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by claudiawerner 2661 days ago
>According to some campus radical leftists, the very presence of such speakers was "violence" and a literal "threat" to marginalized students.

And why shouldn't they have a point? If it could be shown, or at least it is plausible, that violence against marginalized students could occur due to a speaker inciting such action or even bringing out groups for it, doesn't that give some case for refusing the admission of such people to campus?

In general I have not seen any reason to consider speech as much different from action, except on the principle that the harm caused is entirely caused by the victim (e.g a hearer) themselves, which seems implausible according to our intuition in a variety of circumstances. In fact, the bifurcation of speech and action seems to trace its way back to a Cartesian mind-body dualism, which is generally rejected by neuroscientists and philosophers today.
1 comments
edmundsauto 2661 days ago
Why stop there? What if it could be shown to be plausible that blocking speakers on campus increases tensions and escalates violence because of the suppression of people's views? It doesn't stretch credulity that right wingers are more mad about restricting the expression of their beliefs than they are about the subject itself. For evidence, watch a sample of Fox News -- they're often indignant and "righteously upset" over "being told what to think or say".
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claudiawerner 2661 days ago
That is obviously also a possibility; I'm not arguing that they should be silenced by default, only that it is possible and should not be beyond the reach of a society's purview to do so. For the moment, it seems more plausible that violence erupts due to persuasion and incitement, which is why (for instance) there are already laws against incitement but not against illegalising speech lest it cause high tensions. I assume this question can also be answered empirically.
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edmundsauto 2659 days ago
In the tension between freedom of speech and preventing harmful speech, I wonder if we're approach a Nash equilibrium, or if it's more of an accelerating oscillator.
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