There are different kinds of “disagreement”. If a person expresses “disagreement”with another person’s belief or behavior and there is no enmity, then it is certainly not hate speech. However, some disagreements derive from enmity about another person’s belief or behavior.
You are correct with the statement “ Just because you may disagree with another's belief systems, be they religious or political, does not make it hate speech.”. But it’s banal. Most people when they disagree with another person’s religious or political belief systems aren’t just disagreeing about a fact they find irrelevant to what they care about. Political and religious systems are deeply personal. A persons sense of belonging and honor are wrapped up in them. Thus, challenging them, or disparaging them is going can affect people more. And likewise simply sharing them is sharing values, and not just facts. If those values express underlining hatred of something, it can constitute “hate speech”. If those values express underlining honor of something it can constitute … “love speech”?
Personally I find the phrase “hate speech” loathsome, as it has a connotation that hate is essentially immoral, and ironically the people who deploy the phrase deploy it with hate. They hate “hate speech.” “Hate speech”, the phrase, *is hate speech* when expressed by someone who thinks it’s immoral to hate.
And your argument for not confronting belief systems or other people because it will be like forever or something is silly. If people just let poisonous belief systems take over the world, Scientologists would be running everything. The notion that everyone should just abandon their confrontations out of futility is a sure path to failure. And a guarantee that those few who don’t, who are probably going to be the most obnoxious or evil in the world, will acquire the most power.
A person is only being quixotic if what they are battling is benign, when they think it is not. Catholicism isn’t benign, and we have 2000 years of oppression and witch hunts to prove that.
And Don Quixote’s life wasn’t empty at all. You must never have read the book. His life was full of adventure.
An empty life is one that always “walks away” from every confrontation, cowardly or complacent. A worthless life, useful to no one. A life without foes, is a life without friends.
There are different kinds of “disagreement”. If a person expresses “disagreement”with another person’s belief or behavior and there is no enmity, then it is certainly not hate speech. However, some disagreements derive from enmity about another person’s belief or behavior.
You are correct with the statement “ Just because you may disagree with another's belief systems, be they religious or political, does not make it hate speech.”. But it’s banal. Most people when they disagree with another person’s religious or political belief systems aren’t just disagreeing about a fact they find irrelevant to what they care about. Political and religious systems are deeply personal. A persons sense of belonging and honor are wrapped up in them. Thus, challenging them, or disparaging them is going can affect people more. And likewise simply sharing them is sharing values, and not just facts. If those values express underlining hatred of something, it can constitute “hate speech”. If those values express underlining honor of something it can constitute … “love speech”?
Personally I find the phrase “hate speech” loathsome, as it has a connotation that hate is essentially immoral, and ironically the people who deploy the phrase deploy it with hate. They hate “hate speech.” “Hate speech”, the phrase, *is hate speech* when expressed by someone who thinks it’s immoral to hate.
And your argument for not confronting belief systems or other people because it will be like forever or something is silly. If people just let poisonous belief systems take over the world, Scientologists would be running everything. The notion that everyone should just abandon their confrontations out of futility is a sure path to failure. And a guarantee that those few who don’t, who are probably going to be the most obnoxious or evil in the world, will acquire the most power.
A person is only being quixotic if what they are battling is benign, when they think it is not. Catholicism isn’t benign, and we have 2000 years of oppression and witch hunts to prove that.
And Don Quixote’s life wasn’t empty at all. You must never have read the book. His life was full of adventure.
An empty life is one that always “walks away” from every confrontation, cowardly or complacent. A worthless life, useful to no one. A life without foes, is a life without friends.