The good side of hate speech

Free speech is a wonderful thing. While there are frequent arguments about what constitutes “free speech”, almost everyone can agree that it’s great to have.

Of course, free speech means people can say things you disagree with, even to an extreme degree. Sometimes, though, even that can be a good thing.

An episode of the How Stuff Works podcast covered this (“ How Free Speech Works “) and they laid out a pretty simple formula for why hate speech can help move society forward.

• If you suppress speech, you’re still not suppressing thoughts.
• If you allow the hate speech, it can be refuted loudly and publicly.
• In recent years, much of this has come out regarding sexual orientation and racial conversations.

Jonathan Rauch dug a little deeper in an article for The Atlantic titled “ The Case for Hate Speech “. He said, in part:

Gay people have been coming out for years, but that has been a gradual process, while recent changes in public attitude have been dizzyingly fast. Something else, I believe, was decisive: we won in the realm of ideas. And our antagonists-people who spouted speech we believed was deeply offensive, from Anita Bryant to Jerry Falwell to, yes, Orson Scott Card-helped us win.

Our great blessing was to live…