Chain of effect - using words to call for someone's beheading is surely making them complicit in the physical harm that follows, particularly if the person is a figurehead that can feasibly assume their requests will be followed out.
Thus we grant that there's at least one case where speech could be considered violence, can we not consider others that might be involved in causal chains of physical harm?
The general air of racist rhetoric in the usa meant that black people were effectively dehumanized which meant that calls for lynching led to actual lynchings. With this context I feel it's reasonable to call the use of a racial slur, "violence". I should hope it's obvious I don't believe it's as harmful a form of violence as physically harming someone. We use the word violence to describe many remarkably different in nature things, so I don't think we risk devaluing the word.
>Thus we grant that there's at least one case where speech could be considered violence, can we not consider others that might be involved in causal chains of physical harm?
As a reductio ad absurdum, suppose you and I are medical researchers. We're trying to figure out the best way to treat Disease D. You favor Treatment A, I favor Treatment B. We participate in a public debate defending our respective preferences. Suppose as more data comes in, it becomes abundantly obvious that Treatment B works way better, and Treatment A actually exacerbates Disease D. I acknowledge that reasonable people could've favored Treatment A at the time we had our debate, and you acknowledge that the new data favors Treatment B. Nonetheless, some people in the audience of our debate felt you were persuasive, used Treatment A on their patients, and their patients died. Does that make you a murderer?
The scenario can be progressively modified: Maybe there was recent research showing Treatment B worsens Disease D, but you hadn't read it yet. Maybe you made a mistake in your statistical calculations. Maybe we decide you are a murderer, in which case no one wants to debate medical questions anymore lest they be declared a murderer, and the medical field languishes instead of developing new best practices.
>I should hope it's obvious I don't believe it's as harmful a form of violence as physically harming someone.
To play devil's advocate -- it wasn't obvious to me, and I think people with less context will find it even less obvious. So from the exact point of view you're arguing for -- creating a causal chain to physical harm -- I'd say overusing the word "violence" does have the potential to create harm, through the escalation of antagonism as I described previously.
(BTW, although I think you're mistaken about the use of the word "violence", I would consider your claim to be protected speech, and don't think censorship of your claim is justified -- e.g. if the HN moderator stepped in and deleted your comment, I'd call that an overreach.)
>We use the word violence to describe many remarkably different in nature things
Would you describe the gassing and burning of humans in the Holocaust as violence? Would you describe Will Smith slapping Chris Rock as violence? I think of those as almost unimaginably different in nature, but both forms of violence. The gap between a racial slur as violence, and Will Smith's slap as violence, is mundane in comparison. What do you think?
> , in which case no one wants to debate medical questions anymore lest they be declared a murderer, and the medical field languishes instead of developing new best practices.
In your example isn't the question going to be less "why did doctor X and Doctor Y hold positions they had in some debate" and more "Why wasn't it abundantly clear to all that T-A exacerbates D-D to the point of killing patients?" I don't think in this scenario the speech would be at issue at all... I'm trying to participate in good faith by encompassing the entire metaphor but I'm just stuck on that basically. Is this a real world example you're paraphrasing? I'd like to read about it. I mean it strikes me as far-fetched that one could be well researched enough on a medical subject but ignorant of a recent study that shows the opposite of your conclusions; I guess I've seen it in the financial world when a smug CEO is told during a press conference that their stock is crashing. In science, surely one has the option of simply retracting your statements? I just don't see the violence there.
> I'd say overusing the word "violence" does have the potential to create harm, through the escalation of antagonism as I described previously.
Well, context, I don't believe violence is inherently bad, in many forms. Elsewhere I note that tolerance is a peace treaty, not a suicide pact. If the Proud Boys show up to town so as to kick around protestors, I believe it's ethical to use physical violence in return. The point for me is to show that the intent of racists is to do violence, they're normalizing the dehumanization, they're working towards their goal of physical forms of violence, and it should be seen as such and met as such. "But if you never lynch, where's the violence? These Proud Boys don't want black people killed, just the races separate! Peace, at last." Segregation required violence to enforce - the violence was there in the rare times black students tried to enter white schools, or use white water fountains etc. Just because most "complied" doesn't mean the violent enforcement structure isn't in place. Though reading that you're probably throwing your hands up, "everything is violence then!" No, just more things than I think people acknowledge readily.
> (BTW, although I think you're mistaken about the use of the word "violence", I would consider your claim to be protected speech, and don't think censorship of your claim is justified -- e.g. if the HN moderator stepped in and deleted your comment, I'd call that an overreach.)
I mean, I would be very confused if either of our comments got deleted, we're not violating the TOS and from my own value standpoint neither of us are trying to do harm.
Thus we grant that there's at least one case where speech could be considered violence, can we not consider others that might be involved in causal chains of physical harm?
The general air of racist rhetoric in the usa meant that black people were effectively dehumanized which meant that calls for lynching led to actual lynchings. With this context I feel it's reasonable to call the use of a racial slur, "violence". I should hope it's obvious I don't believe it's as harmful a form of violence as physically harming someone. We use the word violence to describe many remarkably different in nature things, so I don't think we risk devaluing the word.