--- "steven l. rubenstein" <rubenste(a)ohiou.edu> wrote:
But judging from the rest of his response, my
assumption was
correct. Chris, you just do not understand the point. I suggest
you read
Austin's book and perhaps take a couple of courses in the
philosophy of
language.
I do get your point, unfortunately, just not agree with it. Anyway,
I'll look it up someday in my spare time.
It looks like few people have interest in the question
of hate
speech, so I
will not belabor the point. But for everyone besides Chris, I do
want to
add one more thing, to clarify my earlier points. One of
Wikipedia's key
policies is to respect contributors, and an important behavioral
guideline
is to avoid personal attacks. One reason I am so concerned about
hate
speech is that I do not feel it is strictly covered by this policy
and this
guideline -- because hate speech is impersonal. Strictly speaking,
I did
not feel WHEELER was attacking me "personally," I felt he was
attacking me
"impersonally." It was not directed at me personally (which is
explicitly
against our policy) because it was not about me, personally. But
it was
about Jews, so since I am a Jew it is about me, just me,
impersonally. If
this is not clear, all I can ask is that you read any of the
countless
explanations of the rationale behind hate speech legislation or
hate crime
legislation. The point is not that you should agree that we need
hate
speech legislation, just to understand how hate speech is different
from
other forms of rude or insulting or disrespectful speech. Perhaps
all I
have been asking for is recognition of another reason for mediation
or
arbitration beyond the ones listed.
I would like to add that I personally find that people who use ethnic
or group-based insults even less savory than those who direct curses
directly to individuals. I agree that any form of insult, be it
group-based or individual-based is generally in poor taste and does
little to foster a collegial environment where productive work can
take place.
As far as mediation or arbitration, perhaps others can best describe
the difference between disagreement on an article's content and
clashes of personalities.
There may be a "I don't want to work with this person" complain,
replete with a restaining order or two, as long as article content is
itself not an item of contention.
Thoughts?
=====
Chris Mahan
818.943.1850 cell
chris_mahan(a)yahoo.com
chris.mahan(a)gmail.com
http://www.christophermahan.com/
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