When we discuss ideas, even on a college campus, it is the case that such discussions have consequences. Such implications apply not only to the outer world which we will increasingly influence, but also to the very people who are involved in, or subjected to, speech that minimizes us to a point of perceived worthlessness. The ideas that we’re exposed to and that are legitimized in our environment lay the foundation for our future conduct, and they can have negative impacts for us personally. Unfortunately, there are those who would counter that, instead of actions, words are to be uniquely prized and upheld as the tools of the trade in an atmosphere of academic apathy. Further, sophistry represents the end as well as the means; or to be more precise, it would be as such if it were not so relentless and never-ending. Resolution, we are assured, can be achieved through debate; a robust exchange of ideas can’t help but to eradicate ideas that don’t make sense, refine those that are more defensible, and ultimately lead to a Platonic paradise of intellectual vindication and conceptual actualization. Unfortunately, to espouse this perspective is to ignore history, misunderstand the place of words in affecting change, and, if one is not careful, to support the very steps backward that discourse is supposedly so well-suited to guard us against.
A skeptical reader may prematurely object that, on the one hand, the author claims that words are linguistic fillers for conceptual phantasms that don’t really manifest in the material world, and therefore that they should not monopolize our attention. On the other, he ascribes to them the potential to dehumanize those who are apparently such snowflakes that they can’t even ward off such ineffectual, nebulous rhetoric. What hypocrisy! Perhaps this critic might have a point, if the first paragraph really were advancing the perspective that could be most uncharitably attributed. Such an uncharitable attribution, though, would fly in the face of an honest debate, so I trust an opponent would never stoop so low. Nevertheless, I prefer to cover my bases, so ahead with the clarification:
- Discourse should not be the sole, or primary, object. Words are, in fact, significant, but even more so as deployed by those with unrestricted access to an audience and the authority of a university.
- It is unnecessary for those at the top, as it were, to express urgency and defensiveness, other than as a tactic of propaganda. Since the table is already tilted, their words go further than those of their opponents, and there’s no need to think of their jibes as anything other than the sparks of minds clashing together in disinterested contemplation, to be filtered back into the social sphere only as a self-righteous afterthought.
- Those who are marginalized are in a very different position. They may enjoy discussion for its own sake, and they may realize the utility of language in developing their perspective, making their case, negotiating with adversaries, and communicating internally. But when it comes to their fundamental rights, which are under greater threat than their antagonists care to admit, language cannot be their only recourse.
Are words actions? Well, it depends. There is a sometimes useful distinction between speaking and other forms of expressive behavior, but what we say to one another drastically shapes future interaction, from individual relationships to political realignments. More to the point, speech can have debilitating effects on those who are exposed to it. While it may not make sense to criminalize verbal provocation as we do more explicit forms of physical violence, one might be inclined to forgive an increased sense of compassion for victims and harshness to perpetrators, even if the offense is delivered from behind a microphone. After all, there is a context for speech; some, delivered aggressively and in service of pervasive, unjustified power structures, is in actuality accompanied by the capacity for even more serious affronts. Campus trolls and the like, therefore, are merely the allies and spokespeople of more dangerous reactionary elements, whose behavior is fairly unambiguously beyond offensive language.
Do power differentials really exist, and are they really that awful? Well, yes, they exist; if you doubt it, try teaching a class spontaneously in your professor’s place. More fundamentally, the most pronounced divide in our society is that between laborers and their bosses, rendering necessary a revolutionary displacement of a decaying social order. But back to the question of speech, one might wonder if differentiation of roles (between students and instructors, for instance) is really a hierarchical one. Maybe it’s not, in some far-off future, but we live in the reality that we have to navigate day-by-day, even if we strive to transcend it in our politics. So yes, it’s pointless to pretend that hierarchies, many of which are unjustified, don’t exist, and it follows that speech by different people is received and processed differently according to their relative ability to be heard and taken seriously. Sometimes, this is all too necessary; constantly indulging people who say the Earth is flat, or that English is the only real language, or that rudimentary mathematics demonstrates incontrovertibly the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (it clearly does, but I recognize I’m unlikely to win this one) may not be the best way to spend our collective time and intellectual effort. Aside from the fact that people who are still obsessed, for example, with race and IQ fall into this category, this is not what we’re talking about; rather, people are implicitly diminished and dismissed according to traits, many of which are uncontrollable, that are historically the basis for grotesque treatment and systematic dispossession.
Let’s take the case of Ben Shapiro, who recently stood a chance of being invited to our own campus. According to the pretense of the initiative through which his candidacy was advanced, he would, after receiving more votes than some of his competitors, have been welcomed to give insightful and productive speech. Following this, people would be expected to engage with him according to the rhetorical pillars of right-wing victim culture: civility and deference. In other words, people should bring academic quibbles and soft-spoken nuance to what would then be a one-sided roast, a theatrical exhibition of one-liners executed just well enough to titillate the sensibilities of those with nothing better to do than to inflate, mock, and lament the presence of SJWs. Whether or not we are prepared for him is almost beside the point; if we lost in the court of childlike jeers, this would be a function of shallow performance, rather than the deep intellectual engagement that is supposedly the objective.
Fortunately, Shapiro’s nonsense proved too much to be implicitly endorsed, even by the institution given the geographically imprecise, but historically apt, designation of “Southern Ivy.” (Though in his place, the most votes were received by the most recent CEO of American imperialism, President Barack Obama, who, although a better speaker by leaps and bounds, is even more questionable on multiple fronts.) Objections to executive power notwithstanding, the mindset that allowed Shapiro to be brought up in the first place is the issue at hand. The idea that his words impact different people in the same way runs contrary to any adult understanding of history and may even be, dare I say it, illogical. He uses different words, in a different tone, with different motivations, and with access to a platform that most of us are not used to. It’s worth considering the surrounding context of speech not so it can be repressed, but so that it can be understood and combated when necessary; there is a difference, after all, between non-invitation and censorship, and just as stark a distinction between institutional, top-down shutdown and bottom-up opposition.
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