Silencing hateful speech is like taking the batteries out of your smoke alarm because it won’t stop beeping.

Bad speech is an invitation for listening, for compassion, for understanding, for better arguments and for better speech.

When we hear hateful speech, our goal should be to help stop our fellow human beings from feeling such hatred. Not to get them to simply stop talking about it whenever we can hear them.

This is difficult to do. But it is worth trying.

This approach of “trying to understand people” also helps us realize when we are ascribing to others hateful intents and beliefs that they do not actually hold. (We do this far more often than we may realize.)

And, it helps us figure out when the thing that someone claims to be mad about is not actually the thing that is actually causing them distress. (Which is often.)

Sometimes, what we hear incorrectly as “hate” might merely be ignorance, inelegance, tactlessness, closed mindedness, frustration, or simply, an opinionated difference in values.

But either way, the only antidote to bad speech is more and better speech. Not more anger and aggression and suppression.

Even when they are the worst ones imaginable, words are only words. It is almost always wiser to judge a man based on what he does, rather than on what he says.

This can also be harder to do than it is to say. Just like a lot of things.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.