Have hard lines like this ever worked throughout history, though? It’s not like the people who originally came up with the concept of free speech didn’t think of this exact case. But they believed it was more important for the people to deal with speech they don’t like themselves (within the bounds of the law, of course) than for a government to silence speech.
I see a problem with inauthentic behaviour online, using bots to artificially amplify hate speech to make it seem more prominent than it actually is. But I think having 100 people tolerate 1 hateful asshat’s speech is the definition of democracy. That doesn’t mean harassment is legal. That doesn’t mean assault or murder or jim crow laws should be tolerated. The worst case is the hate catches on and spreads democratically, and that sucks, but if it happens I guess that’s the society we live in for now, and hopefully it’s just a phase. But if a government artificially silences hate speech, you’re just asking for that to come back and bite you later. Now all those people who would have simply been hateful now also distrust the system they live in, and will seek to dismantle it and replace it with a hateful one.
IMO this is exactly why Churchill said democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. Thinking that we can live in a society that is systematically devoid of hate is attractive, but it’s a Nirvana Fallacy and is destined to fail. This isn’t new ground we’re treading.
We have different values, I guess. I don’t think tolerating intolerance is acceptable. I think tolerance of intolerance is essentially condoning it. I don’t see how silencing hate speech will “come back to bite me” any worse than the environment it creates. Allowing violence in language encourages violence of other forms, slippery slopes and all that.
You can point the finger in the other direction, saying silencing speech is a slippery slope to limiting all speech, but I’m still confident in my beliefs that tolerating intolerance is the greater of the evils to me.
To be clear, I’m talking about people saying things like “those people are lesser than me”, not things like “those people should be eradicated”. Inciting violence, or any crime, is not an exercise of free speech, that’s a crime.
I guess I just don’t see any ethical difference between wielding the power of legislation to silence speech, and an angry mob of vigilantes gathering and silencing them in person. Either way, it’s the society saying “we don’t like your words, and we’re gonna punish you for that.”
I just know that throughout history, people have used “I’m confident in my beliefs” to justify limiting speech they thought would be harmful to their society, only for us to look back in shame at their intolerance.
I can say I’m confident that intolerance harms our society, I just don’t think it’s possible to legislate away hate. We can physically intimidate people into hiding their hate, but making hate illegal will never get rid of it. But maybe that’s the best we can ever do, I don’t know.
Looking at history, i just don’t have any reason to believe that any sociological hurdle can be solved by moving strictly in a “positive” direction. I understand local maxima, and understand that society always has to regress before it can progress. For the same reason we can’t legislate away hate, we can’t legislate in “progress”. We might try, and it might seem like it’s working for a little while, until it doesn’t. And that’s when humanity learns a new lesson.
Have hard lines like this ever worked throughout history, though? It’s not like the people who originally came up with the concept of free speech didn’t think of this exact case. But they believed it was more important for the people to deal with speech they don’t like themselves (within the bounds of the law, of course) than for a government to silence speech.
I see a problem with inauthentic behaviour online, using bots to artificially amplify hate speech to make it seem more prominent than it actually is. But I think having 100 people tolerate 1 hateful asshat’s speech is the definition of democracy. That doesn’t mean harassment is legal. That doesn’t mean assault or murder or jim crow laws should be tolerated. The worst case is the hate catches on and spreads democratically, and that sucks, but if it happens I guess that’s the society we live in for now, and hopefully it’s just a phase. But if a government artificially silences hate speech, you’re just asking for that to come back and bite you later. Now all those people who would have simply been hateful now also distrust the system they live in, and will seek to dismantle it and replace it with a hateful one.
IMO this is exactly why Churchill said democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. Thinking that we can live in a society that is systematically devoid of hate is attractive, but it’s a Nirvana Fallacy and is destined to fail. This isn’t new ground we’re treading.
We have different values, I guess. I don’t think tolerating intolerance is acceptable. I think tolerance of intolerance is essentially condoning it. I don’t see how silencing hate speech will “come back to bite me” any worse than the environment it creates. Allowing violence in language encourages violence of other forms, slippery slopes and all that.
You can point the finger in the other direction, saying silencing speech is a slippery slope to limiting all speech, but I’m still confident in my beliefs that tolerating intolerance is the greater of the evils to me.
To be clear, I’m talking about people saying things like “those people are lesser than me”, not things like “those people should be eradicated”. Inciting violence, or any crime, is not an exercise of free speech, that’s a crime.
I guess I just don’t see any ethical difference between wielding the power of legislation to silence speech, and an angry mob of vigilantes gathering and silencing them in person. Either way, it’s the society saying “we don’t like your words, and we’re gonna punish you for that.”
I just know that throughout history, people have used “I’m confident in my beliefs” to justify limiting speech they thought would be harmful to their society, only for us to look back in shame at their intolerance.
I can say I’m confident that intolerance harms our society, I just don’t think it’s possible to legislate away hate. We can physically intimidate people into hiding their hate, but making hate illegal will never get rid of it. But maybe that’s the best we can ever do, I don’t know.
Looking at history, i just don’t have any reason to believe that any sociological hurdle can be solved by moving strictly in a “positive” direction. I understand local maxima, and understand that society always has to regress before it can progress. For the same reason we can’t legislate away hate, we can’t legislate in “progress”. We might try, and it might seem like it’s working for a little while, until it doesn’t. And that’s when humanity learns a new lesson.