I am skeptical of giving the government the power to censor speech and to determine what is hate speech, because this power can be abused. But at the same time, hate speech is a real thing and allowing it does not promote freedom of speech.
For example, suppose someone says "I think that everyone who does not believe in my religion should be killed." That type of speech is intimidating and comes with the threat of violence. Therefore any non-believer might pretend to believe and censor themselves out of fear for their lives. In this way, the speech itself acts as a form of censorship, and allowing it to occur silences more people than banning it.
Such is the case with all hate speech: hate speech is never about expressing oneself, it is about censoring the opposition through intimidation and organizing violence against them. In extreme cases, a single demagogue spewing hate can silence millions.
One example- until relatively recently, the vast majority of gay people would keep it to themselves because they were afraid of homophobic backlash, even though they were still afforded free speech under the law. This is an example of extreme censorship, which demonstrates that censorship can happen without any government involvement. Today the situation is somewhat reversed, where lgbt expression is increasingly acceptable but homophobia is not. This is a victory for free speech: lgbt expression does not come at the expense of straight people's expression, and banning homophobia is merely banning violent censorship of lgbt people.
> I am skeptical of giving the government the power to censor speech and to determine what is hate speech, because this power can be abused. But at the same time, hate speech is a real thing and allowing it does not promote freedom of speech.
No.
> For example, suppose someone says "I think that everyone who does not believe in my religion should be killed." That type of speech is intimidating and comes with the threat of violence. Therefore any non-believer might pretend to believe and censor themselves out of fear for their lives. In this way, the speech itself acts as a form of censorship, and allowing it to occur silences more people than banning it.
You are conflating things. Hate speech isn't about threats of violence.
Hate speech is when you have specially classified groups of protected people that you are not allowed to offend or mock or belittle. It is also about making it illegal to talk about subjects that are not approved by the government. Like how you are not allowed to show nazi flags in video games.
You can go ahead and offend, mock, or belittle people that are not part of a protected class. That isn't illegal under "hate speech laws".
Nobody is defending or claiming that threatening people with violence is "free speech". Trying to claim this is grossly misrepresenting the entire argument. Either for, or against, hate speech.
You are misrepresenting the definition of hate speech in order to create a strawman. Here is the definition from Google search card:
>abusive or threatening speech or writing that expresses prejudice against a particular group, especially on the basis of race, religion, or sexual orientation.
So it's not just "offend or mock or belittle", but rather "abusive or threatening".
And if you think "offend or mock or belittle" are the same as "abusive", then you just don't get it yet.
> You are misrepresenting the definition of hate speech in order to create a strawman. Here is the definition from Google search card:
I don't give a shit what Google has to say about it.
What I do care is what the laws actually are. We are talking about Hate Speech Laws. The law is what matters. Not your cherry picked definitions that help prop up your misrepresentation/misunderstanding of what is going on.
> So it's not just "offend or mock or belittle", but rather "abusive or threatening".
The issue is that 'abusive' is nonsense.
If it's a legitimate threat then it's illegal no matter what person or group it is targeted at.
When it's legal to do it against one political classification of persons, but it's illegal to do it against another one... That is a big freaking problem.
For justice under the law it needs to be universal in application. If you can be "abusive" against one person, but not another because of politically defined group classifications or you are not allowed to talk about or discuss or bring up certain projects because protected classes of people might find it "threatening", then that is objectively immoral.
> And if you think "offend or mock or belittle" are the same as "abusive", then you just don't get it yet.
Well there isn't much to get here. So I get it. Do you?
Euphemistic usage and strange definitions of "abusive" and "threatening" doesn't change anything. It's just abusing the language to obscure a position.
If it's real abuse, if it's real threats... then it's illegal universally. Nobody is arguing against that.
This disconnect is due to a lack of understanding the difference between individual and collective rights. People pushing collective rights are inherently in opposition to those who value individual liberty, and the dillution of this largely via education has vast swaths of people trying to apply more and more collective rights structures on an American foundation of individual freedoms in the Declaration of Independence sense. Hence why even as an atheist I find solace and value in the founders justification of The Grand Architect giving us these rights in the more gnostic sense. As it serves to emphasize that the desire of individual rights is an inherent part of being an individual human, something universal. This was the true revolution of the enlightenment and renaissance embodied in the imperfect but first nation state to buck monarchy and theocracy that is America, and the fad-of-the-moment haters who so blithely dismiss not just the Constitution but its foundational philsophical concepts from the enlightenment are increasingly dooming us to repeat history. Censorship, stasi-level totalitarianism, etc are the end result of collectivism, forever in opposition to true, stripped of its faults, Americanism.
> What I do care is what the laws actually are. We are talking about Hate Speech Laws.
And yet you define Hate Speech laws as those disallowing others from "offending, mocking, or belittling" those in designated protected classes. Is that truly what these laws you are referring to are targeting? I don't see that in the UK's bill. Sincerely: am I missing it? Am I misreading? It's long, I relied on a summary for this comment.
> If it's a legitimate threat then it's illegal no matter what person or group it is targeted at... If it's real abuse, if it's real threats... then it's illegal universally.
The chilling effect of violent rhetoric will exist and persist whether the threat is legitimate or not. That's the debate. Should you be able to stoke those sentiments freely? The individuals who are stigmatized certainly don't have the capacity to fact-check every threat.
I'm not an advocate for these laws, I don't know what's best, but I can't see it as black and white as you seem to. The person you replied to had what I thought to be a very good perspective I hadn't considered.
I am not the person you were responding to, but I picked (at random) the Australian hate speech laws to look up and they do not seem to be about language that is threatening, and are more about protected classes:
I don’t believe the UK has the concept of a “hate speech crime”. Rather, first a crime must be committed, and then that crime may be classified as motivated by hate, which attracts higher penalties.
Also, intent matters, and it is a defense if the allegedly criminal conduct can be proven to be reasonable.
> I don't give a shit what Google has to say [...] I do care is what the laws actually are
Well this time it happens to be one and the same.
> When it's legal to do it against one political classification of persons, but it's illegal to do it against another one... That is a big freaking problem.
That's exactly what the laws say. And for good reason most times.
Here's [0] a handy guide for people who care about what the laws are just slightly less than they care about their own personal opinion. It will hopefully help you understand that what you consider to be "logical" or "common sense" is not necessarily accurate. I highlighted the parts which make the laws very targeted ("one political classification of persons"):
> "There are laws that criminalize speech because of the particular content of that speech. The prohibited content differs widely: in some jurisdictions speech that incites hatred or is insulting about certain groups is penalized. Other common prohibitions are on speech which denigrates a person’s or a nation’s “honour” or “dignity”. There may also be restrictions on specific historical subjects, the most notable being laws which prohibit Holocaust denial or glorification of Nazi ideology. This category of speech regulation is described as “hate speech”."
Here's [1] another handy piece of info, the EU is extending the list of EU crimes to hate speech and hate crime.
But... Hate speech laws do open the door for abuse. What's hate speech today because the target is legitimately vulnerable, can be abused by a not so vulnerable group tomorrow (politicians incriminating any kind of attack on them). Then again you always have to rely on the regime applying the laws to not abuse them. This doesn't change the fact that as it stands today Google has it pretty accurate but your understanding of the situation and reasoning behind it is lacking.
The key here is in the vagueness of "abusive". Is using the term "pedo" in a derogatory fashion abusive? What about not using someone's preferred pronouns?
> hate speech is never about expressing oneself, it is about censoring the opposition through intimidation and organizing violence against them.
This is simply untrue. Both in terms of how the term "hate speech" is commonly used and the actual practice of the law. Was nazi pug guy trying to censor other people's speech?
> Today the situation is somewhat reversed, where lgbt expression is increasingly acceptable but homophobia is not. This is a victory for free speech:
This confuses me, though I suppose your meaning of "homophobia" might be different from the one I am familiar with (like many politically charged words its meaning is vague and varies).
Would saying things like "Fags will go to hell, homosexuality is wrong and unnatural and homos should be kept away from children so they don't pass on the gay." be homophobia or hate speech? What about "we should imprison gays so they repent their evil ways and stop infecting our children"?
I think this is bad advice, what follows the "but" can be on a spectrum. It can run from struggling with one's own beliefs, to empathizing with the real-world consequences of others, to all-out advocating for an abandonment of the beliefs that came before the "but". Life is complicated, trite quotes like this don't leave much room to explore the corners - personal and social - of nuanced topics.
I think the context here is important. Rushdie was nearly killed multiple times for speech, and during his travails may people he knew who who claimed to support free speech were saying thing to him like, "I support free speech, but maybe you shouldn't have [insulted Islam]...". He was talking about people making excuses for his would be murderers.
He's spoken about it at some length and contextualizes what he means and how when people say it they almost never have anything nuanced to say after the but.
I suppose all I can say is that I like the quote in context, and think most people who use the quote to dismiss the perspectives of others outright deserve an exasperated eye-roll. Life is not as simple as many want to make it.
>banning homophobia is merely banning violent censorship of lgbt people.
'violent'?
If I say "I don't like gays". How is that violent?
If we have freedom of speech that applies to everyone. LGBT or homophobic. Each have the same right to speech, neither has the right to threaten with violence. Redefining speech you don't like as 'violent' isn't right though.
Also "Redefining speech you don't like as 'violent' isn't right though." That's exactly what you're doing with the word 'violence' in your post. You're claiming it doesn't have a meaning that it definitely does, in the literal look-it-up-in-a-dictionary sense.
I read the piece. Leaving aside the weighty issue of whether Milo Yiannopoulos' presence can violently shorten people's telomeres or methylate their CpG sites, there's the question of whether broadening a definition licenses broadening a prohibition. People who accept without question that the govt should stop interpersonal violence in the narrow sense may well not accept at all that it should stop it in its broader senses. Think about the friar's famous line from Romeo and Juliet, "These violent desires have violent ends". "Violent" has two different meanings in this line. It should be clear to anyone that the violence of Romeo and Juliet's love or sexual attraction for each other is not susceptible to the same legal sanction as the clan warfare that erupts in its consequence.
The common law prohibition of violence pertains to physical violence. Defining speech as "illegally violent" is absolutely a redefinition.
> Speech can cause a physical reaction just as much as a punch in the face can
This is farcical on it's face. There is simply no evidence that being offended or made a little uncomfortable is going to hurt you. You do after all have great power to control your own mental state, emotions, and reaction to negative externalities. This is a cornerstone of some of the oldest philosophical traditions in the world and well supported by experimentation. Cultivating a mindset of fragility only hurts yourself. But being called bad names will never hurt you like being physically beaten, words can't break bones or rupture your internal organs.
1. Behavior or treatment in which physical force is exerted for the purpose of causing damage or injury.
2. Intense force or great power, as in natural phenomena.
3. Extreme or powerful emotion or expression
Which? Because it isn't physical force. And I don't think 3 applies as that tends not to be directed at anyone, and there's no requirement for the 'expression' to be hateful.
Further. That means saying "I hate homophobes" is also violence. So we can't say that either. And then we're on a slippery slope where if you say anything that anyone disagrees with is violence.
In the last paragraph you're ignoring the part where the protected categories are based on a logical analysis of the problems in society. Homophobes aren't a protected class because they aren't systematically persecuted for something outside their control.
It should be completely irrelevant whether something is outside of one's control. The persecution of someone for something arbitrary is the morally wrong thing here.
And choice doesn't really exist, which is why I find that requirement so distasteful. I didn't really choose to have my political views. I didn't choose to like the color green. It's the culmination of my genetics, life experiences and so on and that's just how I turned out.
I agree with you about free will, but we still run society as if it exists. If that's the argument we're going with then we literally shouldn't punish anyone for anything.
Free will isn't required for a justification for law enforcement.
Deterrence, rehabilitation and other reasons still apply with or without free will.
All that changes is the mindset. You're no longer a perpetrator with agency. You're a broken machine and we need to fix you or isolate you from society so you don't do more damage.
>Homophobes aren't a protected class because they aren't systematically persecuted for something outside their control.
You cannot assert that if you cannot demonstrate that homophobia is 0% genetic (I am using "genetic" loosely here). In reality, like most complex human traits, it's partially genetic and partially environmental, hence it is outside the control of at least a subset of those exhibiting it.
So what? Being a serial murderer could be outside the control of at least a subset of serial murderers, but that doesn't mean we don't make laws about it. Society is still built on the axiom of free will, whether it is true or not.
You're also skipping over the "systematically persecuted" part. I guess you could say the modern liberal distaste of homophobes is "systematic", but it's such a weird example to choose given the paradox of tolerance.
This is exactly the type of reaction I expect from modern leftists when they are proven factually wrong and logically inconsistent. Thanks for being an epitome.
>You're also skipping over the "systematically persecuted" part
Homophobia is a crime in the EU. So much for not being "systematically persecuted". Homophobes fit that description far better than homosexuals today.
If something is violence, it's violence. You could say violence towards homophobes is ok because they aren't a protected class. But if you make the case that hate speech is violence, then it's violence regardless of who it's directed at.
I wasn't really arguing the "hate speech == violence" position, which is pretty silly. That doesn't mean hate speech shouldn't be an add-on offense to other crimes though. Or the idea that all targets of "hate speech" are equal. (Because it's only true "hate speech" if the targets are protected).
This is kinda like the question, "can white people experience racism?" One school of thought says no, because (in the USA) non-white people cannot wield the psychological threat of systematic persecution against white people. You could offend a white person, or be prejudiced against them, but not really "commit racism". Partly this is just a semantic argument about what "racism" means - it is not merely a superficial difference in race between parties, but rather an encapsulation of the historical and systemic forces at play. Racism is a more powerful tool for white people than it is for others.
Do people argue that white people can't experience racism?!?
If a black person applies for a job and doesn't get it because of his race, that's racism. The same applies to a white person. The same power dynamic is at play.
Note that the way you phrased that, "You are evil unless you pay me reparations." makes it so that the person isn't considered evil if they pay. That is significantly different to "You are evil therefore you pay me reparations.", in which the burden of proof of evilness is not based on payment. The person is still considered evil if they pay; they pay because they accept that and want to make things right. That's important.
Your link doesn't support your assertion that the phrase "I hate evil people. You are evil unless you pay me reparations." meets the definition of the crime of intimidation.
Speech can cause a release of hormones that make you feel negative emotions. That is not violence any more than causing the same effect by, for example, teaching someone about how their ancestors committed a genocide is violence. You do not have a right to not hear things that make you unhappy.
Excessively loud noise in residential areas is banned because it releases hormones that make you feel bad. Although there's less room for such a ban to go wrong, obviously.
I agree that the label "violence" is manipulative. Using the label "harm" instead would be more accurate.
I know it isn't. I'm saying there's precedent for things being banned merely because of a stress response. And the kinds of noise that get banned aren't just ones that damage your hearing.
And I just said it is not only sounds that damage hearing that are banned. If I am stomping on my floor for six hours straight and propagating noise pollution to my downstairs neighbor, I am getting a police visit. No hearing damage perpetrated.
>Excessively loud noise in residential areas is banned because it releases hormones that make you feel bad. Although there's less room for such a ban to go wrong, obviously.
"Excessively" loud noise in residential areas is banned for a bunch of reasons, none of which have anything to do with hormones:
1. It's annoying and disruptive to the residents of the area. No hormones required;
2. It's often selectively applied to harass members of less-favored groups, to make them uncomfortable living in that area with the hope that they'll move out.
1. "annoying and disruptive" is just cortisol, adrenaline and so on. It's the health damaging physiological stress response that's the reason for the ban.
>1. "annoying and disruptive" is just cortisol, adrenaline and so on. It's the health damaging physiological stress response that's the reason for the ban.
You're retconning[0] here.
Many (most?) noise regulations were implemented before anyone other than endocrinologists and a few neuroscientists (and many before even that) knew that cortisol even existed.
I assume that those regulations are in place because of the stress response that victims feel. Isn't it besides the point whether or not they knew about how that stress response was generated in the body?
So somehow learning more about how stress is generated changes whether or not stressors should be banned? How does that make sense? If anything, we now know more about how damaging chronic stress is, so our justification to ban stressors should be even higher than it was in the past.
The only good argument is that speech shouldn't be banned even if it leads to a large stress response, because of the slippery slope risk and so on.
Taking the position that either (i) speech can't generate a large stress response that's physically harmful to the individual, or that (ii) our knowledge of how stress is generated somehow changes whether or not stressors should be banned -- these are both not good arguments.
According to the article some forms of "adversity" can be violence. You disagree with my view and expressed it.
If I make the claim your post caused my blood to boil, that could be considered a symptom of inflammation mentioned in the article.
As the article points out, that can shorten my life and as such is tantamount to violence.
Therefore you have committed an act of violence towards me. I would ask you to please turn yourself into the appropriate authorities and inform me of the court date so I can testify against you.
Can't read that article because it's paywalled, but you seem to be implying that provoking a physical reaction in someone else is tantamount to an assault. Is that really what you are saying? Is this not an inevitable part of interacting with each other?
That is the argument, yes. That speech can cause harm because we have a social nervous system and chronic stress can shorten life span.
A better argument is to appeal to the history of genocide. There's a causal connection between speech and culture on the one hand, and genocide on the other.
But aren't we trying to break the causal link by banning incitement to violence? Surely the discussion is about whether to move one step back on the causality chain.
If you have a culture where everyone hates Jews due to memes propagated by speech, then you get 40 percent of people wanting to vote for a Hitler, who then brings the violence part after he's in power.
Or you get lone wolf terrorists that are motivated by speech that isn't technically incitement.
What speech laws were in place in Weimar Germany? What was Hitler advocating for before he took power? Without that this isn't the evidence you say it is.
Lone wolf terrorists seems a better example. I assume you're referring to school shooters. The problem is that's an issue of the US, not of speech laws. To me it seems more like the psychology of people jumping off golden gate bridge.
> What speech laws were in place in Weimar Germany? What was Hitler advocating for before he took power? Without that this isn't the evidence you say it is.
Hitler's rise has many causes. One of those causes was that anti-semitic racism was part of everyday culture. It was a meme that was propagated across generations via speech. Then Hitler weaponized that meme (again, using speech) to rally support after the Great Depression + fears of Bolshevism + WW1 grievances made people's minds more pliable to scapegoating.
Weimar Germany did have hate speech laws, albeit not ones that were properly enforced. That's moot, though, since it's not my claim that a specific speech restriction is effective at preventing the hate speech -> genocide causal path. My only claim is that that causal path exists.
> Lone wolf terrorists seems a better example. I assume you're referring to school shooters. The problem is that's an issue of the US, not of speech laws.
I'm really referring to hate crimes perpetrated by lone wolves, of which shootings are a subset. For example, the supermarket shooter that wrote the N word on his gun barrel. I read his manifesto, and his grievances were ones that he'd adopted from online ethnonationalist forums.
Again, I'm not trying to claim that some speech law can stop hate crimes. Maybe they can, or maybe they'll backfire. I'm just claiming that this notion that speech that isn't direct incitement hasn't historically partially caused hate crimes and genocide is a fantasy. The above case is some evidence backing that position, and there are others like it.
Ideas are extremely powerful. They can inspire unhinged people to take drastic action on their own terms, when perhaps they may not have otherwise done so. They can be part of the fuel for the rise of demagogues. That's what appears to be the reality.
> For example, suppose someone says "I think that everyone who does not believe in my religion should be killed." That type of speech is intimidating and comes with the threat of violence
this is exactly the situation we are in now with wokeness. Say the wrong thing and get cancelled, fired, banned even if your point is valid and intensions are good
This is a victory for free speech: lgbt expression does not come at the expense of straight people's expression, and banning homophobia is merely banning violent censorship of lgbt people.
There is a difference between hate speech and calls for violence. "X is awful and you should be ashamed" is not equivalent to "X should be lynched", whether X is members of the queer community or anarcho-capitalists or left-handed people.
What's the difference? As I understand it, you've just drawn an arbitrary line which reflects your personal views about stuff that's okay to say, and stuff that's not okay to say.
Why is is not okay to say "X should be lynched"? Is is specifically just calls to murder that should be restricted? General physical violence? Or is it more generally calls to perform illegal actions – is it okay to say "X should all be deported" or "X should be burgled" or "we should round up all the X and put them into camps"? Does the manner of the speech matter – if it's targeted at an individual versus a group, or private communication versus public?
The interesting questions are about how we build a tolerable consensus across society that most people can live with. The underlying principles are important to that, but black-and-white answers are rarely, if ever, correct.
I would point out that in constitutional law, in both Canada and the USA, it is decided by its proximity to violence, basically. The specifics vary, but that's the core of it. The more immediately linked the speech is to violent illegal action, the more likely it falls outside constitutional protection.
The American standard is called imminent lawless action [1], and so yes, openly encouraging a murder that might realistically happen can be illegal, and so is encouraging rioters to riot harder. Canada uses the same basic framework, with a somewhat less strict threshold for immediacy which is how laws there about inciting hatred squeak by constitutionally, while they don't in the USA.
Still not quite sure where the line should be, but such criteria seems like how we should decide where it is.
And indeed what about advocating for state sanctioned violence? E.g. if you're saying that buggery (or pedophilic cartoons) should be illegal you are advocating for men with guns to use violence or threat of violence to imprison those who do it.
For example, suppose someone says "I think that everyone who does not believe in my religion should be killed." That type of speech is intimidating and comes with the threat of violence. Therefore any non-believer might pretend to believe and censor themselves out of fear for their lives. In this way, the speech itself acts as a form of censorship, and allowing it to occur silences more people than banning it.
Such is the case with all hate speech: hate speech is never about expressing oneself, it is about censoring the opposition through intimidation and organizing violence against them. In extreme cases, a single demagogue spewing hate can silence millions.
One example- until relatively recently, the vast majority of gay people would keep it to themselves because they were afraid of homophobic backlash, even though they were still afforded free speech under the law. This is an example of extreme censorship, which demonstrates that censorship can happen without any government involvement. Today the situation is somewhat reversed, where lgbt expression is increasingly acceptable but homophobia is not. This is a victory for free speech: lgbt expression does not come at the expense of straight people's expression, and banning homophobia is merely banning violent censorship of lgbt people.