That people might be swayed by emotion rather than reason sets up a false opposition. Feeling is an excellent means of forming a view. Reason is so often feeling in gaudy.
Yet it is this false opposition that underpins the argument for the objectionable New Labour propaganda stance of No Platform. All of a piece with its social and cultural authoritarianism, it attempts to argue the morality, not just the political convenience, of denying any discussion of contentious public policies. Policies such as redistributive taxation, world policing of 'failed states', multiculturalism, the fecklessness of some working age benefit dependents, positive discrimination, justice and punishment - fill in according to choice.
On all of these matters no opinion has been expressed in this post. But so relentlessly has the ideology of No Platform been driven, by the state broadcasting system, by newspapers kept afloat by state advertising, by pressures within all educational institutions - schools, universities, and state-funded research and development agencies, by trade unions and by workplaces where these predominate like local authorities, quangos and non-governmental Third Sector organisations, etc., that there is an implication or presumption of racialism, discrimination against designated sectors, genders, statuses, or illegal thought crime, from even mentioning them.
Effectively large areas of public policy have been removed from public debate justified on spurious grounds of iffy Fabian political philosophies over individual choice and thought. As any fule no:
"If you believe in freedom of speech, you believe in freedom of speech for views you don't like. Goebbels was in favor of freedom of speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you're in favor of freedom of speech, that means you're in favor of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise."
But then Noam Chomsky is a Hero.
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