The Jaguar's Heart 6: Hatespeech
One of the most common things I hear (and say) right now is "the asymmetry is the story." Here's one about how none of us are innocent of the sins we hate in others.
Hi, all. Welcome to this week’s episode of The Jaguar’s Heart.
It’s been weeks since the Baen’s Bar incident and I’m still thinking about it... because the longer I do, the more I feel, overwhelmingly, that it’s obvious that the problem is deeper than “this forum was saying stuff that offended us.” We have to back up to the glaring fact that people on opposite sides no longer consider each other human. Nothing I say will matter because the people disagreeing with me don’t think I’m human. They have denied my humanity; they have not bothered to listen to my beliefs, or have fake-listened to them in that way that people do when they’re so ready to prove you wrong that they’re only using your speech to provide talking points for their own ideas.
We have forgotten how to listen.
Increasingly, we have also forgotten how to extend to one another the very basic courtesies we grant to those we agree with. Which is how we come to ‘hatespeech from the other side incites violence and should be shut down, but we never commit hatespeech because nothing we say incites violence, or if it does, it’s necessary violence.’
Here’s where I’ve come to, after days of turning it over in my head. All of us say things that read as hatespeech. It’s natural for people who are angry, frustrated, or afraid to blow off steam, particularly if they believe they are among people who agree with them (because they assume, correctly, that people who agree with them will understand that they aren’t literally advocating violence… they are expressing feelings that would have no other outlet without that rant).
One of the foundational principles that I find I share with other conservatives (and sometimes people who identify in other ways) is that while you can give people tools to fight their worser impulses, we will never stop being subject to human nature. Christians would call that evidence of the Fall, but I don’t think you have to be religious to agree that all of us fight a constant war against greed, envy, hatred, fear, jealousy and spite. To create any policy, no matter how well-intentioned, that depends on people operating out of their best natures without planning for bad actors—and without realizing that we will all be some kind of bad actor one day—is futile.
This is one of the many reasons I feel like we weren’t ready for the internet, which destroys or obscures boundaries that we would usually observe when it comes to letting off steam. When you think you’re among friends, you say things you know your friends will forgive (and good friends will later say ‘hey, you know that was unfair’ and you say ‘yeah, I know it was over the line, but things bite right now’ and you keep going). But social media (and its predecessors, like forums and BBSes) give people the feeling that they’re among friends when they’re actually in public… which means the people you’re frustrated with get to see the inside of your head, and judge you on it.
I don’t think anyone deserves to have what goes on inside their head judged. By that standard, we’re all guilty. But the internet allows people to jump straight into people’s heads and start condemning them for their thoughts… and that is what turns hateful speech into hateful actions, not the other way around. When there’s no way for you to back down, when there’s no apology you can make, when it’s clear that you’ve already been hung by a jury of your peers for the careless, transitory thoughts in your head rather than your behavior… then you might as well go all the way, because how else can you protect yourself? If people will never stop thinking of you as a villain, what use becoming a hero? You’ll be condemned no matter what you do.
I think that’s worth repeating: if you wish to radicalize someone, make it clear they will always be a villain, no matter what they do or say. Give them no way out.
So the people in Baen’s Bar thought they were among likeminded people, and were blowing off steam saying things that their polar opposites say in their own spheres as well. Both sides think it’s all right when they do it, and wrong when the other side does it. Both sides think when other sides do it, it incites violence. But I don’t think anyone gets to be holier than thou on this one. To vent is human. To vent hyperbolically and with extreme language is normal. Pretending that only certain kinds of people do it, or that it should matter only when certain kinds of people do it, is wrong. It’s wrong factually, and it’s wrong ethically. It creates a society where some people are punished for their thoughts and some people get a pass, and a society like that is a powderkeg waiting for an explosion.
We need to back away from this cliff, and I don’t know how. But maybe it begins with some humility about the frailties of the nature we all share.
That’s all I’ve got. Thanks for listening to this imperfect heart. Jaguar out.
