Tomczak: A fewer words about “talk of hate”

Someone said that the most sinister words a citizen can hear are, “I am from the government – how can I aid you?”

Our power has taken on the fight against “the speech of hatred”. Pack up the drive to penalize the “talk of hatred” of any moving to a better planet communicative is highly easy – after all, everyone is an opponent of hatred.

A neat metaphor for a better planet was the description of a average country as 1 where erstwhile individual knocks on your door at 6:00 a.m., you're certain it's a milkman, not a police. 1 paradox of this better world, which the Polish government wants to present to us, is that the police can knock on your door at six o'clock in the morning, due to the fact that you utilized “the speech of hatred”.

This was mentioned by a associate of the civilian Coalition Agnieszka Pomaska during the conference on 17 May. I admit that I could not believe my ears – the opponent does not gotta parody it, he can simply quote it. Pomaska spoke about taking and securing the computer and telephone and the immediate contact of the “talking hate” with the closest specialist in the field, i.e. the prosecutor or the prosecutor. The inquisitor-antiheiter most likely considered that each of her supporters would see each another in the detention group alternatively than in the detained group. And this is simply a mistake – not only due to the fact that individual can always hack into our account, but due to the fact that censorship will always be a snowball.

A good starting point for discussion on the point of prosecution for hateful words (not for “the speech of hatred”, due to the fact that this is different – later I will explain why) is reading an excellent book A Spoiled Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt. It is surely better to draw conclusions from what authors write, who are not conservatives at all, but supporters of American democrats (so much so that they are definitely distanced from the left and its influence on the form of American universities) than to compose the law with emotions, that is, in fact, to respond with emotions. Emphasis on the request to punish the “talk of hatred” after the assassination of the Prime Minister of Slovakia Robert Fica recalls the cry for the introduction of the death punishment after any brutal killing (“I do not support the death penalty, but...”).

The spoiled head is about the "Z generation", extending the definition of safety to "emotional security" and left-wing censorship at American universities. The message is that what is presented as being done in the interest of expanding the sense of safety actually leads in many cases to a decline in immunity. The authors operate an analogy of human intellectual resilience to biological resilience and compose that, as the immune strategy develops through contact with bacteria, so the human psyche is strengthened by experiencing and overcoming hard situations. Expanding the definition of safety is closely linked to the increase in the sense of danger. It's the head that changes, not the world.

In this book, the situation at universities where students protest the invitation of speakers to views another than the far left is widely discussed – specified views are intended to endanger their "emotional security". The culture of discussion, based on American democracy and the American tendency to associate, which was delighted by Alexis de Tocqueville in a classical book About Democracy in America. Openness is no longer a virtue, but a threat.

Penalizing “the speech of hatred” is the product of specified a left - a left that does not even pretend to be open, does not pretend to be tolerance, a left that wants to lead the prosecutor to see who thinks otherwise. punishment for the “speak of hatred” cannot be confused with punishment for hatred – it is adequate to perceive to the statements of the promoters of the fresh regulations to realize that in their perception of the “speak of hatred” there are always sexual minorities and people of a different colour than white skin, sometimes Germany, sometimes Jews. Nobody else falls, in light of this narrative, victim of hateful words – and e.g. Jews are injured only erstwhile the perpetrator is Grzegorz Braun, but absolutely not erstwhile the western leftists burn Israel's flags. The angry anti-clericism of supporters of the penalization of the “talk of hatred” from the ellipse of the fresh Left (with Czarzasty and Cimoszewicz) and the Strike of Women is no hatred either.

And I am angry at myself for proving the circular form of the Earth – but this monster, willing to close with openness, raises his head sometimes, not know (or, in fact, to know) why they never want to spare hundreds of thousands of people, homelessness, farmers, mining detentions, fans (for the erstwhile Tusk, 3 Legia fans were held in custody for a long time only due to stereotypes) or merchants driven distant by power from subsequent locations, and always afraid about immigrants throwing stones at Polish services and extraordinaryly open to dressed in wigs, covering themselves with “persons.” Is there truly anyone else that can convince you that this is about sensitivity to another people? Or is it the sensitivity of those who aid to destruct the conventional social order hated by the extremist left? Malignant would say that from the expression of the face, kind of being and revolutionary enthusiasm of “female people” specified as Anna Maria Żukowska, Joanna Scheering-Wielgus or Katarzyna Kotula You can read the answer.

Even if we accept that the desire to supplement the penal code with an article on “hate speech” is not based on purely ideological motivations, the one-dimensional analysis of this idea, which results in a relaxation of public life and a simplification in the temperature of the dispute, strikes. specified a view is compatible with the treatment of the law as a tool for repairing the planet – the attribution of the law of specified a function leads to the creation of codes governing all sphere of life, and the designation of penalization as a magic wand eliminating this phenomenon. Incidentally, it is interesting that referring to optimistic anthropological concepts and willing to view man as a good left by nature recognizes that only fear of punishment can halt him from doing bad things. The most crucial thing, however, is that it is not the task of the legal strategy to fix the world, and even if it were, there is no reason to say that the introduction of a provision penalising hateful statements will bring more benefits than damage.

While it should not be considered as repairing the planet of punishment as apparent evil, even if it is profiting from someone's harm or physical violence, it simply serves to keep social stableness and is consistent with the fundamental sense of justice – it is statutory to find what is and what is not hatred that condemns arbitrary decisions. It is worth remembering that there is no specified thing as a court – for this there are judges, having their own views and very frequently treating the laws simply as rationalising their opinion.

This is very human – the same Jonathan Haidt, in the book Right Mind He formulated the thesis that most of our beliefs were rationalizations accepted at the outset. It follows from the above that we are striving to confirm what we already believe – the change of view forces a extremist breach of our own comfort zone. Haidt wrote that liberals (in America liberal is leftist) are not more open to people with different views than conservatives – they only adopt different concepts of good and evil, due to the fact that for the first definitions of these concepts mention to the criterion of harmlessness for another people, while others realize good and evil metaphysically, specify them by mention to cultural or spiritual norms. The trend towards rationalisation in all is similar.

The better the legal system, the little area for the arbitrariness of judges it leaves. Penalizing “the speech of hatred” is simply a step precisely in the other direction. If, judging an identical violent crime, a court located in 1 part of the city sentences twice as much or twice as much punishment as a court in another part of the city, even though there are guidelines for the amount of sentences, it is worth considering how much Interpretative freedom will happen in the case of punitive words.

It is not without meaning that the citizen accused of something should have, at the time of committing a criminal offence, awareness of the offence. Stealing or hitting, everyone knows it's illegal. And erstwhile quoting statistic that clearly show that illegal immigrants murder, rape, and bargain more than indigenous people (i.e. presenting facts)? Will the citizen act unlawfully? I think, for example, the celebrated association "Never More" would qualify the penultimate conviction as a racist view (although it is not a view). And writing about the colour of the skin, the perpetrator of the crime, or its origin? German media anonymize criminals who are not Germans. So – Germany is “German who committed the crime” and arabian is “man who committed the crime”. Subtitle A Spoiled Mind reads: How good intentions and bad ideas condemn generations to failure. Political correctness and anti-racism were intended to combat exclusion. They became a tool of exclusion.

Punishment is to be rehabilitated alternatively than educated – 1 cannot punish a citizen for words about which he had the right to have no idea. It's like spanking a kid for mocking a stranger, alternatively of explaining to him that he shouldn't do that. People interpret phenomena unknown by analogy to phenomena known. Seeing a man with distinct facial features who claims to be an average female can associate him with a friend who thought he could fly, so he jumped off the tenth floor, or just with schizophrenics listening to voices out of his head. And specified a man will not be guided by any evil will, and there is simply a hazard that he will be attributed to “transphobia.” The law strategy cannot be a minefield.

There are plenty of another kinds of doubts. It is not possible to make a legal strategy in which whether a crime is committed determines the opinion of the alleged victim on the subject – for the same reason it is absurd to change the legal definition of rape. If akin reasoning were to happen in ruling, e.g. on extortion, they would appear before prosecutors of queues cheated on millions of zlotys. In the case of “speak of hatred”, as individual will feel offended and study to the police (police, as you know, will guarantee that he never again feels offended), the alleged hater may have a computer and telephone taken for months or years – even if he is yet acquitted. If it is essential to punish the “speak of hatred”, the law should apply, even in cases of compensation before civilian courts, the alleged victim should prove the harm he suffered as a consequence of the statement. Only this would make the provision compatible with the basic rule of presumption of innocence. And a law detached from a circumstantial is an ideology.

Calming down the individual formulating offensive or hateful statements is sometimes highly easy – the mask yawning online frustrate frequently hides a man confused after receiving a good and kind response, and behind the threatening e-surrounding of a warrior with a keyboard alternatively of a sword and anonymity alternatively of armor can be isolated from people, fearing the frustrate world, an avid vengeance for taking a sandwich at school, which will calm down after receiving a message that he is being observed at the minute from a window in the block opposite. Unfortunately, the government's proposals lead to a situation where, next to 1 group that cannot communicate with another people, there will be another – alongside the haters there will be those who study them to the police. To make life better.

Jacek Tomczak

photo of wikipedia

Think Poland, nr43-44 (26.10-2.11.2025)