Book Review: “Trigger Warning: Is the Fear of Being Offensive Killing Free Speech?” by Mick Hume

 

In Defence of Offence: Why Mick Hume’s “Trigger Warning” is a Howl of Sanity in an Age of Cowards

Mick Hume's Trigger Warning is a sledgehammer blow to the porcelain sensibilities of our era, a blistering polemic against the rise of censorship masquerading as virtue. It is not just a book; it is a cultural counterpunch. In an age where truth is taboo and facts must be padded with trigger warnings, Hume stands like a lion in a pen of kittens, roaring for freedom.

He asks the question every real man, every true citizen of the West, should be asking: Is the fear of being offensive killing free speech? The answer, of course, is yes and then some. We are not just afraid of offence. We are afraid of reality.

Hume charts the drift of liberal societies from tolerance to tyranny, not through bullets and boots, but through hashtags, HR departments, and the creeping censorship of polite society. The villains of his tale are not jackbooted thugs but whimpering bureaucrats, student activists with delicate egos, and Twitter mobs that bay for blood over jokes.

This is the tyranny of safety. Of comfort. Of infantilisation.

And here lies the rot: Free speech isn’t about manners. It isn’t about being nice. It’s about risk. It’s about the clash of ideas, the furnace of disagreement, the struggle that forges real thought. Hume gets it. He writes like a man who has been in that furnace and has come out swinging.

The left, once the champion of speaking truth to power, now polices language like a priesthood. They’ve turned blasphemy laws into policy. They hide censorship behind euphemisms like “inclusivity,” “harm reduction,” or “creating safe spaces.” But as Hume shows, these are not safe spaces, they’re padded cells.

What’s at stake is not just speech. It’s manhood.

A society that punishes offence cannot raise men. It breeds cowards, mealy-mouthed boys too afraid to say what they think, lest someone, somewhere, feel “unsafe.” But life is unsafe. Speech must be dangerous. Truth should sting. Hume reminds us that without that danger, we become soft, stupid, and servile.

This is a book that every young man should read, every father should assign, and every university should fear. Because it doesn’t ask permission. It doesn’t apologise. It offends and thank God it does.

We do not kneel to feelings. We do not grovel before the mob. We speak, we fight, and we offend, because that is the price of freedom. Mick Hume has paid that price. And in this book, he gives us the receipt.

5/5. Buy it, mark it up, pass it on. Let the weak wince. Let the men roar.