after some risky comments about race. Describing the fury he felt 40 years ago on hearing that a close female friend had been raped, Neeson told how he had demanded to know the race of the man. Finding out that he was black, Neeson then “went out deliberately into black areas in the city looking to be set upon so that I could unleash physical violence”. He said he wanted to kill a black man – any black man – in revenge for his friend’s rape.
The admission was clearly shocking: Neeson had admitted to having harboured and even nearly acted on murderous racism. But his comments weren’t made with a fist-pump. He actually thought owning up to his actions and thoughts would be valuable in getting others to recognise their own racism. “We all pretend we’re all politically correct in this country… in mine, too. You sometimes just scratch the surface and you discover this racism and bigotry and it’s there.” Quite so.
And had the mob, having scented blood, actually paused a moment before rushing for vengeance, a genuinely productive conversation might have been possible. Instead, there were instant and familiar calls to boycott his films in perpetuity, strip him of his MBE, and widespread agreement that he had committed “career suicide”. One thoughtful response to Neeson’s comments came from John Barnes, the (black) ex-England player. Barnes told Sky
News that he had “more respect for [Neeson] now than if he had come out and said, ‘I view all black people as equal, I just view everybody as equal’”, observing that the moral vigilantism of the sort visited on Neeson will mean people are “now going to be afraid to tell the truth on how they feel”.
Barnes is right. Raining hellfire and damnation down on those who admit their flaws may be how the social justice mob rolls these days. This is a shame. The outraged of Twitter should focus on changing hearts and minds with persuasion, argument and debate, and leave justice and retribution to our courts of law.