Peter Isackson

Given the complexity of strategies used by those who, Humpty Dumpty style, establish their position of authority, wouldn’t it be wiser to conclude that hate speech is indeed a serious civilizational problem? But the problem is located in the first term (hate) rather than the second term (speech)? And isn’t the focus on speech itself a strategy to avoid even thinking about what hate is psychologically, socially and morally?

Hate speech is a real problem. Is there a real solution and if so, where should we look for it? I began this conversation with Claude in the previous column. What some governments and much of the media appear to promote is what you refer to as a “static definition” that plays into the perverse logic of Humpty Dumpty.

On the occasion of last week’s “International Day for Countering Hate Speech” declared by the United Nations I thought it appropriate to deal with what seems to me a conundrum. Everyone appears to hate hate speech. And to counter it, they typically create speech that expresses their hate of hate speech. Rather than dwell on the contradictions, I thought it worthwhile to engage a conversation with Claude about speech itself, before going on to deal with hate.