Hate Speech is Useful Speech

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I attended Princeton University from 1960 to 1964. I was a Jew from Brooklyn, a largely Jewish borough of New York City. Back then, Princeton was an oddity. It was, one might say, a Southern school in the North. Fully 53 percent of its students were from south of the so-called Mason-Dixon Line that demarcates the American South from the North – replicating, more or less, the two sides that had fought the American Civil War.

Further, it was “lily white,” having no black students (except for seven Africans, each the son of a head of state) and only one Chinese (a physics genius). I was one of a dozen Jews, each one having graduated first in his high school class.

So, there I was, a Jewish kid from Brooklyn stuck on an anti-Semitic campus. Upper classmen would call me derogatory names – “kike” being the most common. One would think that I was miserable. However, I realized that I was getting an elite education at an elite school, and so I simply toughened up. Besides, so-called “hate speech” can be very useful as it tells one on whom not to turn one’s back.

Among Open Enemies

Back in the sixties one knew who thought what, and that was known by all, as my friend Steven Pinker would put it: we had common knowledge of who believed what. Nowadays, with the level of political correctness in universities, it is harder than ever to discern who is with you and who is not. Finding your group has become especially hard if you don’t agree with the dominant progressive agenda. It was at Princeton that I first took seriously the childhood ditty: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names can never harm me.” And it was at Princeton that I became a free speech absolutist.

My bookshelf reflected my life experiences. Among its volumes stood my first book, “The Shadow University”, co-authored with Alan Charles Kors, which examined the rise of speech codes on American campuses. Next to it was “The War on Words” by Greg Lukianoff and Nadine Strossen. Lukianoff is the current CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), an organization Kors and I co-founded in 1999, while Strossen is the former president of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Across the years I have made several friends who are also fierce free speech defenders. They include Harvard Law School Professor Randall Kennedy, the author of “Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word” and the already mentioned Steven Pinker.

When the HLS faculty members urged Kennedy to substitute “the n-word” for “Nigger”, Kennedy, who himself is black, refused. It would be ironic, he explained, to duck using the actual word about which he wrote.

Pinker has, for his part, gotten into serious controversy when he delved into how biological differences create sex disparities in science and engineering. Both Kennedy’s and Pinker’s controversies represent the increase in censorship attempts, weaponizing the concept of hate to achieve it.

From Blasphemy to Hate Speech

Laws against hate speech reduce the range of acceptable criticism towards dominating ideas. Once subjective harm becomes the legal standard, speech is judged by its reception, giving authorities complete discretion over what can be said, making the critic jump through hoops. This is a defensive ditch – a form of intellectual protectionism.

Censors need dissent to be evident; this is why they hold ideas that are clearly ridiculous. For example: “Sex does not exist, since males can become females and vice-versa.” If someone brings up the very obvious field of knowledge known as biology, it is tagged as hateful, the new word for blasphemy. Thus bringing up a 1,5 billion years old “invention” – sex – is deemed hate speech.

This is an age-old censorship mechanism; if one doubted that a virgin gave birth to Jesus, the only son of the Creator of the Universe, it was considered blasphemous. Fortunately, over the centuries, the censoring features of Christianity have faced sufficient external pressure to accept criticism to a higher extent than was the case in previous centuries. We have to keep the liberal pressure going.

«This is an age-old censorship mechanism; if one doubted that a virgin gave birth to Jesus, the only son of the Creator of the Universe, it was considered blasphemous»

The Enlightenment Bargain

Hatred and censorship are an unenlightened dyad. They are used as justification for each other. They are both uncivilized, primal reactions that seek a short-term solution to each other. This is why we should serve them a metaphorical double punch. They shouldn’t themselves be answered with censorship or hatred; we should know better. I co-founded FIRE in 1999 to enforce the right to express oneself that is enjoyed in the US.

A person who understands is not a hater. Hatred is a by-product of ignorance. People often fear what they do not understand. Knowledge of human nature dissolves hatred, and censorship. As the great Russian writer Anton Chekhov put it: “Man will become better when you show him what he is like.”

The solution is to replace ignorance with knowledge, and confusion with clarity. In the clash between the right and wrong ideas, the right ones usually prevail. We wouldn’t have a judicial system if this wasn’t true. Sunlight really is the best disinfectant.

«Now everyone looks different but is supposed to think alike»

Society has grown more rational and liberal not by the decree of kings or popes, but because the tools of reason – logic, science, and a commitment to facts – have spread and become part of everyday life. Our task now is to extend these tools further. Create a stronger expectation of adherence to the rules of science.

That attempts to censor hate speech are sold as attempts to protect minorities is a tremendous irony. Intellectual minorities are now the actual oppressed minorities: now everyone looks different but is supposed to think alike.

By defending the principles of the Enlightenment, we deliver a double blow against censorship: We make censorship weaker and eliminate a big excuse for it.

Dare to understand.