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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

#231

Post by anigbrowl »

TheFreim wrote: post #138
jzb wrote: post #134

If we want a "liberal, intellectual society" we absolutely have to consider some speech "violence." To use one current example: The people pushing the idea of trans people as "groomers" is violence. It is not an intellectual debate, it's not necessary to entertain in order to preserve free thought, etc. The goal of that speech is to other trans people and it endangers them. Tolerance of that kind of speech ensures th…

[flagged]

The idea that it's "violence" to oppose child abuse proves that the point, speech being "violence" is absurd.

Hold up; you're saying that the act of appearing or speaking in public while dressed/presenting in ways that are stereotypical of the opposite sex is abuse. This seems like the exact opposite of the point you are trying to make.

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

#232

Post by Joeboy »

pugets wrote: post #205

Being liberal in the 90’s meant defending controversial or disruptive speech on the premises of the mantra, “I may not agree with what you say, but I’ll defend your right to say it.” This principle operated as a liberal self-preservation tactic. The Church had more influence in society than it does today, and if anyone was going to challenge the status quo, it had to be liberals. Hip hop music, feminist art, raunchy…

Maybe there's something to that, but I think the main thing that happened was that we developed incredible new technology that allowed all of humanity to communicate openly in real time on an equal footing without gatekeepers or censorship. Then we looked at it and decided we didn't like it.

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

#233

Post by throwawayacc6 »

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 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 White people threatened, disrespected, or legislated out of existence... then the ensuing backlash in which people try to reassert the rights of White people... and then the backlash to the backlash is always "these neo-Nazi cons trying to cancel us are the real gulag runners". It's exhausting. Infuriating.

Some speech suppresses the speech of others. And some people don't want to be taught that they are hateful. If you make declarative statements that villainize majority groups, you make others fear for their safety and it silences voices. That is a form of "violent speech", though that term sucks. Free speech isn't just about saying anything you want, it's also about maximizing the number of voices at the table, and to do that you can't just let people get away with saying vile shit.

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

#234

Post by pclmulqdq »

ausbah wrote: post #64
pclmulqdq wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those professors and teachers are employees of the government. Like it or not, that puts them under the same umbrella as police officers, fire fighters, and others. Government employees are very much restricted in what they can say and do when they are on the clock.

no it doesn't, technically sure but universities are suppose to be free from controlled speech like this. see why tenure and academic freedom exist

Academic freedom is not a legal concept, and unfortunately the law trumps the ideals in this case. However, academic freedom isn't exactly unlimited: a tenured physics professor who doesn't teach a class on physics, publish a paper on physics, or advise a student for 10 years will likely be fired at most institutions (unless they have a nobel prize or something). Professors working at state schools have additional limits on their academic freedom. This is why you don't tend to see theology departments at state schools.

Also, in practice, you could reasonably argue that there generally isn't much academic freedom in most fields, since most research is grant-funded, and that is controlled by (usually) governments.

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

#235

Post by farmaway »

garbagecoder wrote: post #23
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…

Most people don't realize this and they also don't realize that equal opportunity laws also apply to white, male, christians, etc.

The laws are almost never enforced that way and almost always flouted in that direction, so the common misperception is understandable.

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

#236

Post by mafribe »

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…

> maximizing the number of voices at the table

The easiest way of doing so is to maximise the number of humans on the planet. Those who engage, and promote reproduction organ destruction whether surgical or chemical, do the exact opposite and decrease the number of voices -- in the long run to zero.

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

#237

Post by Barrin92 »

Liberalism in the broad sense and its attitude to speech suffer from a sort of dualism that's hinted at in the second part of the article. To maintain traditionally liberal views on speech you have to somehow convince yourself that speech and actions are different things.

But in reality there is no such distinction and I think in our information age that's become quite obvious. There's nothing privileged about speech, it need not even be human in origin any more. Speech acts are just a means to effect change in the world, it's information in a network directed towards certain ends akin to Klausewitz pointing out that war is just politics by other means. Violence and speech but more generally action and speech are materially the same thing, one is kinetic and the other isn't, but the goal is identical.

I think the same is true in regards to money. Speech has entirely been commoditized and it's produced the same conflict under liberal frameworks that violence has. If speech is reach then it is just power and doesn't live in some lofty magical mental space.

So the title is right, in liberal societies speech cannot be violence but this is just an instrumental claim to make liberalism work. In the same sense how John Locke had to adopt a Tabula Rasa/Blank Slate view of individuals to justify Natural Rights, which scientifically turns out to be just wrong.

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

#238

Post by XorNot »

DubiousPusher wrote: post #87
henrikschroder wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The difficulty is knowing what the intent was. It's not a coincidence that the postmodern thoughts that underpin a lot of this bullshit simply does away with intent, declaring it to be completely useless, and saying that the only thing that can be used to judge a message is how it affected the recipient. Combine that with "words are violence", and you can manufacture physical abuse out of thin air. It's really not…

> It's not a coincidence that the postmodern thoughts that underpin a lot of this bullshit simply does away with intent Please make the connection between the disregard of intent and any rigorous definition of "post-moderism". Genuinely I don't see it. I think the degradation of intent is more at the hands of those who have used it as a shield than anyone else. We've seen entire regions of the world thrown into chaos…

The guy who says things were "just a joke" when he see's the frown of disapproval...but he never apologizes. And he also doesn't stop doing it. It's "just a joke" every time.

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

#239

Post by anigbrowl »

trieste92 wrote: post #204
anigbrowl wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a lot of experience with physical violence. The Brandenburg criteria of specificity and imminence are useful legal yardsticks, but they also assume every set of circumstances is isolated from everything else and can can considered independently, almost in a social vacuum. This is partly the outcome of the Anglo-American legal tradition and the reductive philosophical approach it uses. It's less clear cut in th…

> that are sufficiently credible to provoke a police response They do promote a police response because making a bomb threat is illegal in itself. Harassment is illegal in itself You don't need to redefine a bunch of words and do a bunch of mental gymnastics to make something that's already illegal illegal

So what? I'm not arguing about the legal contours, I'm arguing about general concepts of meaning and risk management, outside of a legal context. I said so explicitly at the beginning of my comment.

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

#240

Post by flippinburgers »

fallingknife wrote: post #6
CamperBob2 wrote: post #3

People who equate speech with violence have generally never known physical violence. I've always held that position firmly. The trouble is, people are turning out to be a lot more programmable than I thought they (we) were. You could almost say that we're becoming more like machines at the same time that machines are becoming more like us. To the extent that's true, the part of the old saying that goes "... but words…

People who equate speech with violence are usually looking for a way to respond to speech with violence.

You bring up a very observable fact about how the extreme left is approaching the right via antifa. I don't see a reason for downvotes.
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