Defending hate speech isn’t bigotry; it’s tolerance. Tolerance for the rule that says unpopular opinions are protected. If they are not, then freedom of speech has no meaning, since popular opinions need no protection or defense.
And I am so tired of the phrase ‘hate speech’. It appears that contemporary usage simply means “speech I hate”. I get a bad vibe whenever I hear it, though it is possible to use it in a reasonable, accurate, logical way. But that’s oh so 2010….or something.
They demand liberation alright, liberation from reality. I wonder how many would enthusiastically defend a creationists, or a flat earthers right to never hear a dissenting opinion about their beliefs, or does that not count because those beliefs are obviously ludicrous to all right thinking people…
#1 inklast, “hate speech” used to be a useful concept. I think there is a line where ideas like Holocaust denial or blaming Jews for the Holocaust go beyond being offensive, and I do think a university could legitimately refuse to host a speaker who is a Holocaust denier. I don’t think Germany’s laws against Holocaust denial and promoting Nazism are wrong, and I don’t consider them a threat to democracy or free speech. And there is certainly a lot of gray area, I don’t know how I would feel about whether a University should host a speaker who denies the reality of slavery and arges that black people were better off when slavery was legal. But when saying biological sex is binary, not a spectrum, that you can’t change your sex, and gender ideology is build on regressive sex stereotypes is deemed “hate speech” the term has no meaning, or worse, has become Orwellian.
I do think a university could legitimately refuse to host a speaker who is a Holocaust denier. I don’t think Germany’s laws against Holocaust denial and promoting Nazism are wrong, and I don’t consider them a threat to democracy or free speech.
Quite. Denying demonstrably objective reality (historical or current) shouldn’t automatically be “protected” speech, let alone treated as sacred doctrine; it’s simply lying. Maybe intentionally lying or maybe the speaker is delusional, exactly how they are stopped from spreading lies may differ based on what’s causing them to lie, but lying it remains.
On the flip side, speaking out AGAINST denial of objective reality, stating objective facts, cannot be considered “hate speech” if we at all want to be able to communicate with each other and have a functioning society that isn’t a dictatorial theocracy. That “if” is clearly not true for a good number of wannabe little dictators.
Looking at the “gender wars”, we see more than one side in the conflict claiming that their opponents are “denying objective reality”, “ignoring science”, and “engaging in bigoted hate speech”. I think some of those claims are ignorant and without merit, but we have to decide by listening to the claims and examining the evidence. Some people may indeed be lying – making statements they know to be false – but some may genuinely believe they are in the right, and that these other people are the ones lying.
I have trouble reconciling what I think should happen with things like Holocaust denial and evolution denial with what I see going on in the “gender wars”. I don’t want gender-critical views lumped in with Holocaust denial by the general public. I am confident in my assessments of which sides in these conflicts are genuinely denying reality and ignoring solid evidence, but I don’t know how we can make that clear. I would much rather that gender ideology be considered hate speech, but that’s not going to happen, either.
I’m under no illusion that free speech in any way guarantees that the best evidence and the strongest arguments will rise to the top in the “marketplace of ideas”. Despite what Movement Skeptics™ might like to think, judging evidence and arguments on their merits is not a straightforward matter, but something that requires a great deal of experience and accumulated pre-knowledge in its own right. Also, the strongest indicators of truth vs. falsehood objectively speaking rarely coincide with what seems most subjectively persuasive to a lay audience. Playing by the rules of science, critical thinking, and intellectual honesty is nothing if not limiting while the peddlers of nonsense are free to say whatever it takes to impress people. In the absence of the necessary pre-knowledge, critical thinking skills etc. all your average lay person can be expected to get out of the kind of “rational debate” that believers in the “marketplace of ideas” like to imagine, is that one side comes across as far more confident and assertive, more aggressive etc. while the other side is forced to use conservative language (“seems to indicate”), talk about statistical probability and error bars, acknowledge doubt and uncertainty, and introduce caveats, conditions, and qualifiers at every turn. No need to specify which side is the scientific one, and no need to specify which side your average lay person is going to find most persuasive.
Still, while free speech may not guarantee that the truth prevails, at least it guarantees that it gets a fighting chance. As I’m sure many of us still remember the late great Christopher Hitchensexplicitly invoked Holocaust denial as an example of the kind of thing that has to be allowed if free speech is to mean anything at all, precisely because it’s the kind of thing most of us would like to silence. If anything I think old Hitch’s question “Who gets to decide?” is even more pressing today. After seeing how easily institutions like courts, the mainstream media, and even universities can be captured by agenda-pushers of various kinds, it’s unfathomable to me how people can still trust anyone else to decide for us what we’re allowed to read or hear.
Defending hate speech isn’t bigotry; it’s tolerance. Tolerance for the rule that says unpopular opinions are protected. If they are not, then freedom of speech has no meaning, since popular opinions need no protection or defense.
And I am so tired of the phrase ‘hate speech’. It appears that contemporary usage simply means “speech I hate”. I get a bad vibe whenever I hear it, though it is possible to use it in a reasonable, accurate, logical way. But that’s oh so 2010….or something.
They demand liberation alright, liberation from reality. I wonder how many would enthusiastically defend a creationists, or a flat earthers right to never hear a dissenting opinion about their beliefs, or does that not count because those beliefs are obviously ludicrous to all right thinking people…
#1 inklast, “hate speech” used to be a useful concept. I think there is a line where ideas like Holocaust denial or blaming Jews for the Holocaust go beyond being offensive, and I do think a university could legitimately refuse to host a speaker who is a Holocaust denier. I don’t think Germany’s laws against Holocaust denial and promoting Nazism are wrong, and I don’t consider them a threat to democracy or free speech. And there is certainly a lot of gray area, I don’t know how I would feel about whether a University should host a speaker who denies the reality of slavery and arges that black people were better off when slavery was legal. But when saying biological sex is binary, not a spectrum, that you can’t change your sex, and gender ideology is build on regressive sex stereotypes is deemed “hate speech” the term has no meaning, or worse, has become Orwellian.
Quite. Denying demonstrably objective reality (historical or current) shouldn’t automatically be “protected” speech, let alone treated as sacred doctrine; it’s simply lying. Maybe intentionally lying or maybe the speaker is delusional, exactly how they are stopped from spreading lies may differ based on what’s causing them to lie, but lying it remains.
On the flip side, speaking out AGAINST denial of objective reality, stating objective facts, cannot be considered “hate speech” if we at all want to be able to communicate with each other and have a functioning society that isn’t a dictatorial theocracy. That “if” is clearly not true for a good number of wannabe little dictators.
The difficulty I have is this:
Looking at the “gender wars”, we see more than one side in the conflict claiming that their opponents are “denying objective reality”, “ignoring science”, and “engaging in bigoted hate speech”. I think some of those claims are ignorant and without merit, but we have to decide by listening to the claims and examining the evidence. Some people may indeed be lying – making statements they know to be false – but some may genuinely believe they are in the right, and that these other people are the ones lying.
I have trouble reconciling what I think should happen with things like Holocaust denial and evolution denial with what I see going on in the “gender wars”. I don’t want gender-critical views lumped in with Holocaust denial by the general public. I am confident in my assessments of which sides in these conflicts are genuinely denying reality and ignoring solid evidence, but I don’t know how we can make that clear. I would much rather that gender ideology be considered hate speech, but that’s not going to happen, either.
It can get horribly complicated separating the izzes from the oughts in this conflict.
I’m under no illusion that free speech in any way guarantees that the best evidence and the strongest arguments will rise to the top in the “marketplace of ideas”. Despite what Movement Skeptics™ might like to think, judging evidence and arguments on their merits is not a straightforward matter, but something that requires a great deal of experience and accumulated pre-knowledge in its own right. Also, the strongest indicators of truth vs. falsehood objectively speaking rarely coincide with what seems most subjectively persuasive to a lay audience. Playing by the rules of science, critical thinking, and intellectual honesty is nothing if not limiting while the peddlers of nonsense are free to say whatever it takes to impress people. In the absence of the necessary pre-knowledge, critical thinking skills etc. all your average lay person can be expected to get out of the kind of “rational debate” that believers in the “marketplace of ideas” like to imagine, is that one side comes across as far more confident and assertive, more aggressive etc. while the other side is forced to use conservative language (“seems to indicate”), talk about statistical probability and error bars, acknowledge doubt and uncertainty, and introduce caveats, conditions, and qualifiers at every turn. No need to specify which side is the scientific one, and no need to specify which side your average lay person is going to find most persuasive.
Still, while free speech may not guarantee that the truth prevails, at least it guarantees that it gets a fighting chance. As I’m sure many of us still remember the late great Christopher Hitchens explicitly invoked Holocaust denial as an example of the kind of thing that has to be allowed if free speech is to mean anything at all, precisely because it’s the kind of thing most of us would like to silence. If anything I think old Hitch’s question “Who gets to decide?” is even more pressing today. After seeing how easily institutions like courts, the mainstream media, and even universities can be captured by agenda-pushers of various kinds, it’s unfathomable to me how people can still trust anyone else to decide for us what we’re allowed to read or hear.
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