Posted by Fellow Aspirant
(here)
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Default Re: YouTube, Facebook, Apple and Spotify all ban Alex Jones & Infowars
Quote Posted by Fellow Aspirant (here)
If I ever post hate speech in this forum, then I would expect to be banned.
But Brian, what's hate speech?
Please define it precisely. Your post that I quoted implies that you think you know exactly what it is.
(Maybe others can try to do the same. But do note that it has NO formal legal definition.)
This is central and important to this entire thread.
Why yes, Bill, as a matter of fact, when I use language, I usually DO think I know what I mean, a condition not too alien to most of us around the here. This would, by extension, include the concept of “hate speech”. And while legal assignations of its meaning are always in flux, the concept itself is deeply enshrined in a plenitude of legal declarations. Entire countries have signed on to definitions of it. As always, though, its validity and consequences are to be decided on a case by case basis.
But here we are faced with a historical conundrum, aren’t we? The subjective nature of language requires a constant vigilance coincident with its use – else we risk the danger of confusing our audience. Clarity is key to understanding, and careful choice in one’s diction is always of utmost concern. And nowhere, not incidentally, is diction more germane than when deciphering the intent of those who wield hate speech.
Lewis Carrol had some serious fun with the subjective nature of language when he penned the encounter between Alice and Humpty Dumpty as …
Attachment 38786
"I don't know what you mean by 'glory'," Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't- till I tell you. I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!'"
"But 'glory' doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument'," Alice objected.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean- neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master-that's all."
Through the Looking Glass, Ch. VI
Word meaning, as Carrol so beautifully points out, can be rather malleable, depending on the
intent of the one using it, and it behooves all of us to try to nail down the essences and boundaries of our thinking, especially when we embark on dialogues and arguments with others.
Herewith, then, is my rather feeble attempt at “nailing down” the amoeba that is hate speech.
To begin, I promise that I will eschew the temptation to resort to using the famous claim uttered by Justice Potter Stewart, to wit:
The phrase was used in 1964 by United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart to describe his threshold test for obscenity in Jacobellis v. Ohio.[1][2][3] In explaining why the material at issue in the case was not obscene under the Roth test, and therefore was protected speech that could not be censored, Stewart wrote:
I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["hard-core pornography"], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.[4]
Tempting as it is, and as common-sensical as it is, such an approach as ‘knowing it when you see it’ will do little to sate the appetites of those of us in the Avalon Forum who crave a deeper understanding of the human condition. So I must persist in my efforts, and I will.
“Hate speech” is, of course, a very complicated and contentious area of human interaction, but one which is extremely important and of increasing relevance (unfortunately) today. No longer is it possible to consider hate speech to be a weapon utilized only by deranged third world demagogues or upstart National Socialists of the past. No. With the advent of the all-pervasive and all-intrusive internet, hate speech is now in a golden era, a time when it is rampant and ascendant within our social discourse and our very psyches. It is simultaneously a beast that is dragonlike, full of ostentatious, fiery destruction and at the same time something far more subtle, an insidious nascent germ set into the protoplasm of the victim, growing stealthily within. It is a scourge that must be acknowledged and comprehended and, I would venture, one of the most damaging forces that our civilization has to reckon with.
The predicament in which Alex Jones finds himself, with respect to the legal consequences of his hate speech, and his vain attempts to save himself from financial ruin, (to the point of actually disowning his own claims, saying that "Sandy Hook probably happened") is now ground zero for what is surely to be a defining moment for the American notion of free speech. That the United States Supreme Court will have to weigh in at some point is very likely, and its decisions will have ramifications extending far into the lives of all of us. Whether having the court stacked with right leaning thinkers is an effect that is yet to be determined in this area.
Examining the concept of hate speech offers up the possibility spending a lifetime in the back and forth of moral concepts and applicability of the role that language plays. Such is not my intention – this lifetime is already too short to spend much effort on the unsolvable mystery that involves ideological fixations, psychological and spiritual core beliefs and other personal discernments. The shibboleth that is Alex Jones is but one manifestation of the looming crisis. The issue at hand, in my view, is not whether censorship is being imposed on Alex Jones because he poses a threat to The Powers That Be, but
because he has incited violence in his deranged rants. In other words, there are limits to "free speech".
That said, I would like to ask your indulgence to allow a break in my essay. On my return, I intend to further my investigation. Till then,
Be Well everyone
Brian
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