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[Hate Speech]: how America (and the world) deals with it
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Fine, but we can't just go 'Courts!' for any big issue.
The question is: Is this issue one where the courts are going to be able to rule consistently without damaging the fabric of society?
And that is one that... I'm not sure about myself. I really care about the free speech debate, but I find myself oscillating between the two sides, and I'm not sure why, since I'm usually pretty opinionated.
On the one hand, free speech is important long-term. It makes big changes possible long-term.
On the other hand, protecting minorities from dangerous abuse is important. And I don't think you can separate verbal abuse from physical. Both have the potential to damage or kill a person.
We look at the actions and the context.
Non-violent "hate groups" seem fine, to me, insofar as they're just being assholes who say mean things. When they start to do more than make noise, and being actively physically harming persons, or engaging in political actions to limit other people, these are actual problems.
Verbal abuse has never killed anyone.
Physical abuse can kill people.
...and those are problems irrespective of what people are saying.
See, I don't agree with this. Speech is a part of culture. For the most part a reflection of it, but also a shaper of it. Now it can certainly be argued that culture shapes speech first and foremost, and that the vice versa is more rare, but I'm pretty sure any philosopher worth his or her salt will tell you that speech shapes opinions, which in turn propagate culture. Especially when you grow up around that speech and are exposed to it without apology. Hate breeds hate, and culture passes down through generations. Speech is a part of that. Bigotry especially.
I'd like to find ways to curtail it. With of the cudgel of law, so much the better.
Verbal abuse isn't really what we're talking about in so much as virulent bigotry, be it spoken or printed. The two oft go hand in hand, tis true, but they aren't married to one another.
We kinda already do...
That is an overly simple, frankly naive, viewpoint. The idea that free will reigns supreme, and suicide or drug-abuse-fuelled deaths are chosen by the deceased, is embarrassingly facile.
...how's that working out?
They are the same aren't they? I don't just mean familial abuse. The WBC abuse people all the time.
Yes, but one end of the spectrum is decidedly more benign than the other.
Pretty well?
I disagree!
I mean, kinda? They go hand in hand quite often, be sure of that much. But they're not inexorably linked.
I would think it reasonable to make a distinction between the noises, symbols, etc. and the "meanings" articulated, or the "beliefs" that prompt some linguistic utterances.
The problem is that those beliefs, meanings, and intent are all internal to the individual. If you hear someone making the noise, "God hates fags" you do not know if they
- Believe that God hates fags, and are trying to communicate that information.
- Believe that God hates fags, and are trying to encourage others to enact violence against homosexuals.
- Are a comic making a joke about the WBC.
- Are a performance artist out trying to mock the WBC.
- Are an undercover agent attempting to infiltrate the WBC for the sake of bla bla whatever.
Most of that nuance is lost when we start talking about "hate speech" legislation, and we end up with lists of noises that people are not allowed to make. This completely fails to recognize how language functions, and the degree to which context and the inner states of particular persons are more relevant to identifying "hate" than the noises.
Do parents teach their children to be bigots? Sure. Can they teach bigotry without using some words? Of course. Can some words be used without teaching bigotry? Of course.
You are welcome to try and quash bigotry. My suggestion is that you remember that "bigotry" is an internal state of emotive dispositions towards particular perceived groups of races, cultures, etc. Coming up with a list of words that people cannot say will not quash bigotry. It'll just make bigots invent new noises.
It's less about "don't say this" and more about "don't say this in this context with this apparent intention". Strict and nuanced, and all that.
It would be, sure.
Recognizing that verbal abuse is not a sufficient condition for suicide seems relevant. Also that it is not a necessary condition. Verbal Abuse can sometimes be a factor, among many factors.
This shit is complicated. Focusing on one aspect may be over-simplifying the situation.
"apparent intention" is a nifty phrase.
I know, right?
But being as I'm not a lawyer, this isn't really my area of expertise. I'm amenable to hate speech legislation. In the end, it doesn't really affect me, as I am not, nor will I ever likely be, a target of it. But I'd be fine and dandy if it were enacted. Humans need policing, behavior (and even sometimes) expression, I feel.
I just... I've got a lot of feelings.
Let's put those feelings on the shelf, and get some reasons out on the table. Policing what is in a person's mind is problematic. Racism, bigotry, homophobia, etc. are beliefs persons can maintain in one's mind.
So, it seems like those two thoughts, combined, would render hate speech legislation problematic.
Granted, speech is external to the person. But we have recognized that there are some contexts in which particular words can be used, "fag", that are not hateful. It depends on the context. This means that the linguistic utterance, itself, is neutral. Any meaning posited onto it results from the context and an interpretation of the intended meaning of the speaker. But that intended meaning is internal to the speaker, in their mind, which we have previously agreed is not for policing.
Maybe. Maybe.
I'll agree that if Player A is punching Player B we need to stop Player A.
But if Player A is yelling words that in some contexts can be construed as racial slurs at Player B? Meh.
In other news, this whole thing is a messy logic train because it assumes that the people enforcing such laws would be enforcing them in a way you like, against the things you dislike. The problem is that there is no such guarantee. Once you allow the government to act on the subjective content of words, you... well... accept the possibility that the government isn't going to do that in a way you like. And that leads nowhere pretty.
That's just one of many hundreds of reasons I hope everyone in this thread has brought up before page 7.
"Apparent intention" also depends on the listener. See:
Niggardly
Black Hole
U mad bro?
At least two of those filled me with rage. I don't know who you are, but I will find you and I will kill you.
Still googling the third?
No, it's more like he hasn't adopted the absurd position that speech is not categorizable by it's content or intent.
Your argument in this thread completely rests on the fallacious notion that all speech is equal and indistinguishable.
It boggles my mind how badly you miss the point here.
Government reflects the values of those that create it and compose it. What you are missing with gay rights is that the massive upswell of government support for gay rights is just the government, to use the quoted person here's terminology, adhering to the beliefs/morals/practices of the people it represents.
That's the way government works. It's not a bad thing.
No, the third one just made me sad.
No one's trying to play thought police.
Expression police, now that's different.
Wikipedia has a whole page just for people who misunderstood "niggardly".
The one that makes me the most sad was the Wilmington story, where following the incident the official explanation was the teacher made a bad decision by "teaching words above the grade level".
I mean, I get it - you thought the word meant something else. But trying to shift the blame by essentially saying "you tried to push children to achieve a higher level - and we're punishing you for it" just adds a whole extra level of fail.
I think it backs up J's POV well, in that it shows that so much of the supposed "harm" we take from words depends on our interpretation of the noise we hear. Granted, I don't think we have to delve even half that deep to put down the argument against free speech, but it's interesting nonetheless.
Hate speech law is again distinct from hate group law, theres nothing stopping the FBI from hearing your rants and going "woah, better keep a close eye on these guys"
Even when I broadly agree with you I still find this line of argument as disingenuous as the last time you rolled it out.
If you can't think of something accurate to say, don't say anything at all. Calling his argument disingenuous is wrong with a nice side helping of ad hominem.
I find this extremely solipsistic and silly. HOWEVER in the last thread the context was different as we were talking about the notion of being offended in itself, rather than about law.
I'm slightly more sympathetic to the notion that its impractical to legislate against expression, but its still annoying to see him using using the exact same "words don't have inherent magical meaning, this isn't harry potter world" sarky argument in this thread he used repeatedly last time.
Basically I think there are reasonable arguments against hate speech legislation that don't involve throwing out the whole concept of language.
Click on his profile and look at his thread about meaning.
That has everything you need to know that makes it disingenuous.
On the other hand, I'm sure pretty much everyone in this thread has used some form of put-down and watched it sail blissfully over the target's head (whether that infuriates you even more or makes you feel smug is up to you). And of course, cultural differences such as "fag" where telling a Brit in the 80s that they probably "had a fag every day" might have resulted in a rather bewildered "thank you?"
But in the context of "Hate Speech" I think it's fairly clear that the intent is to drive an emotional response, and if the listener gets riled up (if they are on "your" side) or offended (if they are on the "other" side) then Mission Accomplished TM.
Then the discussion becomes "okay, when does a pejorative cross the line into 'hate speech'?" Is it when it can be applied to a group of people? "Bitch" is pretty sexist, but it has a perfectly serviceable spear counterpart in "Bastard". How about "moron", they are (relatively) productive members of society too... and then we start going around in circles again.
Actually, I don't think it is. It's illegal to use them on people, or to cause harm to others. But if you owned a few thousand acres and wanted to drop a bomb from your twin engine Beech, I mean, who the fuck would actually give a damn? Right to bear arms homie.