Language (2024)

     In today’s society, people seem to get upset, angry, and offended at many things. The most common of these is with language, either spoken or written. We have all heard the expression “cancel culture” and the act of boycotting. These are things that people can do when they don’t like something someone has said out loud, put on a sign, or in a post to try to force the person to stop or undo what it is that they said. While this is a legitimate option to show displeasure, it goes to a whole other level when these people try going to higher authorities to have them force the person to stop saying certain things when those things are well within the law.

In Canada, we all have the “right” (see my other post about why this is in quotations) to freedom of expression. This means that as long as it’s not a call to violence, people can say pretty much anything they want to. Someone could put up a billboard saying they hate black people if they wanted to. I may not agree with the statement but I support everyone’s right to say what they want and I will do what I can to uphold it.

If we don’t allow it, then those who police our language will continue to do so until there’s nothing that anyone can say that isn’t approved by the government. As it is right now, we are already heading down that path. For example, the slogan, Black Lives Matter, was a movement in the US that spread like wildfire across North America. The people who say this and believe this, think that saying that all lives matter or white lives matter is racist. This is because they were told to believe in the racism narrative and to try to shut down opposing viewpoints. This creates even more division and hatred among the people, even though the ones trying to silence the others say they aren’t racist and believe in inclusion. This puts the lie to those words. If black lives matter isn’t racist, then neither is white lives matter. Equality matters.

If we don’t like something, we can say to the other person that we don’t and don’t want them to say those that thing anymore. This is how everyone should act because how would people feel if the roles were reversed?

All in all, there is a difference between hate speech (which doesn’t have a proper definition) and speech you hate. I’m all for free speech, not just free expression, as long as it doesn’t try to bring about any violence or criminal activity. We all need to be adults and not lash out like entitled children.