No doubt we have almost all become anti-censorship. We say it upfront, for we are all in favour of freedom of expression.

But then, when it becomes necessary to do so, we need to show a certain reserve. One has to put everything into some context, for how would it be possible to arrive otherwise at a judgement?

Yet frankly, it is quite difficult to understand what role judgement plays in this matter. Either what is being claimed holds across the line, or it has no hold at all.

So, would one allow those who incite people to murder their neighbours to proceed with their mantras and not stop them?

Limits that have been introduced with universal agreement have therefore covered discourse that promotes hate and anti-semitisim (though it does not seem like the same strictures have been introduced against those who preach anti-Arab hatred).

Yet it seems too like there’s another limiting factor on the banning of censorship: Should those who in the past were allegedly guilty of censoring others, themselves be censored now?

You’ll find people to tell you: Yes, of course, they should be!

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SCIENCE

Some weeks ago, during the election campaign, it was the employers’ association I think, which came out with the proposal that Malta’s educational structures should give greater weight to mathematical, scientific and technical instruction. I  have not always agreed with this union’s positions but on that one I was fully in agreement.

Then I was puzzled when educators – and it seemed to me they were also based at the University – emerged to protest against the recommendation. They considered that it promoted  the abandonment of a “liberal” education which encourages critical thinking, so that instead, students could focus on subjects that would be considered “useful” by their future employers.  

I cannot understand how a scientific frame of mind can be considered as alien to critical thinking. A leading principle of scientific knowledge affirms that whatever is being put forward by way of explanation, remains acceptable only for as long as it is not falsified by facts. I doubt whether it is possible to be more critical than in this way when one is relating to the world in which we live.

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FREE HEALTH SERVICES?

How true is it that we enjoy free public health services?

A friend of mine (now deceased) once told me: Our public health services will become really free of charge when medical consultants and specialists work fulltime with the government withou having private practice. For as long as we stay like this, many will continue to avail themselves of medical care partly free of charge for the interventions carried out within the government system, and the rest for payment to cover private consultations. And it frequently happens that the same consultant who gives you private treatment is the one who continues with it in the government hospital.

For the government to really provide medical services free of charge, this man (himself a consultant) continued, it would need to pay its fulltime consultants and specialists the same amounts they earn on the back of their private practice. As of now, there has been no government to discover how this could be done without provoking the anger of other government employees.

So we continue with a pari passu system. While boasting of having a completely free public health system, we know that in many cases, this claim does not hold.