Survey Finds Nine in Ten College Students Think ‘Words Can be Violence’
“When people start thinking that words can be violence, violence becomes an acceptable response to words”
In reality, violence is violence and words are words. For instance, Charlie Kirk used only words but his killer responded with violence.
The College Fix reports:
Nine in ten college students think ‘words can be violence’: survey
Nine out of ten undergraduate students think that “words can be violence” at least “somewhat,” according to a new Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression survey.
The poll also showed that ideological gaps between left-leaning and right-leaning students are widening.
When respondents were asked how much the statement “words can be violence” describes their thoughts, 47 percent answered with “completely” or “mostly.” Twenty-eight percent said it describes their thoughts “somewhat,” and 15 percent said “slightly.”
Additionally, around 59 percent of students said “silence is violence” describes their views at least “somewhat,” though only 28 percent said it describes their thoughts “completely” or “mostly.”
“When people start thinking that words can be violence, violence becomes an acceptable response to words,” FIRE Chief Research Advisor Sean Stevens said in a news release following the poll.
“Even after the murder of Charlie Kirk at a speaking event, college students think that someone’s words can be a threat. This is antithetical to a free and open society, where words are the best alternative to political violence,” Stevens said.
The poll also showed that moderate and conservative students have grown less supportive of disruptive or violent tactics to stop campus speakers, while liberal students’ support for those tactics has stayed the same or risen slightly compared to the spring.
At the same time, moderate and conservative students have become more open to allowing controversial speakers, while liberal students have maintained or increased their opposition to those speakers.
In particular, opposition among liberal students “increased considerably” to a speaker who previously said “The police are just as racist as the Ku Klux Klan” and “Children should be allowed to transition without parental consent,” according to the survey report.
FIRE conducted the survey in collaboration with College Pulse to evaluate campus free speech after Charlie Kirk’s Sept. 10 assassination at Utah Valley University. The poll contained 21 questions and was given to 2,028 undergrads to gauge their comfort with a range of sensitive topics.
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Comments
“Survey finds that nine in ten college students” are too psychologically damaged to be allowed out of the house without close adult supervision.
My take:
“Survey finds that nine in ten college students” are too stupid to be college students.”
To the contrary, words as violence is doctrine in universities. I was writing a paper many years ago and found plenty of dusty old books saying exactly that.
Any words can offend someone, but words are not violence. No one is physically harmed, traumatized or actually made unsafe by someone else’s opinion or viewpoint. They might feel insulted, disrespected, mocked, ridiculed, or offended, by someone else’s words, but none of that is an actual injury or threat to their safety. It’s not the same as a punch in the nose.
The left routinely says that their opponents’ speech is violence. What they really mean is that speech they disagree with should be treated as violence and the speaker silenced. Then they argue that their violence is speech and therefore protected and allowed.
You’re moving the goalposts mid-sentence. “Words” are not confined to “opinions” and “viewpoints”. Words can indeed be violent, and can harm people, traumatize them, and make them unsafe.
Remember?
Sticks and stones
Can break my bones
But words can never hurt me!
How far we have strayed!
That stupid jingle has never been true. And the law has never reflected it.
Legally, there is a crime called Verbal Assault! What does that tell you?
In which jurisdiction does a crime by that name exist? I’ve never heard of it.
“Nine in Ten College Students” received no (that would be zero) education in high school – particularly in Amercian History and the Constitution
This is just another way of reporting that the average student now lacks the intellectual skills required to defend a position verbally, and so is unusually willing to resort to physical opposition instead. It is just another indictment of the failure of the American educational system.
What are they gonna label it if I smack one of ’em in the face? If I’m gonna be labeled violent just for disagreeing with ’em … I might as well get the satisfaction of slapping the smirk off their face.
Nine in ten college students are pants-wetting crybabies.
I challenge them to break this down by sex.
Nine out of ten undergraduate students are weak minded, easily brainwashed leftist snowflakes.
Words as violence is pretty much limited to incitement i.e. words directing violence. Even then technically they aren’t violence – the whole sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.
This being said, where’s the dividing line between incitement and ‘mere’ support for genocide in chants like ‘Gas the Jews’ or ‘From the River to the Sea (Judenfrei)’?
I was going to say something similar but say that the survey seems unscientific. I actually can understand the 15% that answer “slightly” given how poorly the survey is designed.
Honestly, this has a self-serving premise baked into about 5 different options. It’s almost like FIRE conducted this survey just to use it as fundraising bait.
Nope. Threats are also violence. And they can actually hurt you.
The line is the Brandenburg criteria. Incitement means speech that is both (1) subjectively intended and (2) objectively likely to make its audience (3) imminently commit a crime. All three elements must be present. Any advocacy that doesn’t meet all three elements is protected speech.
But true threats are not protected speech. A true threat is one that a reasonable person would take seriously, and would suppose the speaker to have both the intention and the means to carry it out.
Words can be violent. True threats are violence in and of themselves, even if the speaker has neither the means nor the intention to carry them out. It is sufficient that a reasonable person would suppose the speaker to have both.
Seems diametrically opposed to what we know about self-defense law.
If a “reasonable person” can suppose a speaker to have means and intent, and the speaker is physically there with the victim (opportunity), that would make the victim justified in pulling out his piece and shooting the bast’d then and there.
Yet we know from many adjudicated cases that this is not true,
Therefore your premise is false.
I did not give you a premise, I gave you an undisputed fact. There is no possible question in the world that true threats, defined exactly as I just did, are an exception to the freedom of speech and are a criminal offense for which the speaker can and will be sentenced to prison.
Your premise, however, that deadly force is allowed whenever someone has the intent, means, and opportunity to harm you, is not correct. The standard for deadly force is that you have a reasonable fear of imminent death or serious injury. If you do have that, then you can indeed shoot the bastard. But not if you don’t, even if he has committed a crime by making a true threat. You can call the police and have him arrested.
Violence is a physical act. Words may cause harm but you aren’t getting bruised or cut open. Would you rather I sucker punch you or call you a name?
I read the survey and it’s very interesting. I’m concerned that some respondents may have been confused by the way the questions were asked.
For example,
“How often, if at all, do you think your college would punish you for saying”
followed by a long list of questionable opinions, such as:
“Bigots who say hateful things deserve to be shot.”
Going through the list, I think some of the respondents would forget they were being asked if their college would punish that opinion and would respond about whether or not it was their own opinion. I think survey questions should be stated more clearly, and in this case, each questionable opinion should be preceded by “Would your college punish …….”