So, I realise the title of this post probably looks really stupid and/or outright dangerous, but I'll do my best to explain it. It's something I've been thinking about for some time now (mostly inspired by a youtube video by a channel called Counter Arguments. If the topic interests you, the video is worth a watch. It's been a while since I've seen it, so I don't remember everything, and I don't necessarily endorse the contents, but there are some interesting points raised.
Now, I will clear something up quickly. When I say "exist" in the title, I mean it with a certain connotation. It needs to be possible, and exist as a concept. It doesn't need to be said, though- and ideally, it wouldn't ever be.
So why is the concept a good thing?
Hate speech is, essentially, any statements that are offensive towards a person, or group of people, or express some level of dislike towards said people or groups. You can probably see already, this is very vague- I would be personally offended by someone saying, for instance, "Led Zeppelin did nothing but copy other musicians". That said, I wouldn't want a claim like that to be censored, as is often the case with hate speech. That statement could, in theory, be backed with arguments, and could lead to a debate that contributes to a better understanding of Led Zeppelin for everyone involved. For the sake of progress, unpopular opinions can't be censored as "hate speech".
Another argument revolves around the freedom of speech. As I understand it, American law states that civilians can say whatever they want, with a few exceptions (no inciting violence, leaking classified information, etc.), and the government can't stop them. If an exception were added saying "civilians can't say anything offensive about or towards others", then there's really no limit to what could be censored. I could argue that a statement as simple as "I'm tired" offends me, because I consider myself tired and they're trivialising my condition, and have them sent to jail for it.
So this raises a question. Should hate speech be redefined as being exclusively speech that's racist, sexist, etc., or should we just let people say whatever hateful things they want? I'm not qualified to answer that, for better or worse, but I can at least look at both possibilities.
Redefining hate speech has the same problems I mentioned already- it would be very hard to draw a line between innocent statements and hateful ones. Would there be an exception for things said in a joking manner? Not having it would basically shut down all stand up comedians, but having it would give people an excuse to avoid punishment. It's worth arguing, too, that the more censorship there is, the harder it is for civilians to push for social movements without someone portraying them in a hateful light and having them arrested.
On the other hand, allowing hate speech to exist isn't very desirable. The fact that anyone could say a stream of insults to you (as long as they're not directly inciting violence), and the government protects their right to do so, isn't very pleasant. On the other hand, as I said before, the definition is vague enough at this point that some "hate speech" should be protected- for instance, calling out a group of political activists you find immoral is hate speech, but could well be in the best interest of society.
Ideally, there would be no true hate speech (the kind based around racism, sexism, or other things of that nature). Unfortunately, that's really asking a lot of society. In my opinion, the fact that this sort of thing still exists doesn't mean we need censorship, but that we need to address the underlying factors leading people to have these hateful opinions. Allowing people to say stuff like this might seem dangerous, but censoring them could well be much more so.
Anyways, that's gonna be it for today. Hopefully you found this post interesting- if you did, feel free to leave your thoughts here, or find the video I mentioned earlier and hear a more in-depth discussion of the topic.
