I wish I could find the exact book, but there was a philosopher writing about anti-semitism after WWII.
I really want to give you direct quotes but I'm about to run to a meeting, I'll search harder afterwards.
The jist, as written in ~1950s IIRC:
1. Anti-semites are immune to argument or criticism, because they are "Just Joking." They will spew hate speech and throw every argument they can at you, logical or otherwise, and outright lie, because they are "just forcing a discussion." If you actually pin them down and try to challenge them, they'll laugh you off. "I'm just starting the discussion here, are you really taking me seriously? Hahahahaha loser, triggered!"
2. It is acceptable to argue the possible benefits of levying import tax on wheat from Alegeria, because there are genuine positive/negatives to the transaction. However, it is not acceptable to argue over whether "All Jews should be killed." A standpoint that suggests the outright destruction of an entire people, or their enslavement or removal of freedoms, is so heinous as to not even be worth discussing the possibility of merit. In other words, anti-semitism is a garbage philosophy that our zeitgeist should not permit. It does not fall under the protection of "free speech," it is simply rejected wholesale.
My point: Restricting hate speech is not a slippery slope for freedom of speech. I personally believe there is no universal morality, but if I had to pick, I'd argue that the best outcome for the human race would be a culture that purges all racist and other arbitrarily prejudiced mindsets that judge entire populations on untenable grounds (race, gender, etc).
It is not a slippery slope if you set clear boundaries.
> purges all racist and other arbitrarily prejudiced mindsets
Purges? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purges_of_the_Communist_Party_of_the_Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purges_of_the_Communist_Party_...
I reach for hyperbole here, because usually the tool that societies reach for to kill ideas is to kill the people that hold them. 99 times out of 100.
>usually the tool that societies reach for to kill ideas is to kill the people that hold them. 99 times out of 100
This sounds like a conclusion reached through confirmation bias.
> usually the tool that societies reach for to kill ideas is to kill the people that hold them. 99 times out of 100.
That's not normally the tool that democratic societies use. The US didn't wholesale kill its segregationists in the 60s. Western Europe didn't kill its Nazis, or its Stalinists. Ayn Rand wasn't pushed down a stairs. I'm trying to think of an example of where a modern democratic country _did_ do this. We didn't kill the misogynists or the racists or the homophobes, we just let them slowly fade into irrelevance. It's not done yet; it's a process.
Societies who do try to kill off bad or opposing ideologies rarely actually do that well with it. How well did the Soviet Union really do with getting rid of its ethno-nationalists, say?
Edit: I suppose one example would be covert action, there has obviously been some of that. Rounding people up wholesale doesn't really happen, though.
> Ayn Rand wasn't pushed down a stairs.
The thought of this was just way too satisfying...
Indigenous people in Canada, Australia, and the United States were basically rounded up and killed (or re-educated, depending on the century).
Not sure how that's substantially different from the soviets rounding up the ethno-nationalists?
> I wish I could find the exact book, but there was a philosopher writing about anti-semitism after WWII.
You may be thinking of Sartre's Anti-Semite and Jew
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Semite_and_Jew https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Semite_and_Jew
Here's a quote:
Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past. It is not that they are afraid of being convinced. They fear only to appear ridiculous or to prejudice by their embarrassment their hope of winning over some third person to their side.
(Thanks to 'geofft and 'tptacek for this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13089118 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13089118)
the power to 'purge' actors exhibiting what in practice can be arbitrarily and fluidly defined (eg, cultural appropriation) is not a power i want anybody to have.
>the power to 'purge' actors exhibiting what in practice can be arbitrarily and fluidly defined (eg, cultural appropriation) is not a power i want anybody to have.
It's a power everyone has. You should read Habermas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_sphere https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_sphere). The entire purpose of civil society is to draw the boundaries around what's acceptable and create the norms that allow people to work out their differences.
Allowing your public sphere to be filled up with people hostile to the concept of being able to work out their differences leads to a breakdown in social order and the rise of totalitarianism.
"It is not a slippery slope if you set clear boundaries."
How could those boundaries ever be clear if they aren't near absolute? Definitions, interpretations, and the cultural mindset change constantly. Prejudice today is different than yesterday, and will change again tomorrow.
I see a remarkable tendency of people to assume that liberal / progressive ideas will always remain free to express, so there's no need to protect all speech. I don't see how this is true.
I'm sure the initial version of communism had clear boundaries, yet Stalin killed millions of Jews. There is always a slippery slope.
The issue is not to keep some vocal lunatics under control, the issue is to keep the government under control.
>My point: Restricting hate speech is not a slippery slope for freedom of speech.
I don't know how you could be aware of what's going on in academia and believe this.
> I don't know how you could be aware of what's going on in academia and believe this.
This talking point is the epitome of filter bubble bias.
First, this is usually characterized as a somewhat recent liberal attack on speech. But the most blatant and egregious examples of speech restrictions at colleges and universities in the USA all come from right-wing christian evangelical colleges. If you think being a conservative at Berkeley is bad, try being liberal (or even conservative but non-christian) at Wheaton or Hillsdale. The only examples I know of students actually expelled for blatantly political reasons all happened at christian colleges.
Second, nearly all universities are infinitely more supportive of free speech -- in policy and in practice -- than other employers or businesses.
This is especially true for private secular universities, who often embody the values of free speech without any legal obligation to do so. MIT can tell anyone they want to "get off my property" but in practice allows, hosts, and even encourages an extreme diversity of viewpoints.
You can probably build a case against my assessment if you spend all day scouring the past decade for counter-examples. In fact, that work was (literally) already done. But "cat everything | grep 'my view point'" does not a preponderance of evidence make.
>"I personally believe there is no universal morality, but if I had to pick, I'd argue that the best outcome for the human race would be a culture that purges all racist and other arbitrarily prejudiced mindsets that judge entire populations on untenable grounds (race, gender, etc)."
Out of all the possibly noble things you could pick, you pick prejudice as the item that would be universally-forbidden in your moral code? I understand that race-relations, group-bias topics and intersectionality are in vogue and centre-stage at this moment, but we need to aim higher as a society.
> I'd argue that the best outcome for the human race would be a culture that purges all racist and other arbitrarily prejudiced mindsets that judge entire populations on untenable grounds (race, gender, etc).
Phrasing. You can't just come out and say purging--you have to dress it up a little more.
I do not buy the 'a standpoint can be too extreme to not be worth discussing'. Interracial marriage would have been one of those standpoints as recently as the 1960s. If you find yourself incapable of articulating actual reasons, not emotional appeals, of why certain things are wrong, that is a personal failing and certainly you shouldn't tackle those issues yourself. But those who have thought about these issues should be able to bring them forward and deal with them objectively and dispassionately.
The number of people who seem to operate on this mindset of "killing loads of people would actually be good, but its too nasty to speak of" is really fucking disturbing. There are objective, rational reasons why such things would be monumentally destructive. I also encounter a disturbing number of people who are earnest racists, who believe that certain races have inherent biological advantage over others, but who believe that they are not racists because they find acknowledging that as inhumane. They don't use epithets and they support affirmative action and diversity and such out of DUTY. All the while never being able to learn that they're WRONG.
I agree that nothing is too extreme that it shall be completely purged from all discussion. Is that what we are talking about here though? It's not like r/fatpeoplehate and r/CoonTown were communities of academic discourse regarding obesity and race. These were communities where people (probably mostly teenagers) spewed hatred for overweight or black people 24/7. Together I think these contrasting ideas... (1) hate speech should be mitigated, but (2) retaining free speech is paramount... engender a few interesting points:
1. Purging these communities from reddit does nothing to remove the underlying fact that given an anonymous social forum, some people will readily participate in hateful discussions targeting overweight people and minorities.
2. When removed from reddit, do these people find different alternative social outlets to share their hate (i.e. after the ban, did 4chan etc. experience a measureable increase in fat/racist posting).
3. If #2 is yes, is it better or worse (and in what ways) that these people and their discussions are forced to move into forums that more readily accept, or even champion hate-speech.
4. Is there a net benefit or net detriment to keeping these shithead communities within an ecosystem like reddit where they, on one hand, can recruit more moderate minds, but on the other hand, are subject to the ridicule of more moderate minds.
Amazing and very telling that in your defense of censorship you can use the phrase "arbitrarily prejudiced mindsets" without a hint of irony.
Notice below I stated that I believe racism unhealthy for the human race as a whole - I can back my argument up.
A racist may be capable of making a racial purity argument to the same point, however, the racist's argument will infringe on real freedoms (give certain people less because of the color of their skin) whereas my argument is snip that mindset out of the culture as a whole.
I get what you're saying, all morality is arbitrary, and yes I agree. However, I've made a decision, and you don't exactly get a lot of points for a morality argument as a perfect nihilist. At some point you have to put some skin in the game, and that's what I'm doing here.
Except anti Semitism isn't just "kill all Jews". If you're the ADL, then it might be "Israel sucks, screw those guys". They'll label it anti Semitism, lump it in with "garbage philosophy" and shut down discussion. Exactly what people are worried about.
So sure, feel free to censor "kill all Jews" but know it is 100% a slippery slope, in no small part because once you are allowed to delete opponents that meet that criteria, you'll try to expand the criteria.
YCombinator is extremely anti-Semitic. They just pretend they're only "anti-Israel".
As objectively abhorrent as anti-semitism is, I unfortunately think the issue is not so cut-and-dry for a variety of reasons.
First, just to respond to those 2 points:
1. There's a spectrum of anti-semites. On many parts of the Internet, you will see many anti-semites who won't even hide under the veil of "just joking". They will tell you to your face that they sincerely believe that either the Holocaust was a hoax, or that it was a good thing. (Or it was a hoax but should happen for real.) Many of these people don't come to these beliefs purely through childhood indoctrination but rather exposure to communities and information sources which, to them and in the context of their existing worldview, seem rational and accurate and polarize them further. When you debate an anti-semite on the Internet, you'll often find that a good percentage don't argue in bad faith and actually do cite what they consider to be credible evidence of their claims. This is in the form of links to websites that look superficially scholarly and professional, images and infographics that claim to be backed by studies, and long documentary-style videos. No, the evidence is not good at all (and any accurate information they do manage to present may support something or other but doesn't support their anti-semitic claims), but many genuinely and truly think the evidence they're linking you is damning.
These aren't all random idiots purely looking for an excuse to hate on Jews. Many are brainwashed from what they read and are exposed to, just like any extremist ideology or cult. They're conspiracy theorists.
You can't fight that sort of thing with censorship: you're proving their point when you do that. "They want to hide this information because they know we're right. They're trying to hide The Truth from the goyim masses. We have facts and data on our side, and all they can do is censor and ban us." As futile as it almost always is to actually have a logical discussion or argument with such an individual, rhetoric must be fought with rhetoric, plain and simple. You can't fight rhetoric with "your argument is too ridiculous or evil to be dignified with either a response or even an allowance of existence".
2.
>However, it is not acceptable to argue over whether "All Jews should be killed." A standpoint that suggests the outright destruction of an entire people, or their enslavement or removal of freedoms, is so heinous as to not even be worth discussing the possibility of merit.
First, only a subset of anti-semites believe or say that all Jews should be killed. I know that's a weird thing for me to say. Any kind of anti-semitism is of course despicable and irrational, even the lightest forms of it, but the distinction still needs to be made. It's much easier to talk to and potentially convince someone who merely believes in some common conspiracy theories and harbors low-level ill will towards Jews compared to someone with deep, zealous animosity and murderous intent towards some, most, or all Jews.
Second, as beyond disgusting an argument as that is, even such statements as "all Jews should be killed" must be (in a broad sense) "open for debate" if you truly believe in freedom of speech. If anti-semitism and other fringe ideologies can just be dismissed as banned topics, anti-semites (and far-right people who are against anti-semitism but find censorship to be anathema) will become more empowered, more secluded, more polarized, and potentially more dangerous.
Let's try to analyze what could lead a person to genuinely say or believe something like "all Jews should be killed". Let's assume they're being sincere, and aren't saying it just to be ironic or edgy or to piss people off. Many of these people have above average IQ and seem otherwise kind of normal. So how could this happen?
From what I've seen and experienced, the most common reason for this kind of sentiment is a delusional fear: they actually, truly believe that Jews are actively trying to gang up and exterminate them. Not just them in particular, but all Western Europeans/Americans/capitalists/right-wingers/white people or whatever their particular flavor of Nazism/fascism is. Of course, this is a ridiculous and false delusion, but in their mind it is a clear and present danger, and in their mind all of the evidence actually points this to being true in reality. They really believe they are in some kind of existential war with an organized "Eternal Jew" - a struggle for survival. And they believe that expelling or killing Jews is purely an act of self-defense.
Take a moment to just accept the craziness of it all. These people aren't playing with the same cards as us. They're fundamentally working off of a different impression of reality. They're on an unsupported fork of the "global/history" repo. All of their ideas and thoughts can be traced deterministically from initial delusional seeds that they accepted and integrated long ago.
I think the best explanation for most of these kinds of anti-semites is that they are a delusional/psychotic community of interrelated cult-like groups. And sure, there's generally no convincing crazy or delusional people, but you definitely aren't going to convince a, say, schizophrenic that he/she just needs help by decreeing "it is now illegal to think or say the things you are currently thinking and saying". (And no, I'm definitely not saying most anti-semites have schizophrenia or something, but I also would not be surprised if there's a disproportionate amount of overlap. I'm just using schizophrenia as an analogy.)
It's not easy, but racists and sexists can sometimes be convinced to soften their views or even change their stances. For example, Daryl Davis, a black man, managed to befriend many KKK members and leaders and convince them to completely rethink their entire ideology. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daryl_Davis#Career_as_writer_and_lecturer.2C_and_dealing_with_racism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daryl_Davis#Career_as_writer_a...) He treated them with decency, kindness, and an open mind (even though they did not deserve it), and many of them eventually came to treat him the same way and reject much of their ideology.
Or take the case of the son of the founder of Stormfront. Stormfront is (or was, before their domain registrar revoked their registration) one of the biggest and most fervent anti-semitic/racist/extreme-right communities out there. Derek Black, the founder's son, helped maintain the website until he ended up befriending some Jewish people in college. After merely being exposed to the fact that they and their families were kind, ordinary people for a few years, he renounced his racist views and dissociated himself from the website and his family. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/the-white-flight-of-derek-black/2016/10/15/ed5f906a-8f3b-11e6-a6a3-d50061aa9fae_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/the-white-flight-of-...)
Both of these situations required years of exposure to opposing viewpoints presented in a respectful way to change their views.
They will never, ever be convinced to change their views if your response is solely to prevent them from discussing certain things or to ban them from places or even to advocate for (or ignore) violence towards them. (One might say "but they advocate for violence towards minorities", but as explained, that can be an oversimplification. And even when it is literally true, two wrongs don't make a right).
>My point: Restricting hate speech is not a slippery slope for freedom of speech. I personally believe there is no universal morality, but if I had to pick, I'd argue that the best outcome for the human race would be a culture that purges all racist and other arbitrarily prejudiced mindsets that judge entire populations on untenable grounds (race, gender, etc).
Again, we're entering dangerous territory. A private community/company, even one acting as a de facto common carrier of communication like reddit, certainly has the right to ban people who make heinous speech like this. But as a society, ideas like "we must purge all racists and arbitrarily prejudiced mindsets from our population" are untenable, unsustainable, and may be playing right into the other side's hands even aside from the slippery slope arguments and how exactly we should or could set clear boundaries of racism and prejudice. Even if we could theoretically set these clear boundaries (and we can't), this is still folly. The founding fathers and their predecessors in the Enlightenment knew this all too well. Freedom of speech really is an all or nothing thing. If something happens purely within the bounds of speech (e.g. the speech is not directly inciting or calling for a crime to occur), it must be permissible under the law.
I think this paper shows that this did help improve the overall balance of toxicity in reddit. But it does not (and pretty much cannot) show how this affects the greater ecosystem of hate speech online. No doubt the vast majority of the people who posted in those banned subreddits have been using many other websites and applications before the ban and are continuing to organize and communicate after the ban. They're just not doing it on reddit anymore.
And this is not something I would normally ever include in a comment, but since this is such a sensitive topic and since my comments here could plausibly be seen as some kind of tacit concern trolling that's secretly supporting anti-semitism or Nazism, I do feel it's relevant to mention that I'm Jewish myself and am extremely aware of the dangers and evils of anti-semitism and fascism.
> I'd argue that the best outcome for the human race would be a culture that purges all racist and other arbitrarily prejudiced mindsets that judge entire populations on untenable grounds (race, gender, etc).
Except most people are not good with nuance. Distinguishing justified judgment from unjustified is pretty much hopeless. Just read any thread anywhere discussing any politically charged issue, like sexism and racism. Purely factual statements are always labelled sexist or racist if they don't support a particular narrative, and sexist or racist sentiments that follow that narrative are applauded. And of course actual sexism and racism is similarly absurd.
The point being that the "untenable grounds for prejudiced mindsets" is sufficiently slippery in and of itself that you haven't escaped the slippery slope argument. People will understand "untenable grounds" to mean what they want it to mean, and we're right back here where we started.
The argument for unrestricted free speech then is, do you have more confidence in the position that speech of type X is unequivocally morally wrong AND that whoever is enforcing morally righteous speech understands the proper nuance not to overreach, or do you have more confidence in the position that people ought to be able to speak about their beliefs without violent reprisal? Because I think these are mutually exclusive.
> so heinous as to not even be worth discussing the possibility of merit
Right, so, what's the clear boundary here? If it's specifically mass murder, ok. "Arbitrarily prejudiced mindsets", however, is not well defined, and therefore subject to slippery slope effects.
Almost all prejudices start with some nugget of truth, if only a correlation with the causation backwards. Further, humanity frickin loves lumping people trying to tell the truth with those who build nasty stereotypes on said truth. In fact, there is no sharp line between them. For instance, the guy in this thread getting downvoted to bedrock for pointing out that being fat is bad for you. Is that person being hateful? (I can't tell, but I collapsed the threat so maybe there's real evidence in there I missed) When do you start restricting that sort of thing, just pointing out awkward facts? Good luck coming up with a clear boundary we can all agree on, because oh yeah, you have to get consensus on that or you've solved nothing.
For a good example of slippery slope in action wrt anti-semitic hate speech, look at how the BDS movement is attacked as both of these things.
Note: I don't support BDS. But I don't consider it to be either anti-Semitic nor hate speech, and the fact that many people who support hate speech legislation genuinely believe that BDS does qualify as hate speech, puts me firmly into the anti-hate-speech-laws camp. Simply put, I don't trust democratic majoritarianism to provide a definition of these things that I would consider acceptable, much less good.
Furthermore, given that hate crimes are directed towards minorities, and hate speech legislation is passed by majorities, I would posit that in any case where that speech actually makes a difference (i.e. where it can translate to tangible action), the majority will always immunize itself. Meanwhile, it will use such laws selectively against minorities (e.g. see all the right wing politicians referring to BLM as "hate group").