We have privileged feelings and emotions to such a degree in this society that it is now difficult or impossible for people to separate how they feel about something from the bare fact of something.
It’s not just stupid people, or narcissistic people. It’s normal, smart, stable adults too.
Often, trying to discuss a legal fact as distinct from how people emote about that fact feels like trying to swim up to the surface in a pool of molasses (treacle if you’re British). Feminine molasses. No, it’s not all women, and yes, men do this too. But it is a female-style emphasis on emotion to the exclusion of even acknowledging that the discussion on the table is about a fact.
Specifically, I’m talking about a conversation I try to start on social media from time to time about “hate speech.” I recently posted on Twitter that we have forgotten that the U.S. does not recognize “hate speech.” There is no “hate speech” exception to the First Amendment. This is a fact. Repeat: this is an objective fact.
Free speech exceptions include, as they should, libel, harassment, and incitement to violence.
But they do not include exceptions for subjectively defined “hate speech.”
I followed that up by saying that it is not illegal to have the emotion “hate.” One may feel it is unwise or immoral, but it is not illegal.
The sop
This conversation, and others similar to it, inevitably get responses that include what I think of as the “good girl sop.” Substitute “good boy sop” if you like. That is when a person seems to defend free speech, but undercuts her argument by slipping in obligatory phrases like:
”Of course, I try not to hate because I know it does harm”
”Of course, racism still exists and it must be fought”
”Of course, homophobia still exists and it must be fought”
Etc., etc. The sop is a self-defense mechanism. Translated into plain terms, it means, “I know that I’m going to be seen by some as a right wing freak because I’m tentatively defending free speech, so I’m going to signal that I’m not a Bad Troglodyte Fascist by repeating the obvious and irrelevant bromides that signify that I’m Not A Racist Sexist Misogynist Hater.”
The sop brings many problems.
It drags the conversation away from the main point. As a reminder, that main point is that it’s legal to feel hate and say hateful things, and that has nothing to do with how observers feel about that state of affairs. Guess who is happy that you have willingly deprived yourself of a conversation about your legal rights? The people who want to shut you up.
It shows the anti-free-speech side that one is socially biddable, and can be induced to shut up or back down with sufficient pressure. Such a person will stop vigorously defending his speech if enough black or queer or whatever people apply modern emotional guilt.
It gives the false impression that “racism”, for example, still exists in the extreme way that it existed 70 years ago. It privileges alleged “racist” behavior (substitute sexist or any other -ist) over all other legal or moral concerns. The net effect is to keep us mired in a false view of reality, and to make it unseemly or “mean” to prioritize anything other than “racism” or “misogyny” or “homophobia.”
The fact is that all of these prejudices are so successfully vanquished that it’s a perverse joke to pretend otherwise. The pendulum has swung so far away from casual bigotry that the former targets of bigotry—blacks, gays, trans, women, etc.—have vastly more cultural power than the average ordinary white American. Too many such people have social approval to bully and cancel with no moral or legal check on their behavior.
What I’m trying to do when I start these conversations is to remind people of what their legal rights are. I’m trying to convince people to resist the culture machine’s elision of thinking and emotion so that we can separate out what is factually true from what we feel about it. In short, I’m doing what courtroom lawyers do when they insist on a plain reading of the law as distinct from emotionally motivated reasoning about the law.
Yes, this is connected to Cluster B behaviors. No, I don’t mean that most of the people who engage in them are personality disordered. What I mean is that this social media interaction is a mirror of the private narcissistic interactions in the home. Take a narcissistic parent like my mother as an example. In my childhood home, facts were contested when mother didn’t like those facts. If I gave a factually correct answer that my mother did not like, I would be punished. More, if my displayed emotions were not consonant with her emotions, I would be punished. By this method, the existence of fact itself was destabilized for me from a young age. It’s why I react so vehemently to those who pretend facts aren’t real, or who try to cover them up by emotionally guilt-tripping me.
I think it’s easy to see how this dynamic has become normalized in social discourse.
We must be able to separate feeling from fact if we’re going to think. We must be able to do this if we’re going to preserve our freedom of speech and thought. And we don’t have to agree about the emotions associated with these facts. You can be on one side, and I can be on the other, but we both have an interest in being able to see and describe the facts. We both benefit from the Constitution’s guarantee of free speech.
It’s increasingly difficult to have this conversation. Participants either ignore the distinction between is and ought entirely by ignoring the issue of legal fact and starting up about their feelings, or they respond with little more than the sop. That’s what I mean when I say it feels like trying to swim to the surface of a pool of emotional molasses.
Coda: I insist on trying to separate emotional discussions from factual discussions because I know what a mess is created when we don't. And it's personal.
I'm highly emotional compared to the average man. When I heard Jordan Peterson describe himself as having an emotional personality profile leaning toward female-typical (high negative emotionality), I thought, "Ah, yes. I'm that kind of man, too."
My emotions have caused me and others no end of trouble when I haven't kept them in their place. I try, and I often still fail. But I must try.
And I think others must try, too.
It's true that emotions often color our perception of facts, making it challenging to separate the two. Acknowledging this tendency can help us strive for a more objective understanding, but it's not always easy. Emotional intelligence and critical thinking skills can play a crucial role in navigating this balance.
“It’s not just stupid people, or narcissistic people. It’s normal, smart, stable adults too.” Absolutely, you're spot on. This phenomenon affects people across the spectrum of intelligence and emotional stability. It's a natural aspect of human cognition and psychology. Recognizing this can help us approach discussions and decision-making with greater awareness and humility.
I’ll help. THERE IS NO HATE SPEECH EXCEPTION IN FREE SPEECH FULL STOP. 🛑 You’re spot on. Thanks for the very clear explanation.