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On Expression


How far can a person go, before it is considered "too far"? How much can a person do or say, before it is considered "too much"? This invisible line, which each and every person has their own perception of, is what I would like to touch upon in this piece, after an extended absence from writing.


Meet Mark Meechan, known by the alias 'Count Dankula' on YouTube. Not the prettiest face to look at, but bear with me. This mans claim to fame is essentially making his girlfriend's dog a Nazi. He said, and I quote, "My girlfriend is always ranting and raving about how cute and adorable her wee dog is so I thought I would turn him into the least cute thing I could think of, which is a Nazi." Among other things in the video, he conditioned the dog to give the Nazi salute and react to the phrase "Gas the Jews". Tasteless and disgusting, I know. This man should've been made an example of, been shunned from society for doing such a crude thing, but instead, the course of action taken ended up with this man becoming the people's hero, and a champion for freedom of speech. Mark Meechan is now the owner of a YouTube channel with over 350,000 subscribers, and hundreds of thousands of views.


So how did this happen, you may ask. Well dear reader, he was arrested, and after the arrest, the reactions came, and once the reactions came, he became the innocent, "funny" guy who was trying to mess with his girlfriend's dog, and not the looked down upon member of society he should have been. He received support from numerous comedians, notably Stephen Fry, Ricky Gervais and David Baddiel, along with several journalists and social commentators.


Meechan has since been acquitted, but that isn't the point of this write up. The point is to question and understand the extent of freedom of speech, for this example is very clearly hate speech disguised as a practical joke, and I would like to know what its role in society is.


I will be the first to admit that I lean to the left when it comes to the majority of political issues, but you have to wonder if the freedom to express yourself has gone too far. What does hate speech bring to society? Are there any benefits to it? It's a resounding no from me. There are no positives to it, there is no reason for it to exist apart from allowing uncultured swines to make crude and revolting remarks all for the purpose of offending or verbally abusing a race or gender, and yet it's protected under the freedom of speech act in multiple countries.


This is where that invisible line I talked about at the start comes into play. I believe that hate speech has no place in society, but how would you enforce that? When does a joke, or mildly offensive statement become classified as hate speech? What should the punishment be? It only takes one mistake to start the "FREEDOM OF SPEECH IS DEAD" chants and uproar from the media and social justice warriors, who believe that anyone should be able to say what they want, but no one should do anything controversial at the same time. And of course, once censorship begins, it's a slippery slope, and all of a sudden you realise that you aren't allowed to have views conflicting with the views of the government.


So where does that leave us? Do we stick with a society where hate speech is legal, or do we ban hate speech, and risk incurring the wrath of the media? The inability to form a defined line, to determine what is too far, is what leaves us with this conundrum, and leads to us being stuck with no direction to go in, preventing us from making progress as a society.


Comments

  1. You may not write regularly, but you write well.
    I hadn't heard about the Meechan incident prior to reading this blog post, but would like to say it was clearly in the wrong and the people who supported such a thing disgust me. (Personally, I don't know why the girlfriend wouldn't break up immediately either. Raving about dogs is a habit to be adored, not annoyed by. Also, it was her dog. I don't think he really had the right to train it that way.)
    I believe the reason for the absence of a fine line between what's offensive and what isn't is that people react differently to the same thing. For example, how many times have you said, 'I'm going to kill myself' during classes? Is it wrong? Probably not. How many times would you say it in classes if you knew the person sitting next to you had attempted suicide, though? Is it wrong then? Probably. Not hateful or offensive, but wrong.
    Some people are more open to certain opinions too. For example, some people believe that being transgendered is more of a medical condition where your brain and your body can not agree. Therefore, although they believe trans people have the right to exist and should be able to get surgeries, they don't want them as part of the LGBT+ community. On the other hand, most trans people themselves believe that it's a matter of only gender and therefore, they should be in the queer community. In these cases, it's necessary to be polite about one's opinion. Saying straight out that trans people shouldn't be part of the queer community is wrong, but explaining yourself properly could make your statement a lot less hateful, right? The former statement isn't wrong in any way. It merely states it from a more scientific point of view, rather than social (since gender is a social construct).
    Most sexual jokes fall into a grey area too. It's offensive to catcall, but it isn't offensive to compliment a woman's looks the right way. So sometimes, it matters more on the way you say something rather than what you're saying. It also matters who you say it too.
    The invisible line, according to me, varies according to the person speaking, how they speak, what situation they speak in, and who they speak to. We're human, therefore we err. But what's inhuman is the lack of attempt to understand where to draw that line and then to excuse one's self when called out because reflecting on the bad you've done requires a tremendous effort while enjoying the support of people (who also clearly don't know where the line should be) is the easier path to take.

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    Replies
    1. Firstly, would like to thank you for the comment, really appreciate it, and it's good that the purpose of the article, to make people think, was fulfilled.

      You're absolutely right when you say that people react differently to different things, and various situations call for certain courses of action, which is why I repeatedly mention this 'invisible line', or grey area as you put it. It's what makes the enforcement of a hate speech ban difficult, as the UK has been seeing a variety of censorship issues because of it.

      The way someone expresses their opinions also plays a very large role in how acceptable an action or their words can be, but it also convolutes the line drawing process, for what if someone means something extremely offensive, but disguises it cleverly such that they cannot be directly linked to that opinion? Just food for thought I suppose.

      Again, thanks for commenting!

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  2. I find this post really reassuring and it helped me get clarity on an issue that has been bothering me for a long while!

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