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No it is not. Problems with drawing the line between what is acceptable and what is "violent" speech are caused precisely by the fact that this axiom is complet

No it is not. Problems with drawing the line between what is acceptable and what is "violent" speech are caused precisely by the fact that this axiom is completely false. You cannot have free speech, and by extension speech at all, without causing what you percieve as "violence". First of all, do not put equality sign between physical and being verbally abusive. The first one is something external that you have no control over, no matter how much you fight, the second you can just shrug off and continue with your life. Problem with your example lies in the lack of context. On the more humorous side - maybe your wife is a cunt and your children are little bastards. If you percieve any kind of abusive expression, no matter of the context, as violence, then you're just done. There is no useful way that you can contribute to culture and society, because you cannot participate in discourse anymore. On the more serious side - what about "psychological violence"? What about when your wife treats you like a slave and verbally abuses you on a daily basis? If your wife mistreats you, then just leave. Her words cannot stop you. What stops you is more likely the threat of being beaten, that she will make it impossible for you to see your kids and she will take your house. The violence is physical, economical and sociological, not verbal. Going further - your comment disgusted me and I've felt that it violates some of the most important values I have in my life. Is this violence? Not at all, I will just shrug it off and continue to enjoy my day. I will get some downvotes and maybe be less frequent in visiting left-leaning websites. We lose the ability to talk to each other, but it's far from being violence. It's just stupidity on both sides.

JabavuAdams 6y ago
Almost all situations of real interest and disagreement will be grey-area and call for a pragmatic vs. a dogmatic approach. > First of all, do not put equality sign between physical and being verbally abusive. I am not, in general -- let's try to confine ourselves to my specific example. > The first one is something external that you have no control over, no matter how much you fight, the second you can just shrug off and continue with your life. This is a dogmatic assertion that is not supported by the evidence. If I were feeling less charitable, I could counter that of course you could do something about physical violence -- you just had to train harder, have better weapons, or build a coalition. People are emotionally abused. Stating that in some cases, some people can transcend that abuse is ... not really relevant. It's interesting, and should be studied so that perhaps we can confer immunity to more people. > Problem with your example lies in the lack of context. On the more humorous side - maybe your wife is a cunt and your children are little bastards. As soon as you admit context you admit that abusive speech could be an act of violence, as well as true speech. As you say, yourself, context matters. This is why dogmatic approaches to this issue are doomed to fail. > If you percieve any kind of abusive expression, no matter of the context, as violence, ... Let's just stick to my example. To disprove "speech cannot be violence", I only have to find one example of speech that is violence. I don't have believe or prove that all (abusive) speech is violence. > then you're just done. There is no useful way that you can contribute to culture and society, because you cannot participate in discourse anymore. This is nonsense. It's smacks of litany rather than logic. A person can be a productive member of society in many ways, yet hold beliefs that disturb you. > Going further - your comment disgusted me and I've felt that it violates some of the most important values I have in my life. I can't know, but your words suggest that you are looking to be disgusted. We all like to be self-righteous at times, but I doubt we are as far apart as you believe. I have deep knowledge of computer science, artificial intelligence, biology, and emotional abuse. All of these areas teach that nature has no respect for our ontologies. We may try to draw a hard line between violence and speech, but we mislead ourselves. Almost all of the cases worth debating occur at the fuzzy edges of these concepts. Failure to realize this may result in the sense of having a crystalline framework, but ultimately it misleads.
- JabavuAdams 6y ago
  EDIT> Also, why do you assume I'm left-leaning? I think you're pattern matching on some cluster of ideas you hate, and then running from there.
atoav 6y ago
Violence is an act of communication and as such always bound to the context it happens in. If someone accidentally punches you during a sports match it may look violent, but you very likely won't feel violated, because you could assume the intent to hurt is not given. If someone delivers the same punch on purpose in front of your peers, you will feel extremely violated. Two punches, equal in their physical qualities and physical pain, one much more violent than the other. What hurts more or does more lasting damage depends on the context. There are people who have been hit as a child and have no problem with it. There are people who have never been hit physically but verbally abused who will have to deal with this their whole life. To think violence is only violence when it is physical certainly has not much to do with how people exert force onto each other in daily life. Of course this doesn't mean that every communicative act that challenges your world view, critisises your actions, highlights you mistakes etc. automatically constitutes a violent act, although you certainly might feel bad afterwards. This is why the dictionary definition of violence has "intent" in it. If someone tells you your whole life was a lie they might not intend to hurt you with their words, even if you are devastated. If someone tells you, your hair looks shitty, they do. Note: whether you feel hurt or not plays no role in the definition of the word violence.
- hiram112 6y ago
  The 1st Googled definition of violence: "behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something." Notice that word "physical". Liberals have tried to define the word to be associated with words or 'hate speech' in an attempt to shut down speech they don't want to hear. It doesn't mean they're correct.
  - JabavuAdams 6y ago
    If you want to clarify your thinking, you should consider these key questions: 1) Why is violence bad? What is it we're trying to prevent when we seek to prevent violence? 2) Are there instances of speech, which in specific contexts can, cause the same negative outcomes that we try to prevent when we seek to prevent violence? 3) Is it really true that physical violence is inescapable, while abusive speech only causes harm if the listener lets it? Let go of left/right talking points, shallow pattern-matching, and groupism, and deeply consider these questions.

JabavuAdams 6y ago

Almost all situations of real interest and disagreement will be grey-area and call for a pragmatic vs. a dogmatic approach. > First of all, do not put equality sign between physical and being verbally abusive. I am not, in general -- let's try to confine ourselves to my specific example. > The first one is something external that you have no control over, no matter how much you fight, the second you can just shrug off and continue with your life. This is a dogmatic assertion that is not supported by the evidence. If I were feeling less charitable, I could counter that of course you could do something about physical violence -- you just had to train harder, have better weapons, or build a coalition. People are emotionally abused. Stating that in some cases, some people can transcend that abuse is ... not really relevant. It's interesting, and should be studied so that perhaps we can confer immunity to more people. > Problem with your example lies in the lack of context. On the more humorous side - maybe your wife is a cunt and your children are little bastards. As soon as you admit context you admit that abusive speech could be an act of violence, as well as true speech. As you say, yourself, context matters. This is why dogmatic approaches to this issue are doomed to fail. > If you percieve any kind of abusive expression, no matter of the context, as violence, ... Let's just stick to my example. To disprove "speech cannot be violence", I only have to find one example of speech that is violence. I don't have believe or prove that all (abusive) speech is violence. > then you're just done. There is no useful way that you can contribute to culture and society, because you cannot participate in discourse anymore. This is nonsense. It's smacks of litany rather than logic. A person can be a productive member of society in many ways, yet hold beliefs that disturb you. > Going further - your comment disgusted me and I've felt that it violates some of the most important values I have in my life. I can't know, but your words suggest that you are looking to be disgusted. We all like to be self-righteous at times, but I doubt we are as far apart as you believe. I have deep knowledge of computer science, artificial intelligence, biology, and emotional abuse. All of these areas teach that nature has no respect for our ontologies. We may try to draw a hard line between violence and speech, but we mislead ourselves. Almost all of the cases worth debating occur at the fuzzy edges of these concepts. Failure to realize this may result in the sense of having a crystalline framework, but ultimately it misleads.

JabavuAdams 6y ago
EDIT> Also, why do you assume I'm left-leaning? I think you're pattern matching on some cluster of ideas you hate, and then running from there.

atoav 6y ago

Violence is an act of communication and as such always bound to the context it happens in. If someone accidentally punches you during a sports match it may look violent, but you very likely won't feel violated, because you could assume the intent to hurt is not given. If someone delivers the same punch on purpose in front of your peers, you will feel extremely violated. Two punches, equal in their physical qualities and physical pain, one much more violent than the other. What hurts more or does more lasting damage depends on the context. There are people who have been hit as a child and have no problem with it. There are people who have never been hit physically but verbally abused who will have to deal with this their whole life. To think violence is only violence when it is physical certainly has not much to do with how people exert force onto each other in daily life. Of course this doesn't mean that every communicative act that challenges your world view, critisises your actions, highlights you mistakes etc. automatically constitutes a violent act, although you certainly might feel bad afterwards. This is why the dictionary definition of violence has "intent" in it. If someone tells you your whole life was a lie they might not intend to hurt you with their words, even if you are devastated. If someone tells you, your hair looks shitty, they do. Note: whether you feel hurt or not plays no role in the definition of the word violence.

hiram112 6y ago
The 1st Googled definition of violence: "behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something." Notice that word "physical". Liberals have tried to define the word to be associated with words or 'hate speech' in an attempt to shut down speech they don't want to hear. It doesn't mean they're correct.
- JabavuAdams 6y ago
  If you want to clarify your thinking, you should consider these key questions: 1) Why is violence bad? What is it we're trying to prevent when we seek to prevent violence? 2) Are there instances of speech, which in specific contexts can, cause the same negative outcomes that we try to prevent when we seek to prevent violence? 3) Is it really true that physical violence is inescapable, while abusive speech only causes harm if the listener lets it? Let go of left/right talking points, shallow pattern-matching, and groupism, and deeply consider these questions.