Hate Speech and Hate
Reification is a term that means someone is taking an often intangible thing or quality and treating it as though it had a concrete existence:
reification
/ˌɹeɪəfəˈkeɪʃən/
noun
- The consideration of an abstract thing as if it were concrete, or of an inanimate object as if it were living.
- The consideration of a human being as an impersonal object. (programming) Process that makes out of a non-computable/addressable object a computable/addressable one.
- (programming) Process that makes out of a non-computable/addressable object a computable/addressable one.
It probably should not be a surprise that the loftiest ideals are the hardest to define. For the purposes of the definition of reification, though, people speak of the fallacy in the sense of the definition of 1). Yet, in application, though they notice the fallacy of defining the thing concretely, they often perform the definition of 3). instead perhaps obeying the mysterical-magical law that if you can name a thing you can have power over it. In other words, something has been conjured from the void state of non-definition. Therefore, when it is spoken, the person means it entails the definition they have defined. Of course, this flatly contradicts definitional usage 1. You cannot treat the thing as a real, concrete, inanimate object while saying that whatever it is is not a real, inanimate, concrete object with which to start.
Hate is a case in point. How do you define hate? Before we venture over to the concept that there is such a thing as hate speech, we would need to define hatred. This proves difficult. If I say to Fred or Bob that I hate his tie, is that hate speech? I have literally used the word “hate” in that instance. It should be a cut and dried example if there can be one. Of course, in application we do not say that the tie, or Bob, or Fred, has suffered from hate speech in such a situation. Instead, we are expressing that the fashion-sense is not to our liking. We could have said, “I don’t like the tie.” Yet, we did not. We are indicating a stronger disgust, in theory, by saying we hate the tie, unless we are being ironic, which is another kind of communication all together that entirely contradicts the definition of what is being said. Someone might, for instance, say they “hate love”. We can wring some meaning out of that utterance, but it is inherently contradictory.
A Stronger Definition of Hate
A stronger definition of hate goes beyond mere disgust. Hatred, when it should be used in terms of speech, implies an action that a person is going to hypothetically take to make sure whatever is hated IS REMOVED–whatever that means. So, a person who says they hate a specific ethnic group usually means that they believe that the person or persons are not liked and are therefore undesirable to have around. This, in and of itself is not a bad thing as such an utterance. It is not good either. There are many people that other people do not want to be around for various reasons. When the speech moves to, “All of this ethnic group is bad, and I intend to make sure that they are not around by taking an action,” we have something that better meets the definition of hate speech. Therefore, “I intend to shoot you at 1 pm” is a kind of hate speech. “I am so mad I could kill you,” is not necessarily hate speech.
Disagreement
A disagreement is not inherently hate speech. If I say to you that my definition of a car does not include a Pinto, I am saying something about the qualities I find to be desirable to have in an automobile, and something about the absence of those qualities in the specific case of a Pinto. Someone else may disagree with my assessment, but they probably are not going to immediately resort to “Why do you hate Pintos?” It would be a weird jump to do that. I am not saying anything about my hatred of the car, but I am saying much about the car being suitable to the purpose of transportation. Simply put, it does not fit the definition. Likewise, if you tell me how well you like a certain Linux distro, and I say, “Yeah, not my thing”, you probably are not going to get upset about the interaction unless you are a Linux psycho.
Now, A Different Example
If instead of cars and Linux distros we are talking about the definition of marriage, and I define that as between a male and a female, it is not hatred. I am not saying you have to use that definition if you use the word marriage, but if you are talking to me, I am going to say if your definition is different that it does not fit the criterion. You can call clouds bubble gum, too. I don’t care. You are free to go around defining all matter of objects and qualities in bizarre ways, and I still don’t care. If you start passing legislation, however, I might start to care–especially if your definition is something whacky. If, for instance, you pass a law that no one can call clouds clouds and instead has to call them bubble gum, we are gonna have issues. “It’s the law,” is not going to work either. Bogus laws exist and have existed. Something only has legal force if it is a just law.
Critical Speech Also Is Not Hate speech
If you ask my opinion on something, and I tell you it is a dumb idea, and you are the biggest nitwit I have ever seen for having it, I still haven’t performed any hate speech. I’ve performed disagreement with a dash of a personal insult–but neither of those things rises to hate speech level. I’d have to toss in a casual “and I know where you live and because I do I am going to hunt you down” or something. The barometer is not simply feeling threatened because egos feel threatened all the time–falsely. Fear has been around for a long, long time, but fear is not the same as hatred. Fear might lead to hatred, but it is not a stand-in for it. If you think such speech fosters a hostile environment, well tough. Nobody said that speech had to make you feel warm and fuzzy. Not everything in the world is an emotional affirmation. Sometimes people are jerks and we have to get on with life anyway. If we ACT on the impulse to silence these people, however, no matter how difficult, at an administrative level, we have done something worse than hate speech. We are creating a kind of retributive environment where–since I have power and you do not–I might just use it on you so you better do what I desire. That is the road to oppression. At an individual level, sure, we might ignore a given person on a variety of annoyance factors. An individual is a different person than someone with the authority behind them on a given network to help administer it. If Joe the plumber ignores Bob, it is different compared to the head of the FBI using the powers of the FBI to silence and ignore Bob. Another example is there are many people I will not let into my home that I might see at the supermarket. I do not run out the door because I see that person while shopping for groceries. I go on with my shopping needs.
Ideals Do Not Define Well
The best that can be done, typically, on a given ideal, is to see qualities of that ideal against a certain background of existence. Loyalty in something like the military is different than loyalty to a corporation. Same thing with a relationship. Some qualities abstract out and are in common to all instances, but it is not concretely definite in a way that having a loaf of bread is. Why then do we expect hatred–a strong, not necessarily commensurate with reality, emotional state–to make any sense as a means to moderation of speech? The short answer is we cannot. It is too vague. We can really only start to examine it on the basis of action, and often the people doing the action are censoring those they consider to be hateful. Ironically, this might be the consequence of hatred instead of the prevention of it. The inmates sometimes try to run the asylum. Sometimes the most hate-filled people assume positions of power and abuse it. It is our job, though, to know better and to hold them accountable.