The Danger Of Conflating Speech With Violence
In the past few years, it has become a growingly accepted mantra that speech constitutes a form of violence. This position has been used to defend the shutting down of speech by force in places like American universities and lecture halls. If speech is a form of violence, then it is justifiable to use violence to combat speech.
This is a truly untenable position for a myriad of reasons. Simply put, speech is not violence like dogs are not cats. They are different phenomena. This is not to say that speech cannot cause harm, as it clearly can. While the kind of harm which can be inflicted by speech is serious, it is certainly not as serious as the type of harm inflicted by actual violence. The harm that comes from speech can, with time, be avoided with a strong mental framework. One can choose whether or not to take nasty speech to heart. But one cannot choose whether or not they will bruise or bleed from violent conduct.
Speech can also lead to violence. It is for this reason that in the United States there are strong legal caveats to free speech which include inciting violence and making threats. But to say that the speech that caused the violence, and the violence itself are the same is simply wrong. This is akin to saying that the man who makes a chair and the chair itself are the same. Or that the radio wave which causes a speaker to produce a sound and the sound itself are the same thing. Speech and violence are separable phenomena with different explanatory principles and ought to be treated as such.
Furthermore, those advocating for violence to be used as an antidote to speech they don’t like clearly have not thought about the consequences of such a principle.
Who decides which speech constitutes violent speech? The individual receiving the speech? The State? A judge? A jury?
In any case, we are left with dystopian outcomes which gravely harm the freedom of expression and destroy the political bedrock of liberal democracy.
If individuals decide which speech is violent, then the criterion for violent speech is so subjective as to be useless, and will serve to empower the most manipulative, and narcissistic among us. One could easily subjectively decide that any speech which is critical of themselves constitutes violence, and therefore justifiably use violence against anyone who questions their decision making or their treatment of others. The result of this is a true moral hell-scape in which the biggest bullies in our society get their way via the threat of force.
If the State gets to decide what constitutes violent speech, then the State would therefore be authorized to use force to stop that speech. If the state is granted the power to write such a law, then it would likely act in its own self interest. Again, the most narcissistic and manipulative of our public servants would use such a power to shield themselves and their hegemony from criticism. If the State decided that any speech which criticizes the State is violence, then the State would have unlimited power to squash dissent and subjugate political minorities. This again, is a moral disaster for anyone who understands even the most basic tenants of what makes a just government.
If a judge decides what constitutes violent speech, then we have left the power to make codified moral claims with imperfect, and subjective individuals. It would violate one of the most basic precepts of the legal system (that is is fair and evenly applied) if a judge was left to subjectively decide what kind of speech was violent or not. Yes, the law does have a moralistic facet, but judges are not, and should not be the moral arbiters of our society. In fact, it is a subversion of the law for a judge to rule based on their personal moral or political positions, a judge must rule based on precedent and the body of applicable law.
A jury cannot be trusted to decide what kind of speech constitutes violence for the simple reason that you would be very hard pressed to find a representative group of people who could unanimously agree on such standards. This again again, could entrust the worst among us to make legally binding decisions, based solely on whether or not they subjectively agree with the speech that occurred or not.
Those advocating for the use of violence against speech they don’t like have simply failed to apply the most basic thought to their argument. They fail to see the dystopian nightmare which occurs when their principle is put into place, and haven’t even stopped to think about what might happen if their enemies were entrusted with the power they want to wield.
Speech is the only alternative to violent conflict, and a free and open society is the bedrock of a just political system. This means we have to tolerate speech we don’t like, because it is doubtless that others will at some point, dislike our speech. It’s time to have grown up conversations again, and win arguments based on the strength of your position, and not the length of your stick.
