On Hating Hate
by Natalie Flemme, media analyst
That hate speech – don’t you just hate it? Well, respectable Canadians are supposed to, even if you don’t personally. Canada has laws against it, and all respectable Canadians support the law.
People sometimes contend that Canadian hate speech laws are explicitly intended only to punish statements that incite violence. However, violence doesn’t actually have to result from this incitement for someone to be prosecuted and convicted. David Ahenakew was convicted for wilfully promoting hatred, even though no violence resulted from his contemptible and ridiculous assertions about Jews.
I am not quibbling here. How can a statement be said to incite violence when no violence has resulted from it? How can a statement be said even to be likely to incite violence if no violence has resulted from it?
Yes, I am aware his conviction was overturned and that a new trial is in the offing. However, the grounds for overturning the conviction were not that his statements failed to promote violence, but that it had not been demonstrated that they were wilful.
One justification for laws against hate speech is that in a culturally diverse society we must ensure that all cultures are respected. Unfortunately, respect does not promote diversity. Disrespect promotes diversity. Take a look at Christianity.
Before the Reformation, Roman Catholics couldn’t question doctrine or Church practice. That is, they had to respect them. Once the Reformation came and Roman Catholics no longer had to respect the Church’s doctrine and practices, what had been Roman Catholicism became amazingly diverse. From simple acts of disrespect sprang Lutheranism, Anglicanism, Calvinism, and a myriad of other religious denominations!
Laws against hate speech are in fact probably just another manifestation of the urge many people have to insulate themselves from diversity. They don’t like what some other people are doing, so they try to ban it. Before they were trying to ban hate speech they were trying to ban obscenity. The idea was that acts and publications that violated community standards were obscene. Then the courts ruled that community standards could not be defined. What were being banned were acts and publications that offended influential people.
The decorum that hate speech laws attempt to impose on society is actually harmful. When government acts to suppress certain ideas, it leads some people to believe that they are suppressing the ideas because they are true. If people are allowed to express their hate, it can be refuted. If they are not allowed to express their hate, they will be believed.
Besides being hateful, David Ahenakew’s statements were stupid and false. A more effective approach would have been to demonstrate that they were stupid and false. Of course, there will always be people who are resistant to evidence and logic. However, they serve to demonstrate to the great majority of people the calibre of person who actually believes that rubbish.
On Hating Hate © 2008, John FitzGerald
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