Steelman Argument: "Words Are Violence"

[LordsFire]

The problem with the logic chain, is that it starts with an a priori assumption:

All people wish to use force (and state force) to force other people to live exactly as they think they ought.

It's an argument not just based on a totalitarian worldview, but on a worldview that doesn't accept the idea that some people might not be totalitarians. It's based on the idea that nothing other than totalitarianism is possible.

This is wrong.

It is entirely possible to argue for opinions, values, policies, and laws, which say 'the state has no business preventing this or punishing a person for doing so,' and the flipside, 'the state has no business forcing a person to do this thing, or punishing them for not doing so.'

Since any chain of reasoning dependent upon every single step being a direct equivalency, if any single element is no longer an equivalency, the entire chain fails, it is thus disproven; in this, words do not equate to violence.

Of course, for that authoritarian, it goes a bit further than this. Because you see, if you do not let them use the state to force people to do what the authoritarian wants them to be doing, then their only other option is to try to force it themselves. And nigh-universally, if the state will not use force to compel a behavior, the state will also not permit private citizens to use force to compel that behavior, and use state force to stop citizens from trying to use force to compel others.

Thus, to the authoritarian, if the state is not in their hands, using force to compel others to do their bidding, it must by necessity then be in the hands of another who is using force to compel them. This is why to the modern left, it's not enough to simply not actively oppose them. They cannot accept mere toleration; you must actively agree with and support them, because otherwise you are impeding their ability to exerting power over others.

So no, words are not violence. But to the hardline authoritarian's twisted worldview, they are.

 

[Cherico]

ok fire but doesn't that world view by its very nature lead to mass murder?

 

[LordsFire]

ok fire but doesn't that world view by its very nature lead to mass murder?

The Authoritarian worldview?

Yes, yes it does. On the shallow end, you get sacked cities in the middle ages and early age of sail/renaissance. On the deep end, you get the mass-slaughter of the atheistic regimes of the 20th century.

The authoritarian worldview ultimately relies on two precepts:

1: Either I am definitionally good, or I don't care about things like morality.
2: I am so damn much smarter and better than most or everyone else, that I deserve to have exceptional authority in dictating how everyone else should live.

It's built on unrestrained arrogance, and either the refusal to have honest introspection, or not caring about what a person sees in themselves.

 

[Shipmaster Sane]

Like, take the recent unrest in the cities and all that. While those incidents have somewhat shaken the concept of the monopoly of violence, they don't destroy it. Most people admit that at the end of the day, the government could roll in the tanks and enforce order at the point of military force and the Army.

You cannot enforce a police state with jets and tanks. A police state requires police, civilian infantry, probably at the very very bottom of the supply and training pyramid, and they are always going to be vulnerable to resistance.

 

[Scottty]

First off, I think TNoL is giving such people too much intellectual credit - assuming sincerity where there probably is none.

Secondly - the underlying premise is a totalitarian one - that every opinion about everything is somehow an attempt to get the government to point guns at other people. People who see everything in terms of power and coercion are a menace to a free society.

 

[Abhorsen]

Just to be clear, a steelman argument is when you fix the problems with your opponent's arguments and be as generous as possible by examining the strongest possible version of his position. I don't actually believe this, so bear with me. I want to hear your thoughts on this. I came across this argument on Twitter, and I'm reworking it for this platform.

We understand that the State is, under the liberal formulation, the monopoly on violence. No more and no less. If the "State" does not have a monopoly on violence, then it is not the true State. Rather, something else is.

State = Violence

Furthermore, the State is a collection of laws and people who implement said laws. Behind every law is a threat of violence. Jaywalk? You're getting fined. Don't pay? Getting arrested. Resist? Violence. Every law ends up like this in the end.

Law = State = Violence

Now, the States we live in are democratic insofar as the laws of the State are an expression of public opinion. All laws in a democratic system are determined by electorally chosen politicians, who are chosen by popular vote. Popular vote is no more than a quantification of the public opinion.

Public Opinion = Law

In his work, Public Opinion, Walter Lippmann does a great job detailing how public opinion is formed. It's an excellent read, but TL;DR: public opinion is shaped via media, social groups, and emotion. The media you consume and the social groups you inhabit will determine your opinions on a given policy.

Media/Social Groups = Public Opinion

Now, the media and your social groups transmit their views - and thereby influence Public Opinion - via the written, spoken, or displayed word.

Words = Media/Social Groups

Therefore, words are used by the media and social groups in order to sway public opinion, which in turn determines elections, which results in the creation or negation of laws. Laws which, upon inspection, are no more or less than descriptions of how violence will be used, for what purposes, against whom, and in order to protect what.

Words = Media/Social Groups = Public Opinion = Law = State = Violence

Therefore, Words = Violence

In a democracy where the state has a monopoly on violence, this logic seems watertight. But I'd like to hear your thoughts on this.

I think you are missing the argument they are making. They don't want to accept that laws=violence, because then they can't make new laws to control people. Instead, the argument flows more like:

1) People experience multiple types of harm, including emotional, and 1a) emotional harm matters similarly to physical harm
2) Words can harm people emotionally.
3) This harm is violence, and 3a) thus should be banned.

(3) is one of the best places to attack this. Basically, not all harm is violence, or even bad. Second, many of the times they object, the words are not intended to harm, but to educate, and thus should not be considered violence.

 

[Cherico]

First off, I think TNoL is giving such people too much intellectual credit - assuming sincerity where there probably is none.

Secondly - the underlying premise is a totalitarian one - that every opinion about everything is somehow an attempt to get the government to point guns at other people. People who see everything in terms of power and coercion are a menace to a free society.

The idea of power as just being a force of opression by its nature leads to the misuse of power and the loss of power.

Because power isnt opression, power is power and if you do not respect the social contract then it will be ripped up and you power will go poof.

 

[The Name of Love]

The fact that Media (or other poster's) will spin your actions to affect public opinion is just as true for words. How often have you made a reasoned statement only to be told that it was a "dog whistle" or otherwise implied to have said something completely different than your original meaning? I would argue that actions do convey meaning, often better than words. It's somewhat harder to deliberately misinterpret body language (though as the Sandmann case shows, hardly impossible).

Indeed studies indicate that a face-to-face meeting, where body language and tone can enrich communication, is some 34 times more effective than email. Actions do indeed communicate better than words do.

That's another problem you find with these people: what effect your actions have will depend on the interpretation of your actions in the public sphere, which will include many things outside of your control.

Well yes, the point of the "words are violence" strategy isn't to facilitate conversation, it's to shut conversation down by associating it with something other people dislike. The Name of Love's chain of reason leads directly to "everything anyone could possible do or not do is violence." The shorter chain still allows virtually anything to be shut down at will by claiming it's traumatized someone somehow.

Two things to keep in mind, first that debate isn't about convincing the other person of something. That rarely happens. Both of you are making a case to an unseen neutral party, the reader who might take a look at the debate and make up their minds based on the content. Making a claim that your opponent is violent because they are speaking will never cause your opponent to shut down and quit talking because they're so moved. Rather, it is a way of swaying the unseen neutral reader, by creating an association between your opponent and violence.

The second thing to remember is that current debate strategy isn't about proving your points with better evidence than the other person, it's about preventing your opponent from being able to present their evidence in the first place. That's why there's so much emphasis on deplatforming and censorship. Those things don't change the minds of the people being censored, but the neutral party will not find the arguments available online, nor find the studies cited or the sources to back those arguments, thus making it far harder for them to be swayed because the swaying arguments don't exist.

This is exactly why I consider this to be a reductio ad absurdem of the idea of government by public opinion aka government by mob rule aka democracy. Even the Founding Fathers of America, for all their faults, understood that nondemocratic elements needed to be installed into the Republic to balance out the democratic ones in order to preserve the freedom of the minority. Ever considered how, as things become more democratized, they also become more politicized? That's why. Factionalism in government is anathema to good governance and sanity.

The problem with the logic chain, is that it starts with an a priori assumption:

All people wish to use force (and state force) to force other people to live exactly as they think they ought.

It's an argument not just based on a totalitarian worldview, but on a worldview that doesn't accept the idea that some people might not be totalitarians. It's based on the idea that nothing other than totalitarianism is possible.

This is wrong.

It is entirely possible to argue for opinions, values, policies, and laws, which say 'the state has no business preventing this or punishing a person for doing so,' and the flipside, 'the state has no business forcing a person to do this thing, or punishing them for not doing so.'

Since any chain of reasoning dependent upon every single step being a direct equivalency, if any single element is no longer an equivalency, the entire chain fails, it is thus disproven; in this, words do not equate to violence.

Of course, for that authoritarian, it goes a bit further than this. Because you see, if you do not let them use the state to force people to do what the authoritarian wants them to be doing, then their only other option is to try to force it themselves. And nigh-universally, if the state will not use force to compel a behavior, the state will also not permit private citizens to use force to compel that behavior, and use state force to stop citizens from trying to use force to compel others.

Thus, to the authoritarian, if the state is not in their hands, using force to compel others to do their bidding, it must by necessity then be in the hands of another who is using force to compel them. This is why to the modern left, it's not enough to simply not actively oppose them. They cannot accept mere toleration; you must actively agree with and support them, because otherwise you are impeding their ability to exerting power over others.

So no, words are not violence. But to the hardline authoritarian's twisted worldview, they are.

Your hypothetical libertarian would still be imposing his notions of rights onto others. If rights need to be defended, they need to be defended against someone. When we posit a right, or advocate for one, then, we are imagining a state willing and ready to act against specific people assumed to be potential violators of that right. And if that's the case, then it's impossible to have a neutral state as you've described.

Also, the idea that states ought to impose moral values onto the public is not totalitarian. But I do think that democracy is totalitarian (or at least, has the potential to be) because if the state thinks that everything its citizens do matters, then it'll be inclined to micromanage everything that they do. And we see this in the thinking of people like Walter Lippmann, who argues that the media has the duty to tell the people what to think. By contrast, a king who is secure in his power doesn't give a damn what you do so long as you do your duties and pay your taxes.

A non-totalitarian state would need to be one in which the opinions of the average person do not matter all that much to the politicians and vice versa. People in charge wouldn't be incentivized to try and control every little thing we do. Of course, law exists to teach the citizenry right from wrong, and that would need to be enforced from time to time to protect the community's way of life. But this wouldn't be this aggressive process because the state wouldn't have to act as though the future of society hinges on every single little thing you did.

I think you are missing the argument they are making. They don't want to accept that laws=violence, because then they can't make new laws to control people. Instead, the argument flows more like:

1) People experience multiple types of harm, including emotional, and 1a) emotional harm matters similarly to physical harm
2) Words can harm people emotionally.
3) This harm is violence, and 3a) thus should be banned.

(3) is one of the best places to attack this. Basically, not all harm is violence, or even bad. Second, many of the times they object, the words are not intended to harm, but to educate, and thus should not be considered violence.

This is also a line of reasoning that they use, yes. But I think that it's an argument that's a lot weaker than the one above, which I saw on Twitter. Besides what you've said, there comes a question whether there are objective goods that are greater than the emotional distress of an individual. Hell, Progressives believe in this insofar as they criticize "White Fragility." One could easily dismiss the emotional harm that a Black person feels when somebody quotes FBI crime statistics as "Black Fragility." This is why it's not as strong of an argument.

 

[Shipmaster Sane]

All people wish to use force (and state force) to force other people to live exactly as they think they ought.

This is fundamentally true, and to say otherwise is a childish delusion. Just because how you think others "ought" to be allowed to live has broad boundaries that exceed what you yourself wish to do personally, does not mean that every law, and vote for a law, is not intrinsically a means of violent control over others. By voting for a law, you are point blank saying "I think X is the range of behavior that is acceptable in others, which they should be forced into behaving inside by organized men with weapons who will kill them if they insist on rejecting"

 

[Abhorsen]

This is also a line of reasoning that they use, yes. But I think that it's an argument that's a lot weaker than the one above, which I saw on Twitter. Besides what you've said, there comes a question whether there are objective goods that are greater than the emotional distress of an individual. Hell, Progressives believe in this insofar as they criticize "White Fragility." One could easily dismiss the emotional harm that a Black person feels when somebody quotes FBI crime statistics as "Black Fragility." This is why it's not as strong of an argument.

Yeah, but they don't make your argument you pushed forward. The point of a Steelman is do mimic their argument but fix it up, not just their conclusion.

 

[The Name of Love]

Yeah, but they don't make your argument you pushed forward. The point of a Steelman is do mimic their argument but fix it up, not just their conclusion.

This is an argument I saw one of them use.

 

[Abhorsen]

This is an argument I saw one of them use.

I've never seen that argument, and it instantly fails to "if laws are violence, voting is violence".

 

[The Name of Love]

I've never seen that argument, and it instantly fails to "if laws are violence, voting is violence".

I do think there's a postmodern quality to the argument, yes. But it would follow that voting is violence, as it is an action. The only way to decrease violence is to minimize the effect popular opinion has on government.

 

[Mimas]

If any action that can effect popular opinion leads to an increase in violence, then you've reached a point where every action will lead to an increase in violence.

And if my every action will lead to an increase in violence, why should I care what another person thinks of my actions? Because by that logic, whatever I do will be negatively effecting another person, whether I see that consequence or not.

The only thing that would be left would be making sure that the net increase in violence does not fall on myself or people I care about.

 

[The Name of Love]

If any action that can effect popular opinion leads to an increase in violence, then you've reached a point where every action will lead to an increase in violence.

And if my every action will lead to an increase in violence, why should I care what another person thinks of my actions? Because by that logic, whatever I do will be negatively effecting another person, whether I see that consequence or not.

The only thing that would be left would be making sure that the net increase in violence does not fall on myself or people I care about.

Does your every action affect public opinion though? That's the thing about this argument: you have to take into account power differentials.

 

[Bear Ribs]

Does your every action affect public opinion though? That's the thing about this argument: you have to take into account power differentials.

You can't really do that though. Sandmann , as mentioned above, had no real power and did nothing but stand there while wearing a MAGA hat yet caused a political and social media storm. You can't tell which action will wind up affecting public opinion until it's too late to change.

 

[The Name of Love]

You can't really do that though. Sandmann , as mentioned above, had no real power and did nothing but stand there while wearing a MAGA hat yet caused a political and social media storm. You can't tell which action will wind up affecting public opinion until it's too late to change.

Sandmann's story would've been a non-event were it not for billion-dollar media conglomerates making it an event.

 

[Abhishekm]

Sandmann's story would've been a non-event were it not for billion-dollar media conglomerates making it an event.

I think that's the point. If your actions no matter what they are can be made into international incidents without any intent or even intent against it then why bother conforming or relenting? Especially when the it is at the whims of such hypocrita as these?

 

[Bear Ribs]

I think that's the point. If your actions no matter what they are can be made into international incidents without any intent or even intent against it then why bother conforming or relenting? Especially when the it is at the whims of such hypocrita as these?

Pretty much this, the fact that Sandmann didn't do anything but still massively influenced social media is what undercuts the argument. If "Influences Social Media" is in your logic chain to violence, then Sandmann proves that standing still on a sidewalk minding your own business is violence.

That's why I actually think the words=stress=harm=violence chain is fundamentally stronger, it has fewer steps and can actually point to something harmful, albeit in a roundabout and unreasonable way. Of course Sandmann rather makes it fall apart too, as I suspect many people were stressed out, judging by their reaction to him standing on a street minding his own business. It's also somewhat iffy to equate all harm to violence, violence is a specific type of harm. F'rex, most people would agree that eating a diet of McDonald's food is harmful but not agree that standing in line at McDonald's is violence. Harm =/= violence.

 

[The Name of Love]

I think that's the point. If your actions no matter what they are can be made into international incidents without any intent or even intent against it then why bother conforming or relenting? Especially when the it is at the whims of such hypocrita as these?

Pretty much this, the fact that Sandmann didn't do anything but still massively influenced social media is what undercuts the argument. If "Influences Social Media" is in your logic chain to violence, then Sandmann proves that standing still on a sidewalk minding your own business is violence.

I do consider it to be violence in a democracy... but I really don't see anything wrong with violence per se. But I'm saying that the argument could easily be seen as a refutation of government by public opinion.