Chris Mahan wrote,
which begs the
question, what do you mean by "communicative?" I
assume you
mean that the only thing it does is to describe or express
something else,
but has not force in and of itself.
Your assumption was incorrect.
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.
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.
Steve
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