Speech that explicitly or direct line implicitly dehumanizes anyone.
Then the arguments become pretty simple: does a statement dehumanize someone? Does it indicate that they are any less human than another? That's a much easier discussion to have.
>Speech that explicitly or direct line implicitly dehumanizes anyone.
Except, you've gone nowhere. You've substituted the intrinsic ambiguity and subjectivity inherent in 'hate speech' with the same intrinsic ambiguity and subjectivity inherent in 'dehumanization' .. in fact, I have a better idea of what 'hate speech' is than what 'dehumanization' actually entails. I've seen people argue that a model in a bikini is dehumanizing.
It appears to me that we are excluding voices from public discourse because, in the opinion of a powerful group, they have been rude.
One person's rude criticism can easily become another person's hate speech.
People get sick die because of political decisions, and people gain great amounts of wealth because of political decisions.
People maintain comfortable places in society or remain in fully employed poverty because of political decisions.
There is very little in peoples' lives that aren't affected by politics.
If you're in a position for politics to not affect you because it's just an abstract topic of conversation, you're part of a privileged class of people who aren't being scrutinized and blamed because of your inherent, born qualities. Congratulations.
I am more tolerant and wise than you because I can separate political thought and speech from political action. You, apparently, cannot. I am being charitable by calling you a control freak who cannot handle having their deeply cherished opinions challenged.
(see the answer?)
First of all: who is to decide what's dehumanizing, or even hate speech?
It's also possible to make a comment that is read by one part as hate speech, but it was never intended as such. The quick attack made on the poster that made the: "I feel that this comment dehumanized me." makes it seem like someone is offended by that very comment. If I, by accident, make comment, that someone decides is hate speech and try to have it removed, I would certainly feel dehumanized. Having the meaning of my words ripped apart and banned by a system that decided that I must hate someone, that's hurtful.
Hate speech isn't what worries me though, it's the notion that me speech somehow needs policing. First we ban the obvious stuff, not attacking people on the basis of gender or race, we can all agree on that. Next it's a ban on hateful speech against religion... but we don't all agree on that one, because some religions need to be criticised. Anyway screw the anti-religion people, who next? Those who go against the government, how about those opposing certain parties. In the end I'm kicked of the Internet for saying something negative about Disney.
There is a clear definition of hate speech. It's not as amorphous as you need it to be in order to protect your ego.
So I still don't think it's "clear".
if 1) do you consider yourself a human? A) yes, then why haven't you killed yourself? Since you haven't you think you're more deserving of life relative to everyone else and therefore are dehumanizing everyone but yourself, if 2) ok, you've publicly proclaimed that you don't think you're human which then let me add a second rule. Only humans have right to speech.
Remember that whenever you create a tool to silence people, you are building a weapon that can be used against yourself. As recent elections have shown, sane politicians aren't always in power. The only long term solution is to build a system that works even when your enemies are in charge.
Even in Europe, which has much stricter bans on hate speech and xenophobia than the US does, and where capital punishment is banned, claiming capital punishment should be unbanned is legal.
This is circular reasoning. If we've already established that I might not think all humans deserve to live, you can't claim that thinking I deserve to live means I think I'm more human than everyone else.
It's perfectly possible to think someone deserves to live less than I do while still thinking they're human.
Such tortured logic is hardly "direct line implicit", which is exactly why your definition doesn't work.
My girlfriend's dog is very sweet and loyal. I think it deserves to exist more than a (human) child molester does. This doesn't mean I think dogs are human.
To say that another doesn't deserve to be recognized with those positive human qualities is at the root of saying that they don't deserve to exist.
You lost the thread of the conversation the moment someone confronted your belief that it doesn't have a clear definition.
The reason you lost the thread is because you're struggling with the internal contradiction of your belief.
Our carceral system is widely recognized to be deeply racist in practice and in philosophy. This being the case, it's not an unbelievable stretch to say that when someone holds a belief in capital punishment, there is a good chance they also have parallel beliefs that rationalize capital punishment as a functional part of that racist system.
In that case, such advocacy is part of their rhetorical framework of hate speech. The clarity of the definition of hate speech gives us to see the context of that.
Let's imagine you work at a social media company. You see the comment: "capital punishment should be legal". You don't know anything about the carceral system of the jurisdiction the commenter lives in.
Do you remove the comment for being hate speech, or not?
But the main point is that since the other commenter reached the conclusion that this would be hate speech, and you reached the conclusion that it might be but not necessarily, it follows that the definition he or she proposed is not clear.
I don't know how to make this any more explicit. Hate speech having a clear and defined concept (which both you and that other commenter can research on your own) gives us a way to define whether or not the comment and context is harmful or not. I'm not going to hold your hand here, you need to read about it.
I am not discussing whether or not hate speech is clearly defined. I was discussing whether "Speech that explicitly or direct line implicitly dehumanizes anyone" is a useful definition. Do you think that's a useful definition, or not?
If that wasn't the point you were arguing against, then we're going nowhere.