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Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

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Re: Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

#311

Post by lo_zamoyski »

trieste92 wrote: post #196
banannaise wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Free speech is "about" whatever is in the first amendment It is very odd to assert that the morality of speech is completely, correctly, and undeniably established in a document written 250 years ago that defines the laws of only one country.

> morality of speech Where are you getting this morality business from? Free speech is how it's defined in law, in the USA that's the 1st Talking about "morality of speech" is just noise and deserves the quotation marks

I do not agree with the OP's apparent presupposition that age somehow invalidates truth (without even giving us so much as an alternative and a basis for accepting it). However, the law is incomprehensible without morality. What on earth could you possibly take the law to be in the absence of morality? The natural law is the basis of morality and morality is the basis of law which is the particular and concrete determination of it in especially in matters concerning the common good. Yes, there is such a thing as immoral speech. Slander is an obvious example. Lies. But what should be subject to the law? That is a prudential question. And the 1st amendment is interpreted to some extent according to more or less prudential considerations.

Re: Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

#312

Post by kitsunesoba »

kneebonian wrote: post #276
kitsunesoba wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the context of the US, everything I’ve seen suggests the right seeks authoritarianism more than the left does, doing things like getting books they don’t agree with banned, working to eliminate the votes of those not aligned with them, and weakening the barrier between church and state.

[flagged]

Nobody is calling for anything remotely extreme as your post seems to be hinting at in a tongue-in-cheek manner. From the perspective of someone who sits in the middle with a leaning to the left, it looks to me like the left doesn’t have problems with others holding differing views, so long as following those views doesn’t result in the harm or impediment of liberty of others.

Nobody is saying it’s wrong to be be a conservative or republican, they’re saying it’s a problem when e.g. religious fundamentalism worms its way into legislation, because the unavoidable consequence of that is reduced freedom and harm on a mass scale. The constitution defends the rights of those who choose to adhere to religious guidelines, but it does not extend to enforcing them on those who chose otherwise.

Re: Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

#313

Post by cmh89 »

kneebonian wrote: post #276
kitsunesoba wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the context of the US, everything I’ve seen suggests the right seeks authoritarianism more than the left does, doing things like getting books they don’t agree with banned, working to eliminate the votes of those not aligned with them, and weakening the barrier between church and state.

[flagged]

Godwins law strikes again.

Re: Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

#314

Post by nbardy »

realjhol wrote: post #215
baron816 wrote: post #194

The thing is, people on the far left and the far right DON’T want a liberal society. They want authoritarianism. They want control to suppress their adversaries.

The idea that we can have value-free laws instituted by impartial institutions is a fantasy. By its very nature politics is about rewarding friends and punishing enemies. If the state - any state - regards you as deplorable, then it is totally irrelevant that some piece of paper somewhere might claim you are entitled to some rights. In practice this won't matter. The state will crush you, and the mob will cheer.

There is no true scotsman. Doesn't mean we can't have truth

Re: Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

#315

Post by stonogo »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #213
stonogo wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're going to have a frustrating time if you use that kind of pedantry to build a bad-faith interpretation of the proposed argument. "Joey got hurt in the boxing match" does not generally mean he was offended by the color of his opponent's shorts, and when someone talks about a punch in the face hurting someone they're using the broadest sense of the word 'hurt,' which is commonly accepted to encompass all of emoti…

Language is always evolving, and words do not always need to be tethered to their denotative meaning for us to understand what people mean.

That would be an insightful comment if you hadn't just deliberately misinterpreted someone by tethering yourself to an overly-specific denotative meaning.

Re: Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

#316

Post by OkayPhysicist »

naniwaduni wrote: post #280
OkayPhysicist wrote: post #111

On the other hand, you can't have your liberal, intellectual society if you allow people to go around making credible threats of violence, which are "just speech" if you subscribe to the speech-is-speech, violence-is-violence approach. If you have to wait until the threat is realized, then any group capable of having members take the punishment for individual acts of violence can grant credibility to making threats t…

> We all agree that some kinds of violent speech should be suppressed. This is bad consensus-building. It is not a reflection of reality, but an attempt to strongarm the reader into agreeing with a false claim by exploiting people's willingness to accept confident claims at face value.

Do you, or anyone you know, honestly believe that the level of threat that would constitute assault in most common law jurisdictions should be treated as protected free speech? My example, of a specific, credible, actionable threat.

I know plenty of people with extreme views, but "coercion by threat of violence should be legal" is not one I've heard before. It certainly is a consensus, and your denial of such is in dubious faith.

Re: Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

#317

Post by ThrowawayTestr »

csdvrx wrote: post #22
jrm4 wrote: post #9

Lawyer here, and this definitely strikes me as one of a surprising number topics in which, the law has for some time, already a very effective and useful way to get at this concept. Sure, speech can be harmful and hurtful, to the point that someone should get punished for it. But the law has generally done very good job of reminding us that this tends to be a VERY NARROW possibility, i.e. the harm has to be very spec…

> the law has generally done very good job of reminding us that this tends to be a VERY NARROW possibility, i.e. the harm has to be very specific and directed and measurable. Here in the US, yes. In the rest of the world (like, EU) they aren't very specific.

The one good thing about America.

Re: Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

#318

Post by belorn »

comte7092 wrote: post #305
jrm4 wrote: post #9

Lawyer here, and this definitely strikes me as one of a surprising number topics in which, the law has for some time, already a very effective and useful way to get at this concept. Sure, speech can be harmful and hurtful, to the point that someone should get punished for it. But the law has generally done very good job of reminding us that this tends to be a VERY NARROW possibility, i.e. the harm has to be very spec…

As is oft repeated, the law you refer to only applies to state action. The notion we could easily apply this to private individuals quickly breaks down. Employee X gets fired for publicly stating that their employers products are trash, said employee sues, nothing about what they said was illegal.

From the companies perspective, the harm done by an employee talking trash about products is very similar to the harm done by an employee talking about unions or employee conditions.

And the law generally recognize this. It is not protected to intentionally harm the company if the intention is purely to cause harm. It is protected if the intent is to warn the public about a harmful product (Whistleblowing), or to protect fellow employees for harm. When those cases do end up in court, what judges and juries will focus on is on intent as the deciding factor once harm has been agreed/established.

Re: Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

#319

Post by autokad »

vannevar wrote: post #27
autokad wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think that most of the people who equate hate speech with violence are literally requesting assualt charges be brought First off, they are. but if you are saying: loose your job and ability to make a living, losing your ability to speak in public, fuck me give me those charges then! you are backing tyrannical ideas while trying to pretend you are just being reasonable.

The tyranny isn't coming from me, it's coming from the people that own the company that's firing you. And the "tyrannical idea" you're referring to is called capitalism, and it has its upsides and its downsides. Don't shoot the messenger.

It appears that you are engaging in a logical fallacy by utilizing capitalism, which I assume is not something you hold in high regard, to silence someone's perspective during a discussion and attributing the blame to capitalism.

Capitalism is an economic system in which the means of production, distribution, and exchange are primarily owned and controlled by individuals and private companies rather than by the government or public institutions.

None of the things mentioned above are related to capitalism's coverage of free speech. It seems that your intention is to suppress those who hold differing opinions, and you are using the assumption that the silenced individuals support capitalism to justify your actions.

Re: Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

#320

Post by TMWNN »

breadbreadbread wrote: post #144

I think this article comes very close to saying "don't let words affect you", which is fundamentally impossible to ask anyone to do and taken to it's logical conclusion I should also not absorb anything in the article. I also think this article also ignores the fact that hateful people often use the language of free speech to justify their own behavior and to punish their critics. Everyday on the internet I see trans…

>I think this article comes very close to saying "don't let words affect you", which is fundamentally impossible to ask anyone to do

Why?

>Some speech suppresses the speech of others.

No speech can ever suppress that of others, except in the literal sense of talking over someone.

>it's also about maximizing the number of voices at the table

So, how do you feel about the developers of Hogwarts Legacy? How do you feel about those who post on Reddit or Facebook that they are playing it? How do you feel about game reviewers publishing evaluations?

>and to do that you can't just let people get away with saying vile shit

I think I got the answers to my questions.

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