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From Jason "Mac" Macauley, Junior Software Engineer:

As I stroll about the Internet on a daily basis, I become increasingly aware of the vast differences between many 'Net regulars — and of how much we all share. With the proliferation of personal publishing that reaches an international audience, we have collectively realized a global community where all that separates us is a brief sequence of keystrokes or a click of a mouse button. Yet within the arena where we as humans are closest to each other, one finds, almost without looking, the great divides that keep us apart and incredible displays of the inhumanity within the village human.

The choices we make when we decide what we communicate within our online community must be questioned much as we question the manner in which we act within our physical communities. The difficulty that we find ourselves in is that the Internet, taken collectively or in parts, constitutes a massive body of speech, something that we have been raised to protect, viewing any infraction of our freedom of speech as evil. I ask, is this monolithic reverence for speech a viable or even socially healthy conceptual cornerstone? If tolerance is a necessary prerequisite for living an ethical existence, must we be accepting of intolerance in the name of free speech?

I think not. The tolerance of immorality is in itself an immoral act, to the degree that none of us acts alone in the world. Our actions take place within a context of interaction, and by not acting on our ability to prevent immoral action we are actively condoning and participating in those actions.

In most circumstances, we judge an act to be immoral on the basis of some type of harm that the action produces. Intolerance harms by way of preventing or attempting to prevent an individual or group of individuals from expressing or acting, thus limiting their ability to contribute to the context in which we all live — in many cases harming the community as well by not allowing us to benefit from their contributions. In cases such as this, intolerance is in fact a great harm and is rightly viewed as an immoral act.

On the other hand, to limit, or be intolerant of expressions or modes of behavior that limit the contributions of a segment of the community that would otherwise add positive value to the community, helps to create a context in which those contributions can be made, thus acting beneficially not only to society as a whole but to the individuals that constitute that society. Such intolerance of intolerance acts to widen our collective ability to practice the right to speak and publish our beliefs to a much greater extent than it limits us. By allowing these contributions we enhance our ability to collaborate in the search for solutions to the problems that we all face as beings on this planet.

Racism is one mode of behavior and speech that seeks to limit individual contributions of a potentially positive nature. Finding its base in irrational and insupportable bias, its central tenant is to limit the actions and speech of non-favored races. In this way it constitutes an unjustified and harmful intolerance which can therefore be counted as immoral. Consequently, the intolerance or limiting of expressions of racism is not only a moral act but a responsibility by virtue of the idea that it would allow these individuals, who might otherwise be illegitimately excluded, to freely contribute to our social context — not only allowing them to effect their lives but ours as well. We must therefore do what we can to limit these expressions of unjustified bias, thereby allowing equitable access to the ability to control the context of our lives.

It will be said that such a justification of intolerance for any type of speech can be misused or misunderstood such that it will turn on us and create widespread censorship of legitimate but disfavored ideologies. I would agree to the extent that we must be exceedingly careful and judicious about our intolerance for any idea. However, I would add that in instances such as racism or other hate speech whose illegitimacy can be adequately shown, on the basis of their lack of rational grounding, we must not hesitate to extricate our community from such limiting beliefs. To accomplish this feat we must not only seek to rid others of such ideologies but, more importantly, ourselves.

Until next time,
Mac, Junior Software Engineer (9/5/97)

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Read more "Letters from Tripod" in the archive.