I posted the question above in the ATMB forum re the SDMB policy on “hate speech” and got not a single reply with over 90+ views at the time I am posting this. I figure either my question was either too mundane to bother with or more of a potentially messy entanglement than anyone in authority wanted to get involved with, and I can understand this to some degree but I am still curious the topic of hate speech.
I changing the context of the question and asking it here because the notion of what constitutes “hate speech” is central to a lot of the debate about the limits of free speech in academia and elsewhere (even message boards I would venture to guess)…
So my question is -
What is “hate speech” precisely? What differentiates “hate speech” from normal free speech, and removes it from the general category of other types of protected speech that might obnoxiously or aggressively attack people, cultures or organizations?
It’s always been the because-of clause that bothers me.
Veteran’s status? I’ve watched the because-of list grow over time. Sexual orientation, age, disability, and now veteran’s status are relative newcomers. Ethnicity was once often used.
It has the same endemic problem that bothered some among the Founders when they wrote the Constitution — namely, that enumeration might be construed as completeness. There’s nothing in the list about discriminatory harassment against short people, fat people, or people with green eyes and red hair.
In fact, even the SDMB does not use the SCU definition. Religious people are routinely offended and intimidated by the use of their god or gods in curses and expletives. Even the mods themselves do this. So, “religion” is not even on their list.
I agree with Furt’s underlying assertion, that so-called hate speech is highly subjective. And I think that specifying forbidden objects of hatred is a futile exercise. SDMB should just say what it means by hate speech or else ditch the silly rule.
Mere “offensiveness” is not what I perceive to be the defining characteristic of what I would call “hate speech” (eg.“you fucking scumbag” ). Nor is merely including some “term of personal circumstance” within an insult (eg. “you fucking white scumbag” ).
I perceive “hate speech” to be of an uglier and more extreme order again, involving an explicit declaration that a person’s circumstances or characteristics make them in some way inferior or sub-human, and/or advocating criminal acts against any and all members of such a group (eg. “Auschwitz should be reopened for animals like you, whitey”).
The operation of Auschwitz was a war crime, and so advocating its reopening is advocating a criminal act IMO. I realise it’s an opinion and not a threat.
However, I didn’t say uttering the above is or should be a crime, only that I would personally catergorise it as “hate speech” (even when criminal threats might not be). I, too, am waiting for the mods to show up, although I think they’ll probably just leave it to us while they watch Quadrophenia again.
Incidentally, if you’re about to become extremely picky, I’ll further quantify my personal definition by stipulating that the “circumstance or characteristic” substantially not be one of personal choice (bye bye veterans) and the criminal act advocated involve violence or significant emotional distress. So “All beauticians should be sold substandard double glazing” does not qualify, although you appreciate I’m not composing a White Paper for immediate legislation here.
I do. But I honestly believe that you are treading stormy water just by trying to catch the greased cat called “hate speech”. Is religion out as well, given for argument’s sake that it is a personal choice? Will there need to be scientific proof that homosexuality is not a choice?
Unless speech is used to force someone against their will or defraud them, it seems to me that it is ethically neutral.
The problem is, “hate speech” has become an extremely broad, nebulous term.
For instance, in the aftermath of the bombing of the Federal Building at Oklahoma City, it was common to see Rush Limbaugh being denounced for the kind of “hate speech” that supposedly inspired Timothy McVeigh.
I have no problem condemning people who advocate violence or who spout off obvious racism (yes, of course such people exist). Unfortunately, too often, “hate speech” has become liberal shorthand for “conservative rhetoric I don’t agree with.”
OK, OK, I’ll stop trying to catch the greased cat in the stormy water (nice metaphor mix! You should release it on white label vinyl.)
I guess religion and culture, and therefore other personal choices, must be included (Wait! Veterans! You forgot your hat!). However, I regard your perception of the Auschwitz sentiment as “ethically neutral” as a little unsettling.
And Andy, I stated that the inferiority declaration be explicit, but yes I have now realised that any and all are going to have a pop at the target I set up so I might as well take it down again.
Pretends to cry in order to induce unnecessary guilt assuaged by buying me a beer
Ethically neutral, yes. But morally reprehensible in my opinion. I view ethics as that which is between a man and his fellow man, but morality as that which is between a man and his God or conscience.
I think hate speech is one of those things that is difficult to define, yet you still know it when you see it. (And by “you” I mean rational folks. Obviously, no rational person would condemn someone of spouting “hate speech” because they, say, oppose affirmative action, even though such condemnation happens routinely from certain irrational folks.)
If I say, “Fuck you, darky, someone should hang you from a tree”, it’s pretty obviously hate speech, right?
With regards to the SDMB message boards, the mods don’t really need to have a strong definition, because they reserve the right to kick anybody off for any reason. General rule of thumb: if you think it might be hate speech, it probably is.
Jeff
Ok, what about “Fuck you, dude, someone should hang you from a tree”? Hate speech? Or just “someone should hang you from a tree”? Is “someone should hang you” hate speech? What if I invent a new explitive: “hang you.”
very slippery if you ask me…
I don’t know if there is a precise definition of what hate speech is and what it isn’t, because often times it’s in the ears or eyes of the person that hears it or reads it. Clearly racial, ethnic and homophobic slurs qualify when directed at members of those groups.
You would probably be warned or banned on the SDMB, if you called someone a racial, ethinic or homophobic slur even in the PIT. I participated in a thread where a woman argued that the word cunt was as offensive as the “n” word. This same woman called another woman a cunt in 72pt type. If this woman had did that with a racial, homophobic or ethnic slur, she would at the very least been warned, but more than likely banned, labled a bigot and so on.
A knave, a rascal, an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, filthy, lily-liver?d, whoreson, glass-gazing, finical, rogue; nothing but the composition of a beggar, pandar, and the son of a mongrel bitch, a brazen fac?d varlet. I?ll make a sop of the moonshine of you, you whoreson cullionly, barber-monger! I will tread this unbolted villain into mortar, and daub the wall of a jakes with him.
Kent, KING LEAR, II, ii
Censorship is the worst hate speech.