18 August 2007, 13:01 in

Christopher Hitchens talk on free speech

A while back I came across this video of Christopher Hitchens giving a talk at a debate on free speech in Canada:

Hitchens argues that religion is the main source of hatred in the world today, and yet at the same time also the main caller for censorship. He believes that free speech includes hate speech, i.e. he believes in decriminalizing hate speech.

Some quotes on free speech:

“If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” – George Orwell, Preface to Animal Farm (1946)

“The principle of free thought is not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought we hate.” US Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in United States v. Schwimmer (1929).

“He wrote something stupid, a bunch of words that say something we don’t agree with. It’s only words and ideas, it’s not like he beat someone up, he’s not committing violence or hurting people, he’s simply saying something offensive that we do not want to hear because we don’t like it. If we suppress ideas we don’t like, the proponents of those ideas will probably fester in secret societies and explode in double-plus ungood ways and we will like those results even less. If we allow people to see their ideas, and we ignore them, they’ve had their chance and they don’t have to feel cheated about not getting exposure. Or if we really don’t like their ideas and really need to keep them from convincing other people to believe in them, the answer is to tell people why and they’ll learn. But you can’t just beat people up because you dislike their stupid opinion. If we go that route, then anyone who is willing to use force can suppress any opinion they don’t like, and maybe support opinions we don’t like. Then what you get is a society of brutality where it isn’t the best ideas that are seen by others, it’s only the ideas that have the most vicious thugs to back them up. And it becomes very hard for people to be willing to express any opinion if someone can just pop them one because they say something someone else doesn’t like.” – Supervisor 246 in Paul Robinson’s Instrument of God.

It seems that while hate speech is illegal in some countries, such as Australia and the US, it passes under the radar when masqueraded under the banner of religion. Enforcement should at least be made consistent.

I haven’t decided where I stand on free speech; both sides have some pros and cons. It is an interesting topic to think about.

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