Hate Speech is often given the reputation of being a mechanism for people to spread racism and hatred toward the minority groups of a society, a characteristic in which many of us would agree that this would not help in terms of development. Waldron focuses a lot on this topic, saying that this form of hate speech takes away from the "dignity" of the individuals composing the ostracized minority groups. He defines dignity as the quality everyone has regardless of their physical qualities in which all individuals are treated equally. He believes dignity to be this characteristic in which you think of anyone as 'normal'. Waldron believes this is a quality that every free society should have, and the ability for hate speech to demean this quality puts it as an inherent harm to society.
However, what would be a situation in which hate speech could actually prove itself to be useful? Suppose that there is a protest or speech against a law such as the draft, and the protestors offer a feasible solution to the draft. If this were true, than the government could consider this solution and if it works out, than its population could be more content with it. The point here is that hate speech could be used as a mechanism for improvement and progress if it is used for criticism without demeaning a minority group. When it comes to the government, the officials and politicians have chosen an optional role in gaining power and maintaining the welfare of a country, whereas an individual in a minority group has no option when it comes to their skin color, or the crimes that another individual did. Within the book, Waldron implies that because people in government had the option to participate in politics and the bureaucracy, then it is ok for hate speech to be geared towards the government itself, instead of minority groups.
Anyways, that's all for this week! Tell me what you guys think about Waldron's ideas or if you have any interesting theories yourselves.
