On 07/05/04 21:31, Christopher Mahan wrote:
--- Fredrik Johansson <fred(a)frad.org> wrote:
>There is _psychological_ harm.
>And it not only hurts individuals, it directly affects the
>community's
>functioning. Hate speech, as you say, communicates hate. People who
>feel hated experience distress, which reduces their productivity.
>In particular, it makes cooperation much harder. And our goal is to
>COLLABORATIVELY write an encyclopedia. Hate speech is therefore
>directly counter-productive.
there is a sayng in texas which I find appropriate:
If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.
Any sufficiently rabid partisan will consider the edits of their
opponents to be close enough to hate speech to treat as such.
That's why this discussion of 'hate speech' needs an INCREDIBLY
FIRM DEFINITION that does NOT sum up to "I know it when I see it."
- d.