Got An Opinion? Best Keep It To Yourself

Got an opinion? Well just keep it to yourself because chances are it’s likely to offend someone somewhere and you know what? It could cost you your job. As one of the best and most experienced PR people in the business found to his cost.

Remarks made in a personal (and knowing him as I do), no doubt satirical blog, written seven years ago, has just got the Corporate Communications Director at Iceland Foods the sack. I won’t repeat what he said about Wales and the Welsh language here for fear that I’ll have to sack myself in 2030.

When the news broke, Twitter was predictably alight, offended of Orpington being particularly indignant that a PR director should stoop so low as to proffer an opinion and have the absolute nerve to share it. More than that, if you read the comments, anyone with half an ounce of sense would realise straight away exactly where the tongue resided whilst the fingers tap danced on the keyboard.

And all of this has profound implications for all of us.

Now, whatever you may feel about politicians, I do have some sympathy for them when utterances made years and years ago are hauled out of retirement and paraded as exhibit A as “proof” of making some point or other. Without context, without structure and without any thought usually, except in order to snare the victim.

Why the case of the PR frozen out of Iceland is so disturbing is that this could mark the beginning of a whole new employment trend. Got a great CV? Relevant experience? Perfect fit for the job? All for nothing because of one tweet sent years ago when you were a bit wet behind the years teenager.

I’m not talking about hate speech or homophobic or racism or any other despicable opinions, what is most concerning is that we appear to have created a society where anyone can be offended by almost anything and the offendee is immediately the guilty party, having to try to restore their reputation.

As Stephen Fry once said of the phrase, ‘I am offended by that’, “it has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase”.

So, if you think this is all nonsense and gibberish, that’s good, that’s healthy, let’s disagree and have a debate. But let’s not sit in judgement from our artificially offended moral high ground.

Unless that is, we welcome a world of beige where opinion is discarded and compliance is the only thing that matters.