Richard Dawkins often uses the term ‘imaginary friend’ to describe a belief in God. It’s a good phrase, but not until last week did I see someone literally call upon an imaginary friend as a tool for justifying an action. In a general complaint about the Union motion, “This House Believes Islam is a Threat to the West", Ms Madeleine Fresko wrote:

From speaking to a Muslim friend, it seems that some people in the Islamic Society may even be "up for the debate". But I can't help but imagine the scene: a young new Muslim fresher, browsing happily at the freshers' fair is pounced upon by the Union stallholders, who convince her to part with £120 to become a member of the best society in Cambridge for life. She gets home and opens her termcard, to be faced with the image of the Statue of Liberty wearing a burkha (an offensive piece of religious mockery scarily reminiscent of the deadly Anti-Semitic propaganda of old)... She would realise that she has just parted with £120 to be part of a society which plans to publically [sic] deface her beliefs and identity in a matter of weeks.

It would be cheap of me to point out that if Ms Fresko’s phantom friend wanted to compare the image in the termcard with genuine anti-Semitic cartoons, she could easily procure one from fine Islamist purveyors everywhere. It would be equally true, though perhaps missing the point, to suggest that the spectacle of the nutbag Lauren Booth enjoying a round of applause is far more sinister than Mr. Gash making a spectacle of himself unaided. The essential point I'm making is this: if Ms Fresko’s chimerical companion is so dismayed by a challenge to her beliefs, what is she doing at university in the first place, let alone this University?

It would seem Ms Fresko needs a brief refresher course in what she calls ‘that old flawed argument about freedom of speech’, which may have been best adumbrated by our noted alumnus John Milton: it’s not your right to be heard, it’s my right to hear; its my right to be challenged and not mollycoddled. If all humanity were agreed on the truth of a given proposition, the sole heretic’s view would become especially important because his opinion might cause us to think twice, might have something of substance in it, and it would force us to reexamine what we believe to be certain.

Yes, this challenge might be crude and it might be direct, but what of it? It has been that way since Aristotle defined Man as “a featherless biped” and Plato’s students heaved a plucked chicken over the wall of the Lyceum crying “Aristotle, here is your man!”

I have learnt more about evolution from studying the Scopes trial and arguing against creationist tracts than I did in four years of undergraduate study of biology. Jonah Golberg’s Liberal Fascism taught me much about the intellectual history of fascism, even if his anti-Darwin and anti-homosexual views make my teeth grind. We must not conflate the often insidious examples of 'offensive' opinion with genuine scholarly investigation. For example, can any serious person really suggest that the discovery of direct payment by the Third Reich to Oswald Moseley’s east-end thugs is of less value because the discovery was made by the controversial historian David Irving?

In reality, the reasons that Ms Fresko offer for curtailing debate are deeply sinister. The notion that 'beliefs and identity' deserve protection simply because they are 'beliefs and identity' is exactly the kind of evil nonsense peddled by the likes of Nick Griffin, who is never happier than when grunting on about assaults on ‘white identity’. It has its roots in the counter-Enlightenment when Holy Mother Church did not wish thought or criticism to disturb the suppressed. The claims Ms Fresko makes are tantamount to demanding special protection for religious groups - I happen to think our secular society can do without a blasphemy law. And if one’s beliefs, let alone one’s 'identity' cannot withstand criticism, then, frankly, they deserve destruction.

The University as an institution exists to challenge dogma and teach students to think, not to ringfence dogma and encourage mental passivity. There is only one identity that is truly worth having, and that is that of Homo sapiens, the thinking human individual.  The more ferocious debate we have, the more examples of that rare species will develop.