Hate Speech And Rotten English

Never short on jest, in Mark Twain's edition of Plutarch's, 'Lives of Illustrious Men', he playfully mocks the translator. Besides the phrase, "translated from the Greek", Twain scribbled, "into rotten English". Now, we needn't worry nor care whether the English prose was as Twain indicated. What I think is true is this notion that any well-intended project if misguided will always in retrospect be the equivalent of 'rotten English'. So, shall we consider a candidate from our New Zealand context, 'hate speech'.

The Roman statesman, Marcus Cicero, once said "A nation can survive its fools and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banners openly. But the traitor moves among those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the galleys, heard in the very hall of government itself." Ah, now there's a prophetic word. And as it relates, from the corridors of our parliamentary offices comes among us a potential foe dubbed 'proposals against incitement of hatred and discrimination'. Now, the question at hand is not concerning existing hate speech laws, nor even am I concerned with all of the proposed changes by the royal commission.

So allow me to continue through the tweet of former press secretary Ben Thomas who said, "[Kris] Faafoi made clear micro-aggressions will not be covered by new hate speech provisions, so what about milli- or centi-aggressions, very hard for the hate scientists to calibrate". I trust Thomas' point resonates with you. For the government needn't advertise a job opening for specialist hate speech scientists, the queues are forming even now. The skillset such applicants are particularly proficient in is hijacking language. Any movement restricting speech beyond threatening physical violence or the current law, must to some degree recalibrate a definition of violence. It must become something not so much denoting real violence, but emotionally damaging ideas. Once complete, and coupled with outbursts of rage and appeals to social estrangement, who knows what could happen if the law defended one's 'group' from 'discrimination'. But discrimination and hate according to whom? No doubt the witchhunt for we bigots with foul ideas such as "free speech", "debate" and "reason" would commence.

But we must move beyond the surface, you see these laws may defend the post-modern man. And here is found the true infection. Post-modernism is succinctly captured perhaps in the idea, 'speak your truth'. You see truth and reality to the post-modernist are subjective, feelings-based categories. To consider what these laws may achieve for such a worldview, we turn to the minister of Justice Kris Faafoi's bombed interview with Tova O'Brian. There you'll notice he speaks of the need to protect groups, not so much individuals. One such minority group is of course the 'rainbow community'. And what these laws may achieve is shutting down any criticism of the ethics or morals of a group/ persons professed sexual identity.

This is where we are as a society. Self-determinism, especially regarding sexual identity, is paramount. Objective reality and truth, therefore, lose out as toxic tradition. And what follows as a consequence is a slippery slide into paganism. Do you think not? Remember when it was all about 'marriage equality'? Marriage was a previous hijacked and recalibrated term. And what about the additional letters and symbols slowly attaching themselves to the original (L) Lesbian (G) Gay? You see a postmodern compass has no bearing of true north. So without reference to objective moral standards and divine culpability, our moral fabric is being restitched all about us for pagan sexual norms. Author Scott Allen says, "if moderns retain any abhorrence to bestiality and pedophilia, it is only because of the memory of the radical nature of human sexuality—one man and one woman in a covenantal marriage—brought to the world by Jews and Christians." [1]

You see, men and women without faith in Christ through the new birth (John 3:5), will if unconstrained, gravitate toward whatever self-defined identity and lifestyle they wish. And then lest their choices are questioned, they'll do what's necessary to prevent hearing that life-giving gospel command, "repent and believe" (Mark 1:15). For God's Word absolutely discriminates against a person, it judges the motives and intentions of the heart (Hebrews 4:12). Thus God does the very thing our government seeks to prevent, we ought not to be surprised. Can you see the utility some may find in updated hate speech law?

And it's probably a sorry case of rotten English, don't you think?

[1] Allen, Scott D. A Toxic New Religion: Understanding the Postmodern, Neo-Marxist Faith that Seeks to Destroy the Judeo-Christian Culture of the West.