Interesting point, though I wouldn't say that censorship engenders violence; in the same way, you point out that hate speech doesn't necessarily result in violence. Both create the conditions for the possibility of violent acts: censorship enables a violent state, hate speech incites a mob. That was more pithy, but were I to attempt to be more accurate in the cases we're discussing: hate speech incites individuals, whose symbolic violence is appropriated and exploited by a mob.
More to the point, I don't think genocide is what we're primarily concerned with. I have no statistics- so I forward this tentatively- but I wouldn't describe the Southern US as laden in "large scale acts of violence" during the early 20th century. To my knowledge, there was nothing that could properly be termed genocide. What *did* exist was a culture that used violence against individuals to imply a threat against a group. Organizations also staged demonstrations to ensure that such threats were clearly understood and broadened beyond that incident.
I expect we find the same thing objectionable, but I seem less confident in my solutions. In its effect, hate speech censors the group it targets. Both censorship and hate speech, ironically, appropriate power from the vulnerable, exploiting the society in a pretty cynical way. Censorship takes the responsibility to protect the citizenry- and uses it to weaken it- while hate speech takes the society's openness- and uses it to silence others.
If you're arguing that the distinction between "hate speech" and "speech inciting violence" is too weak to merit legislative protection, I would offer an adaptation of the following argument, one I heard recently and found compelling.
Hate crimes are terrorism. We single both of these out because there are two crimes being committed: the first is the violence committed against the person(s) and the second is the threat of violence to the group that person represents. That person is targeted- and that group is threatened- because the violence contains an additive, symbolic threat of violence against the rest of the group.
I expect you will argue that I've entirely missed your point, since you're concerned with speech and I'm talking about crimes. The symbolism of the violent act requires the violent act by definition, and the threat of violence alone cannot carry that symbolism. However, violence rarely emerges from nothing, and by definition the "hate crime" emerges from a culture of hatred. The conditions for the possibility of the hate crime are created by the speech we're discussing; this is also the forum where such crimes are celebrated and the executors- sometimes literally- elevated. The speech is carefully crafted to encourage individual action against a group for grievances- most imagined- endured by another. Legally, it is very, very hard to tie the particular crime to a "culture of hate"; those responsible for creating the culture that begets directed violence- the organization ensuring the "threat" intended by violent hate crimes is clearly understood by the target group- are unlikely to face any penalties, ever. That doesn't seem quite right.
This observation doesn't recommend any particular type of law that might thwart such speech, but it is a sound argument for discouraging it, somehow. At the very least, it recommends against regarding all speech as equally benign (the "only actions matter" argument).
Overview: The first half of s is the second half of s, XOR'd with the target output string (plus 10, since the result is not in the set of printable characters). Using two pointers, the program iterates over both halves of the string, undoing this operation to produce the target output string. When main() is called and c is zero, it increments the two character pointers in v (changing them in the calling function, which happens to be main()).
In short, main() is used both as the function to increment both pointers and also as the function to output the result; the operation main() performs in a given call is controlled by c.
Detail: When it runs the first time, c (read: argc) is greater than or equal to 1. So s gets initialized, and k (note, an array of ptr to char, like v (read: argv)) receives two pointers, each one character before the beginning of each "half" of the XOR'd string. c is non-zero, so we enter the first expression (a while loop).
A recursive call to main() is made immediately, providing !k (read: 0) as the first actual (i.e. c in the next call), and k as the second (i.e. v in the next call). In the recursive call, both pointers in v (read: k in the caller) are incremented (since c is zero) and s and k are ignored. The return value (i.e. the value evaluated by the while loop in the caller) is equal to *++*v, or the character in the second half of s. The return value will eventually be NULL when it reaches the end of the string. The caller then outputs whatever is pointed to by k[0] and k[1] (this is why we begin one character *before* the strings we're interested in).
In short, main(c,v) has two behaviors:
For all c: Given a target string y, initialize s = x1x2, such that, for all xi in x1 and all xj in x2, xi = xj xor yi + 10. For all c: Initialize k such that k[0] is &x1-1, k[1] is &x2-1.
c == 0: increment v[0] and v[1] c == 1: call self recursively, with c == 0, v == k, outputting the character pointed to by k[0] and k[1] until k[0] is NULL; then return 0.
(this is very diluted; inaccuracies are for clarity)
In "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism," Weber noted that the idea of a "calling" in many Protestant churches when coupled with an ingrained frugality almost inevitably led to the accumulation of wealth. So by dutifully serving one's calling, he couldn't help but amass a respectable fortune. Wealth became an indicator for- or at least coreqisite to- piety; "work" in America retains this character so dogmatically adopted by its puritan heritage.
(this is one of the reasons Europeans simultaneously dislike Americans for their materialism and religious zeal, a dichotomy Americans dismiss as a contradiction)
Social institutions in Europe were largely Catholic for centuries; what Nietzsche called a "philosophy of death" (for promoting behavior contrary to the interests of the organism) ironically provides some mitigating forces on the "pursuit of interest." Taking a year for yourself is more than laziness or sloth; to Americans, it borders on blasphemy.
There's an old saying, largely out of fashion: "The Protestant eats well; the Catholic sleeps well." Replace the former with "American" and the latter with "European," and we might modernize it.
Slashdot Mirror
Interesting point, though I wouldn't say that censorship engenders violence; in the same way, you point out that hate speech doesn't necessarily result in violence. Both create the conditions for the possibility of violent acts: censorship enables a violent state, hate speech incites a mob. That was more pithy, but were I to attempt to be more accurate in the cases we're discussing: hate speech incites individuals, whose symbolic violence is appropriated and exploited by a mob.
More to the point, I don't think genocide is what we're primarily concerned with. I have no statistics- so I forward this tentatively- but I wouldn't describe the Southern US as laden in "large scale acts of violence" during the early 20th century. To my knowledge, there was nothing that could properly be termed genocide. What *did* exist was a culture that used violence against individuals to imply a threat against a group. Organizations also staged demonstrations to ensure that such threats were clearly understood and broadened beyond that incident.
I expect we find the same thing objectionable, but I seem less confident in my solutions. In its effect, hate speech censors the group it targets. Both censorship and hate speech, ironically, appropriate power from the vulnerable, exploiting the society in a pretty cynical way. Censorship takes the responsibility to protect the citizenry- and uses it to weaken it- while hate speech takes the society's openness- and uses it to silence others.
I don't know what is to be done.
If you're arguing that the distinction between "hate speech" and "speech inciting violence" is too weak to merit legislative protection, I would offer an adaptation of the following argument, one I heard recently and found compelling.
Hate crimes are terrorism. We single both of these out because there are two crimes being committed: the first is the violence committed against the person(s) and the second is the threat of violence to the group that person represents. That person is targeted- and that group is threatened- because the violence contains an additive, symbolic threat of violence against the rest of the group.
I expect you will argue that I've entirely missed your point, since you're concerned with speech and I'm talking about crimes. The symbolism of the violent act requires the violent act by definition, and the threat of violence alone cannot carry that symbolism. However, violence rarely emerges from nothing, and by definition the "hate crime" emerges from a culture of hatred. The conditions for the possibility of the hate crime are created by the speech we're discussing; this is also the forum where such crimes are celebrated and the executors- sometimes literally- elevated. The speech is carefully crafted to encourage individual action against a group for grievances- most imagined- endured by another. Legally, it is very, very hard to tie the particular crime to a "culture of hate"; those responsible for creating the culture that begets directed violence- the organization ensuring the "threat" intended by violent hate crimes is clearly understood by the target group- are unlikely to face any penalties, ever. That doesn't seem quite right.
This observation doesn't recommend any particular type of law that might thwart such speech, but it is a sound argument for discouraging it, somehow. At the very least, it recommends against regarding all speech as equally benign (the "only actions matter" argument).
Overview: The first half of s is the second half of s, XOR'd with the target output string (plus 10, since the result is not in the set of printable characters). Using two pointers, the program iterates over both halves of the string, undoing this operation to produce the target output string. When main() is called and c is zero, it increments the two character pointers in v (changing them in the calling function, which happens to be main()).
In short, main() is used both as the function to increment both pointers and also as the function to output the result; the operation main() performs in a given call is controlled by c.
Detail: When it runs the first time, c (read: argc) is greater than or equal to 1. So s gets initialized, and k (note, an array of ptr to char, like v (read: argv)) receives two pointers, each one character before the beginning of each "half" of the XOR'd string. c is non-zero, so we enter the first expression (a while loop).
A recursive call to main() is made immediately, providing !k (read: 0) as the first actual (i.e. c in the next call), and k as the second (i.e. v in the next call). In the recursive call, both pointers in v (read: k in the caller) are incremented (since c is zero) and s and k are ignored. The return value (i.e. the value evaluated by the while loop in the caller) is equal to *++*v, or the character in the second half of s. The return value will eventually be NULL when it reaches the end of the string. The caller then outputs whatever is pointed to by k[0] and k[1] (this is why we begin one character *before* the strings we're interested in).
In short, main(c,v) has two behaviors:
For all c: Given a target string y, initialize s = x1x2, such that, for all xi in x1 and all xj in x2, xi = xj xor yi + 10.
For all c: Initialize k such that k[0] is &x1-1, k[1] is &x2-1.
c == 0: increment v[0] and v[1]
c == 1: call self recursively, with c == 0, v == k, outputting the character pointed to by k[0] and k[1] until k[0] is NULL; then return 0.
Link from KernelTrap
Andrew Tanenbaum has a tracker he plans to update through the night:
http://www.electoral-vote5.com/
(this is very diluted; inaccuracies are for clarity)
In "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism," Weber noted that the idea of a "calling" in many Protestant churches when coupled with an ingrained frugality almost inevitably led to the accumulation of wealth. So by dutifully serving one's calling, he couldn't help but amass a respectable fortune. Wealth became an indicator for- or at least coreqisite to- piety; "work" in America retains this character so dogmatically adopted by its puritan heritage.
(this is one of the reasons Europeans simultaneously dislike Americans for their materialism and religious zeal, a dichotomy Americans dismiss as a contradiction)
Social institutions in Europe were largely Catholic for centuries; what Nietzsche called a "philosophy of death" (for promoting behavior contrary to the interests of the organism) ironically provides some mitigating forces on the "pursuit of interest." Taking a year for yourself is more than laziness or sloth; to Americans, it borders on blasphemy.
There's an old saying, largely out of fashion: "The Protestant eats well; the Catholic sleeps well." Replace the former with "American" and the latter with "European," and we might modernize it.