Laurie Penny is a columnist for New Statesman and the author of Meat Market: Female Flesh Under Capitalism. In 2010, her blog Penny Red was nominated for the Orwell Prize. Below, she discusses the differences between heresy and controversy and the importance, for democratic societies of people who challenge authority.

Should we celebrate heretics?

Well, I think that the British political culture (in particular) is very in love with the idea of controversy and very much likes the façade of high-profile disagreement, debate and iconoclasm for its own sake. The difference between everyday controversy and heresy, particularly useful heresy, is that heresy is the telling of particular truths that either expose authority and oligarchy or undermine its premise. This is why Galileo and Darwin were considered heretics, but Isaac Newton and Louis Pasteur were not.

Not all heretics set out to be iconoclastic and to challenge power. If you go down the centuries and look at people who have been considered heretical, a lot of what you see are people who, when confronted with truth and discoveries, felt that they had to make those known as a matter of principle. They were not prepared to keep quiet for the sake of maintaining the status quo. I think that kind of heresy is very different and far more powerful than challenging authority for its own sake.