Date: July 12, 2017
01) Brendan O’Neill: Censorship is the Midwife of Stupidity
The official EQF stance on hate speech, is as follows…
1) Hate speech is a real thing, though it’s impossible to regulate it with genuine integrity.
2) It’s also easy to misinterpret what is hate speech, making laws against it a dangerous thing.
3) Not all people judged to be engaged in hate speech, are intentionally doing so.
4) Laws should never exist, which attempt to regulate the expression and exploration of ideas.
5) Addressing the problem of hate speech, is an issue of improving social awareness and cultural attitudes.
By definition…”hate speech” is any expression made with the intent to dehumanize, taint, injure, cripple, impoverish, insight violence or discrimination against, and cause fear against, a specific targeted minority or individual. It’s speech with malice behind it, where the goal is to crush other people in life devastating ways…in ways which might even lead to their murder…
This behavior does, in fact, exist…And it thrives, rather well, despite all the laws against it…
One of the primary reasons why I periodically point out hate speech, despite having a history of strongly condemning laws against it…is to point out the hypocrisy in the structure and enforcement of those laws…
…Indeed…some of the supporters, and drafters, of these laws, engage in hate speech themselves…The only nuance being, that they do it against minorities excluded from the “protection” of those laws.
Another reason I discuss genuine hate speech, is to explore the effects of hate speech on the targeted minorities…which can become devastating.
It’s important not to see “hate speech” everywhere you look, however…
rightwingwatch.org places on display many examples of bigotry…some of which are hate speech…This does not make rightwingwatch.org an agent of hate speech…as their purpose is to offer it up for broader critique.
In the same spirit…this blog also sometimes displays content, highlighting hate speech and bigotry…or even just current social conflict, of a difficult and controversial nature…often what is expressed, I strongly disagree with.
This in no way should imply, in the mind of anyone, that I support or promote hate speech…On the contrary, I condemn hate speech, in no uncertain terms.
…But the misconception I’ve seen wielded against EQF resources, leads me to my last point…
…The distortion of “hate speech” as a weapon against unpopular ideas…or against the people who hold unpopular opinions…likely represents the single most dangerous thing about the concept of “hate speech”.
The writing has been on the wall, since before “hate speech” law even became a real thing…that the root motive behind these laws, are the suppression of speech, itself…leading to the suppression of society and freedom.
“Hate speech” law is the death knell, to any group finding itself socially stigmatized, by culture itself.
It doesn’t matter who you are, what your intention is, or how you objectively behave…If interpretation of you can be warped badly enough…they can equate your speech with “being dangerous”…or with somehow being “hate speech”…
This directly relates to MAP’s…in that many people assert things to us, which are preposterously untrue…Such as the accusation “we want a society, where raping children is legal”…With this false paradigm, they assert that our speech qualifies as “hate speech” [because it’s allegedly “working towards” such a goal]…and further assert that it must be censored, out of an illusionary sense of “community safety”.
Of course…this type of censorship can only have the opposite effect…Witch hunts solve nothing…They only compound the conflict.
…And that’s the problem with “hate speech” law…It’s rooted in the mindset of witch hunting.
It’s an extreme negative, heavy handed, destructive and clumsy approach, where we need something much more positive and enlightening.
