When Is Speech Violence?

https://daily.jstor.org/wittgenstein-whether-speech-violence/

by jeromebaek • 8 years ago

2 8 8 years ago

daily.jstor.org

mpweiher3• 8 years ago

Hmm...how about never? It can be an incitement to violence, but unless you are amplifying it to levels that produce physical harm, it's difficult.

"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me"

The idea that anything that causes harm is violence is downright silly, the linguistic gymnastics of TFA notwithstanding. Aging causes harm. The sun causes harm. Slipping on a Banana peel causes harm. "Bananas are literally violence"

jeromebaek• 8 years ago

"The idea that anything that causes harm is violence is downright silly"

When something is "silly", this is an important sensation you should grasp at, not dismiss, because silliness is nothing but a reveal of your innermost biases.

Furthermore you are setting up a straw man. The article does not say: "speech causes harm, if x causes harm, x is violence, therefore speech is violence", which is what you seem to be arguing. Violence, obviously, is meaningless unless there is some person behind the violent act. This is why your silly sentence "bananas are literally violence" is incoherent: you are confusing an act, a verb (speech) with a thing, a noun (banana).

mlevental3• 8 years ago

never

first of all you're equivocating about the difference between violence and harm but that aside you seem very certain soft (volume) speech can't harm. okay then you should be fine with this experiment (and confident about its result): let me put you into a room and have people come in for 8 hours a day and call you stupid, ugly, worthless, a disappointment, etc. in perfectly mild tones for exactly one month. we'll perform a mood/outlook/mental health assessment before and after. do you think there will be a difference in the two assessments?

mpweiher3• 8 years ago

Well, I can just leave, can't I?

If I can't, lets compare the results of this experiment with being incarcerated for a month without those people.

But that doesn't really matter.

mood/outlook/mental health assessment

We were talking about violence.

perfectly mild tones for exactly one month.

You are saying I can be harmed without violence happening. That is exactly my point. Harm != violence. There can be violence without harm and harm without violence.

When Is Speech Violence?

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