As free speech has become more limited, it seems that relations between different groups has gotten markedly worse. In spite of legal protection against so-called “hate speech”, it seems that hate has increased. I think it’s in part because hate is ugly and so bringing it out into the open is how you show how ugly it is, while hiding it hides how ugly it really is.
One of the death knells of the KKK was a reporter going in and explaining it in detail, which immediately showed that it looked like the scribblings in a notebook of some 14 year old boy with no sense of irony. The group ended up not needing to be banned because it was self-refuting once people understood what they were looking at in its entirety.
I tend to agree with you on this point.
As free speech has become more limited, it seems that relations between different groups has gotten markedly worse. In spite of legal protection against so-called “hate speech”, it seems that hate has increased. I think it’s in part because hate is ugly and so bringing it out into the open is how you show how ugly it is, while hiding it hides how ugly it really is.
One of the death knells of the KKK was a reporter going in and explaining it in detail, which immediately showed that it looked like the scribblings in a notebook of some 14 year old boy with no sense of irony. The group ended up not needing to be banned because it was self-refuting once people understood what they were looking at in its entirety.