I’m going to rip a few paragraphs far away from the blog post where I originally read them and just share them because I found them insightful:
Hate speech is verbal communication that induces anger due to the listener’s inability to offer an intelligent response. Because this inability to offer an intelligent response is due to one of two reasons, there are really two different types of hate speech:
- Speech that is too dumb to merit an intelligent response, and
- Speech for which the listener is too dumb to offer an intelligent response
Instances of the former are numerous in the society-at-large. For example, when a member of the KKK says “I may not be much, but at least I’m not a nigger” there is really no way to respond intelligently. Nor is there much hope that any response will be understood and appreciated by someone ignorant enough to make such a remark. So the speech can be properly characterized as hate speech.
Instances of the latter are numerous in academia. For example, three years ago this week, I wrote a piece explaining how speech codes produce a form of reverse Darwinism. I argued that only those who are emotionally unfit are likely to become uncomfortable simply by hearing a contrary point of view. I argued further that they are indeed quite emotionally unfit if they actually remain upset long enough to file a complaint aimed at enforcing a speech code…
The similarity between the two principal forms of hate speech is obvious: They both induce anger in the listener, regardless of whether the speaker expressed his view with any feeling of hatred or animosity.
Count me in the meet-speech-with-more-speech camp, or at least that’s where I aspire to be.
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