In this video, participants analyze the claim “Speech is violence." More voices than usual are included because the audience was invited to ask questions. Many angles on the claim are considered, including the definition of “violence,” if speech used to
It was interesting that no one brought up that invididual humans are in control of their own respective actions and emotional responses to speech. It felt like a gaping hole in the dialogue. It would seem to me to be one of the very few things we actually can control in life.
Speech is using words to communicate an idea, whereas violence is physical. At best, you could use speech to give a threat of violence. Speech can cause people to become very emotional and feel unwell or tense, but that does not mean that the speech is violent itself. We could perhaps call a reaction "violent" but that is an alternative use of the term. A volcano could "violently" erupt but this is meaning is different from interpersonal violence. Regardless, Critical Social Justice advocates use violence to refer to just being silent in some situations. Their goal is to attribute everything to downstream bad consequences. This is really manipulative, but they do it all the time. I think they even confuse themselves, like the girl who said "verbal abuse is abuse" and "abuse is violent."
I think the linguistic confusion takes two forms. They want to use a word ideosyncratically but maintain the negative associations. This can only last so long and degrades language. They do this all the time. The other form is that they create categories and then make ethical arguments from these categories. I explain more here: https://parrhesia.substack.com/p/playing-word-games-with-the-woke
Aug 11, 2022·edited Aug 11, 2022Liked by Peter Boghossian
To me, it's always seemed a given that speech, much like almost any other tool, can be utilized for positive or negative effect, but it's objectively one of, if not the utmost important of our tools in our collective kits. Some ideologues, however, seem to hold that it's a given that it can also be weaponized as direct violence, and this conflation seems supremely counterintuitive, given that by our very societal structure, our first amendment is . . . y'know . . . the first.
edit: Sorry, forgot to mention? You're important, and what you're doing is important, so please, stay the course.
Speech conflated with violence is an effect of a generation taught that they could control the narrative with their emotions. I saw it with my own eyes and have been railing about this for years. Kid breaks out into screams because balloon is no longer in the living room. Rather than calmly explain that the balloon has been moved, and will stay there, Dad runs up to get the balloon to restore it to the place where the kid wants it OR ELSE. Any feeling of discomfort is considered 'violence' because discomfort has been pathologized and we're dealing with a cohort that hasn't mastered their emotions because their emotions got them whatever they wanted.
This was interesting philosophical discussion, but I think the more interesting question, especially from a public policy perspective, would have been, "If speech is violence what should we do about it?". I think when we try to restrict speech because it may cause emotional distress to some people, we end up on a slippery slope that lands in a place where the cure is worse than the disease.
It was interesting that no one brought up that invididual humans are in control of their own respective actions and emotional responses to speech. It felt like a gaping hole in the dialogue. It would seem to me to be one of the very few things we actually can control in life.
Great stuff. Keep it coming.
Speech is using words to communicate an idea, whereas violence is physical. At best, you could use speech to give a threat of violence. Speech can cause people to become very emotional and feel unwell or tense, but that does not mean that the speech is violent itself. We could perhaps call a reaction "violent" but that is an alternative use of the term. A volcano could "violently" erupt but this is meaning is different from interpersonal violence. Regardless, Critical Social Justice advocates use violence to refer to just being silent in some situations. Their goal is to attribute everything to downstream bad consequences. This is really manipulative, but they do it all the time. I think they even confuse themselves, like the girl who said "verbal abuse is abuse" and "abuse is violent."
I think the linguistic confusion takes two forms. They want to use a word ideosyncratically but maintain the negative associations. This can only last so long and degrades language. They do this all the time. The other form is that they create categories and then make ethical arguments from these categories. I explain more here: https://parrhesia.substack.com/p/playing-word-games-with-the-woke
These are great videos. Keep up the good work.
To me, it's always seemed a given that speech, much like almost any other tool, can be utilized for positive or negative effect, but it's objectively one of, if not the utmost important of our tools in our collective kits. Some ideologues, however, seem to hold that it's a given that it can also be weaponized as direct violence, and this conflation seems supremely counterintuitive, given that by our very societal structure, our first amendment is . . . y'know . . . the first.
edit: Sorry, forgot to mention? You're important, and what you're doing is important, so please, stay the course.
Speech conflated with violence is an effect of a generation taught that they could control the narrative with their emotions. I saw it with my own eyes and have been railing about this for years. Kid breaks out into screams because balloon is no longer in the living room. Rather than calmly explain that the balloon has been moved, and will stay there, Dad runs up to get the balloon to restore it to the place where the kid wants it OR ELSE. Any feeling of discomfort is considered 'violence' because discomfort has been pathologized and we're dealing with a cohort that hasn't mastered their emotions because their emotions got them whatever they wanted.
This was interesting philosophical discussion, but I think the more interesting question, especially from a public policy perspective, would have been, "If speech is violence what should we do about it?". I think when we try to restrict speech because it may cause emotional distress to some people, we end up on a slippery slope that lands in a place where the cure is worse than the disease.