Free Speech

[mr.WHO]

Er ... yes, absolutely. Poland for example loves and supports "free speech" so much you they passed a law in 2018 making it illegal to casually mention that maybe some Polish were collaborators in WW2. If you do so, you can get up to three years in jail, or if you are lucky, you are only brutally arrested and punched in the face by the police. Freedom of speech there only exists if you support the current Nationalist narrative, same for freedom of press or independence of justice. Which kind of is a running narrative of Alt-right ... usually they yell about being cancelled and silenced on national TV at great length (anyone see a problem there), yet block and silence opposing voices whereever they can.
Note that I am not saying "cancelling" does not exist or gets massively abused, which it does, sometimes to an absurd degree.

I never said that Poland is shining example of Free Speech, we have our own set of up and downs in that area - above law is clear example of violation of Free Speech.
As for police beating anyone, I'm rather skeptical as polish Police is rather tame - we had our own set of protests this year. We had dozens of cases where person claimed it was brutally beaten by Police, but then Police release footage showing it was load of BS. If I'd participate in protest, I'd be much more concern to be hit by random bottle or flare from protesters that anything from police side.

Or by commenting against, are you saying you are ok with governments spreading lies, labeling them as facts, labeling anything they don't like as fake news? Leading to very real dire consequences. That is far from free speech.

Are you supporting speech that calls for violence?

Yes I support it for two reasons:
1 - Goverments are always doing it, no matter if it's authoritatiarian or democratic - there is no reason to sacrifice/limit personal free speech in hopeless atempt to tame ANY kind of goverment in that field.
2 - I already said this, but if someone support calls to violence, it's much MUCH better if they are verbal as soon as possible, rather than hide it. It give more time for these on receiveing end to notice and prepare.
If Hitler was more verbal with his hate, it could have convinced more Jews, that's it's time to pack things up and run for your life - it could save a couple hundred thousand more lives as Jews started to leave Germany in droves only shortly before war.

Same is with social media - if someone is planning to commit violence or call for it, they should post to their hearth content - makes Police and Court job much easier.
Additionally normal people could prepare in advance (e.g. ANTIFA accounts preparing/organizing riots). I think this is also the reason why ISIS still has an account on Facebook or Twitter.

I also think it was US Supreme Court that confirmed that Hate Speech is also protected under Free Speech.


Simply speaking anyone can spew any crap they want and it's on people listening to decide whenever they want to listen to the crap or not.

Someone also mention that general censorship apply to sex and nudity, but then there are plenty of cases where people protest naked - Exctintion Rebellion and PETA frequently make nude protest - should this be censored due to nudity or allowed due to Free Speech?

Anything can be Free Speech, so the only limiting factor should be the actual violence (killing, beating, riots, looting), while the call to violence and hate speech shout still be protected under Free Speech.

[clakclak]

[...]
Yes I support it for two reasons:
1 - Goverments are always doing it, no matter if it's authoritatiarian or democratic - there is no reason to sacrifice/limit personal free speech in hopeless atempt to tame ANY kind of goverment in that field.
2 - I already said this, but if someone support calls to violence, it's much MUCH better if they are verbal as soon as possible, rather than hide it. It give more time for these on receiveing end to notice and prepare.
If Hitler was more verbal with his hate, it could have convinced more Jews, that's it's time to pack things up and run for your life - it could save a couple hundred thousand more lives as Jews started to leave Germany in droves only shortly before war.[...]

I am going to be honest here Who, as a German I have no clue how Hitler could have been any "more verbal with his hate". I just opened an English translation of some of Hitler's speeches from 1922 till 1945. The very first speech from 12. April. 1922 (long before Hitler came to power) allready paints a bleak picture. Here is an part of that very speech and the hate is allready as verbal as it can be really. Keep in mind that this is all from a SINGLE speech. Hitler held hundrets like it.

In the first place the Right still fails to recognize the danger. These gentlemen still
persist in believing that it is a question of being elected to a Landtag or of posts as ministers
or secretaries. They think that the decision of a people's destiny would mean at worst nothing
more than some damage to their so-called bourgeois-economic existence. They have never
grasped the fact that this decision threatens their heads. They have never yet understood that it
is not necessary to be an enemy of the Jew for him to drag you one day, on the Russian
model, to the scaffold. They do not see that it is quite enough to have a head on your
shoulders and not to be a Jew: that will secure the scaffold for you. [...]The Jew regards work as the means to the exploitation of other peoples.
The Jew never works as a productive creator without the great aim of becoming the master.
He works unproductively using and enjoying other people's work. And thus we understand the
iron sentence which Mommsen once uttered: 'The Jew is the ferment of decomposition in
peoples,' that means that the Jew destroys and must destroy because he completely lacks the
conception of an activity which builds up the life of the community. And therefore it is beside
the point whether the individual Jew is 'decent' or not. In himself he carries those
characteristics which Nature has given him, and he cannot ever rid himself of those
characteristics. And to us he is harmful. Whether he harms us consciously or unconsciously,
that is not our affair. We have consciously to concern ourselves for the welfare of our own
people.[...] And finally we were also the first to point the people on any large scale to a danger
which insinuated itself into our midst - a danger which millions failed to realize and which
will nonetheless lead us all into ruin - the Jewish danger. And today people are saying yet
again that we were 'agitators.' I would like here to appeal to a greater than I, Count
Lerchenfeld. He said in the last session of the Landtag that his feeling 'as a man and a
Christian' prevented him from being an anti-Semite. I SAY: MY FEELING AS A
CHRISTIAN POINTS ME TO MY LORD AND SAVIOUR AS A FIGHTER. IT POINTS
ME TO THE MAN WHO ONCE IN LONELINESS, SURROUNDED ONLY BY A FEW
FOLLOWERS, RECOGNIZED THESE JEWS FOR WHAT THEY WERE AND
SUMMONED MEN TO THE FIGHT AGAINST THEM AND WHO, GOD'S TRUTH!
WAS GREATEST NOT AS SUFFERER BUT AS FIGHTER. In boundless love as a
Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in
His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and of adders.
How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. Today, after two thousand
years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before - the fact that it was
for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow
myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice. And as a man I
have the duty to see to it that human society does not suffer the same catastrophic collapse as
did the civilization of the ancient world some two thousand years ago - a civilization which
was driven to its ruin through this same Jewish people.

[Mailo]

[...]
Yes I support it for two reasons:
1 - Goverments are always doing it, no matter if it's authoritatiarian or democratic - there is no reason to sacrifice/limit personal free speech in hopeless atempt to tame ANY kind of goverment in that field.
2 - I already said this, but if someone support calls to violence, it's much MUCH better if they are verbal as soon as possible, rather than hide it. It give more time for these on receiveing end to notice and prepare.
If Hitler was more verbal with his hate, it could have convinced more Jews, that's it's time to pack things up and run for your life - it could save a couple hundred thousand more lives as Jews started to leave Germany in droves only shortly before war.[...]

I am going to be honest here Who, as a German I have no clue how Hitler could have been any "more verbal with his hate". I just opened an English translation of some of Hitler's speeches from 1922 till 1945. The very first speech from 12. April. 1922 (long before Hitler came to power) allready paints a bleak picture. Here is an part of that very speech and the hate is allready as verbal as it can be really. Keep in mind that this is all from a SINGLE speech. Hitler held hundrets like it.

Yep, without Hitlers ability to reach the masses with his speeches, his reign probably would not have happened. Free speech helped promote him, even more free speech (if that even was possible) would not have prevented it. Shutting him up WOULD have prevented it, at least for a while. Maybe long enough for the economic situation to recover enough that extremism would not have been as attractive as it was in 1920-1930.
As a sidenote, I think it is rather cynical to promote the view that potential victims of facism should be forced to run from the country they live in "to save lives". I hear similar "requests" from right-wing parties today.

[mr.WHO]

I am going to be honest here Who, as a German I have no clue how Hitler could have been any "more verbal with his hate". I just opened an English translation of some of Hitler's speeches from 1922 till 1945. The very first speech from 12. April. 1922 (long before Hitler came to power) allready paints a bleak picture. Here is an part of that very speech and the hate is allready as verbal as it can be really. Keep in mind that this is all from a SINGLE speech. Hitler held hundrets like it.

And yet, people started to leave Germany in droves only around 1939 and many didn't left (many were middle-class, so it's not like they didn't had a means to get away) - it easy to say it now, but it seems not enough people got the memo how bad the things going.

Yep, without Hitlers ability to reach the masses with his speeches, his reign probably would not have happened. Free speech helped promote him, even more free speech (if that even was possible) would not have prevented it. Shutting him up WOULD have prevented it, at least for a while. Maybe long enough for the economic situation to recover enough that extremism would not have been as attractive as it was in 1920-1930.

You fail to see that whatever Hitler said would remain a random babble of some sad looser in the Beer Hall, if other people would not decide that whatever crap he spew, is valid to listen and follow. This means there was a demand, so sooner or later someone else would pop-up to provide the supply. Censorship did not worked, so why you delude yourself that more of it would work any better?

As a sidenote, I think it is rather cynical to promote the view that potential victims of facism should be forced to run from the country they live in "to save lives". I hear similar "requests" from right-wing parties today.

I might sound cynical, but once shit hit the fan you only have two choices fight or flight. He was becoming more and more popular every day, so "fight" option wasn't viable.
Ultimately these who ran away, survived to fight another day. There who stayed end up in death camps.

I'd rather be cynical over people who are alive, then claim some stupid moral superiority over mass grave.


Freedom of speech at least gives you a chance to obtain the information you need.
Censorship doesn't.

[BaronVerde]

Here are several examples of how 'free speech' becomes an excuse for spreading lies. Shifting responsibility from the wrongdoers to the victims and insinuating a genocide would have happened anyway, taking responsibility away from the wrongdoers. This is a severe disrespect for the victims, and saying so is quite rightly a criminal offense in some countries. The unfounded claims also demonstrate complete ignorance of the historic situtation and the work historians have published on the matter of the Nazi genocide.

'free speech' allowing lies lives from ignorance, disinformation and prepares to sow hatred turning victims into accomplices. I hope that this has made my initial statement 'free speech' but no lies, more transparent, but am ready for reasonable corrections, ones that do not revert to unfounded claims.

Edit: I would like to add: what makes humanity grrreat and filling so many nishes in earth's biosphere is their ability to peacefully cooperate and communicate, and thus has it been for 3 million years. Intraspecies violence (which only destroys and causes suffering but solves nothing) is, from all that anthropologists know so far, a relatively new thing, comes up with sedentariness and division of work some +/-10.000 years ago. It sometimes helps to have a wider view

Says a peaceful BaronVerde.

[mr.WHO]

Here are several examples of how 'free speech' becomes an excuse for spreading lies. Shifting responsibility from the wrongdoers to the victims and insinuating a genocide would have happened anyway, taking responsibility away from the wrongdoers. This is a severe disrespect for the victims, and saying so is quite rightly a criminal offense in some countries. The unfounded claims also demonstrate complete ignorance of the historic situtation and the work historians have published on the matter of the Nazi genocide.

'free speech' allowing lies lives from ignorance, disinformation and prepares to sow hatred turning victims into accomplices. I hope that this has made my initial statement 'free speech' but no lies, more transparent, but am ready for reasonable corrections, ones that do not revert to unfounded claims.

Says a peaceful BaronVerde.

Here's the twist! Censored Speech can do and did as bad in every example you made.
There is a reason why every authoritatian regime goes against Free Speech and fancy Censored Speech every single time.

Freedom of thought and Speech is HUMAN RIGHT, there is no Freedom to be censored mentioned anywhere.

[Ketraar]

Edit: I would like to add: what makes humanity grrreat and filling so many nishes in earth's biosphere is their ability to peacefully cooperate and communicate

I must have been reading the wrong history book it seems. Most of our and the worlds history is painted in innocent people's blood and suffering. Wars for control of power, resources or just plain human stupidity are the norm. I fail to see that period where humans were all sitting at a table and discuss social norms. All the major social changes were fought for, "imposed" if you will. This notion of diplomatic debate to try and figure a way to live together without resorting to chop eachothers head is a rather new thing and as times show its not really quite there just yet.

Yep, without Hitlers ability to reach the masses with his speeches, his reign probably would not have happened.

Well if his mother wasn't born, then she could not have had him thus it might be her fault for all the WW2 suffering.

MFG

Ketraar

[BaronVerde]

It is the free speech absolutists who destroy the freeedom of speech, replacing it with lies and marginalize and criminilazite the free thinkers who depend on free flow of information. This is how they create alternatice realities, their version of 'free speech'. They shout 'free speech' but mean 'for us to replace reality with lies', like demonstrated upthread, concerning the switch of roles of wrongdoers and victims. Only if you ignore the degree of planning and organisation, even industrialization the Nazis had built to commit their genocide, you can spread that bunk.

Science, democracy, everything where people interact peacefully, depends on free flow of information. Free speech absolutism is quite the contrary because of its suppressive tendency, its replacement and creation of alternative truths or however people call the nonsense. Your totalitarian regimes work with free speech absoltism to suppress free speech, not to hold it up, that's the main mistake here.

[BaronVerde]

Edit: I would like to add: what makes humanity grrreat and filling so many nishes in earth's biosphere is their ability to peacefully cooperate and communicate

I must have been reading the wrong history book it seems. Most of our and the worlds history is painted in innocent people's blood and suffering. Wars for control of power, resources or just plain human stupidity are the norm. I fail to see that period where humans were all sitting at a table and discuss social norms. All the major social changes were fought for, "imposed" if you will. This notion of diplomatic debate to try and figure a way to live together without resorting to chop eachothers head is a rather new thing and as times show its not really quite there just yet.

You're heavily biased, which is to be avoided in science

You can't have read history books from pre-roman times (~800BC) simply because there was nobody to write, except for isolated finds in Neolithic/Bronze Age settings like Mesopotamia or Egypt, which go back to ~3500BC. First intraspecies violence findings (heavily disputed) start around +/-10.000 BC in epi-paleolithic settings in Africa, in Europe ~5500BC in the Neolithic. Humans walk the earth since ~3 million years. So, your (and mine) knowledge of history ends 2800 years before now, than starts early- and pre-history. You can extend warfare into the late neolithic and early bronze age, that would be pre-historic times and around 3,000BC, but not earlier. That's what people usually mean when they write 'history', even in pop science: ~5.000 years.

Until ~40,000 (Edit: probably much longer, but disputed) years ago different human species lived contemporaneously on earth, even in the same regions, and met, partly interbred. 3 Million years of humankind are not 'written in blood', for all we know until now. This is interesting insofar as peaceful coexistence of different contemporary human species is not only possibly, it has been the norm for most of the time (~99.8%).

That was the wider view I meant.

Edit: I am a prehistorian. Per definition: history is the time of the written word, early-history the time where others have written about cultures that didn't write themselves (e.g. late iron age, celts), pre-history is all the time before that. But I degress very far, sorry 'bout that

[mr.WHO]

It is the free speech absolutists who destroy the freeedom of speech, replacing it with lies and marginalize and criminilazite the free thinkers who depend on free flow of information. This is how they create alternatice realities, their version of 'free speech'. They shout 'free speech' but mean 'for us to replace reality with lies', like demonstrated upthread, concerning the switch of roles of wrongdoers and victims. Only if you ignore the degree of planning and organisation, even industrialization the Nazis had built to commit their genocide, you can spread that bunk.

Now I facepalm like I never before.
Give me na example of free speech absolutist who caused a major tragedy because I fail to find any.

I support right to Free Speech specifically, because Nazi and Commies do not support it. You won't defeat Nazi/Commie by becoming like them and censorship is one of the first thing they do, always.

[Imperial Good]

You can't have read history books from pre-roman times (~800BC) simply because there was nobody to write, except for isolated finds in Neolithic/Bronze Age settings like Mesopotamia or Egypt, which go back to ~3500BC. First intraspecies violence findings (heavily disputed) start around +/-10.000 BC in epi-paleolithic settings in Africa, in Europe ~5500BC in the Neolithic. Humans walk the earth since ~3 million years. So, your (and mine) knowledge of history ends 2800 years before now, than starts early- and pre-history. You can extend warfare into the late neolithic and early bronze age, that would be pre-historic times and around 3,000BC, but not earlier.

Until ~40,000 years ago different human species lived contemporaneously on earth, even in the same regions, and met. 3 Million years of humankind are not 'written in blood', for all we know until now. This is interesting insofar as peaceful coexistence of different contemporary human species is not only possibly, it has been the norm for most of the time.

Although it is not not easy or maybe even possible to get evidence of early human behaviour, we do have a good idea based on other primeapes who in many ways are similar to humans. There is no way they lived in peace with each other, and tribes likely fought, and possibly even ate, each other regularly. This mirrors human behaviour from recent pre-history where there is clear evidence of conflict and also in written history times where there was always conflict. Even humans eating other humans in more recent times is well documented.

I also think it was US Supreme Court that confirmed that Hate Speech is also protected under Free Speech.

However hate speech is a crime in most countries, even democratic countries like those in Europe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_spee ... ed_Kingdom

I support right to Free Speech specifically, because Nazi and Commies do not support it. You won't defeat Nazi/Commie by becoming like them and censorship is one of the first thing they do, always.

Such movements also use freedom of speech to gain ground and followers, fuelling them and allowing them to start. If they were crushed early on or prevented from growing they would never get beyond a few deranged extremists.

[BaronVerde]

Although it is not not easy or maybe even possible to get evidence of early human behaviour, we do have a good idea based on other primeapes who in many ways are similar to humans. There is no way they lived in peace with each other, and tribes likely fought, and possibly even ate, each other regularly. This mirrors human behaviour from recent pre-history where there is clear evidence of conflict and also in written history times where there was always conflict. Even humans eating other humans in more recent times is well documented.

Science needs more than opinions and analogies, You can, of course, believe that, even hypothesize, but there is no proof, and scientists need proof to ascertain something. Even inside a species behaviour can change, domestication process shows that. Yes, we know quite a lot about pre-historic groups. No, there is no sign that they killed and ate each other before the time I mentioned above, though some have tried to infer that from cutmarks on bones (two papers on Neandertals re-interpreting findings that are generally seen as examples of care for the disabled (La Chapelle aux Saints) and burial rites (Shanidar)). The oldest though disputed evidence of violence is a site called Nataruk in West-Turkana, dating to ~10,000BP, but taphonomy (how the depositions came to be), interpretation of the time of the damage to the bones (post or pre-mortem), and the dating of the find site are disputed (links on reqeust).

Pls. name the conflict you're speaking of, underlain with a peer reviewed publication, otherwise it didn't happen.

[Ketraar]

Such movements also use freedom of speech to gain ground and followers, fuelling them and allowing them to start. If they were crushed early on or prevented from growing they would never get beyond a few deranged extremists.

Yes sure but no one is forced to listen. I fail to understand the logic here. Some one says something and people suddenly start doing things because they were told to? How on earth has that ever worked? Also why is anyone using Hitler's speeches as example? MLK made many speeches and why didnt the US stopped to be racist then? Mandela made many great speeches, so South Africa must be a democratic utopia for sure.

People are responsible for their own actions and decision, claiming "some one told me" is hardly a valid excuse, therefore its rather logic to conclude that speech on its own does nothing. Even todays populists only get any attention at all because they are saying things some people are already thinking, hence the term populist. I'd argue that censoring speech has no real effect in persuading people to just be nice. People have desires and frustrations, and today more then at any time in history, its easy to find some one saying the things you are thinking all the time and if there are others it must be true. The solution to this is MORE and BETTER speech, along to social and economical reforms that have people not despair. There will always be those that abuse the freedoms we install and twist them for their own gain and we already have given up on some freedoms to try and hinder those people, but at some point we may consider that its better to live in a less safer society and risk have people abuse it then to just forfeit the freedoms altogether.

We are in a changing time and we will have to figure out how we shape our societies, especially to integrate technologies and how they impact our lives. This will not be done over night and it wont be right at the firs try, but we should really work hard to have the "remove freedoms" bit as the very last option and not just go for it cause it makes us feel better faster.

MFG

Ketraar

[BaronVerde]

Yes sure but no one is forced to listen. I fail to understand the logic here. [...]

Sure, an open and independent mind won't listen.

Yep, it works, people are turned into living bombs, sacrifice themselves, become martyrs because one guru has told them to, has radicalized them, named the enemy, the place and the time. Even if it is not an excuse (with which I strongly agree) for a grown-up, it happens every day. Sadly. Some even travel far and willingly go into 'boot camps' to become a terrorist, take their children with them, submit to a leader. Terroristic tourism or touristic terrorism

And not just martyrs, people fed on lies about stolen elections, ethnic groups, skull forms, even such esotheric things as 'does not believe in (or does) the flying spaghetti monster (replace with random enemy) and deserves to die'. Maybe a bit mor subtle. And all hail the flying spaghetti monster, ramen !

[Mailo]

Here's the twist! Censored Speech can do and did as bad in every example you made.
There is a reason why every authoritatian regime goes against Free Speech and fancy Censored Speech every single time.

Freedom of thought and Speech is HUMAN RIGHT, there is no Freedom to be censored mentioned anywhere.

You do realise not everything is black or white, there are different shades in between? Not everything that is used in an authoritan regime must automatically be rejected. I'm pretty sure authoritan regimes pass laws, do you now reject every law?
You are absolutely right, freedom of thought and speech is a human right, so is freedom from persecution. These two sometimes come in conflict. Poland for example states that blasphemy does not fall under freedom of speech.

Yep, without Hitlers ability to reach the masses with his speeches, his reign probably would not have happened.

Well if his mother wasn't born, then she could not have had him thus it might be her fault for all the WW2 suffering.

MFG

Ketraar

I'm pretty sure the number of people who have a mother that was born, and the number of people who held hundreds of speeches in front of millions of people riling them up against Non-Aryan in general and Jews in particular might not be quite equal, so possibly this is not the best comparison.

Such movements also use freedom of speech to gain ground and followers, fuelling them and allowing them to start. If they were crushed early on or prevented from growing they would never get beyond a few deranged extremists.

Yes sure but no one is forced to listen. I fail to understand the logic here. Some one says something and people suddenly start doing things because they were told to? How on earth has that ever worked? Also why is anyone using Hitler's speeches as example? MLK made many speeches and why didnt the US stopped to be racist then? Mandela made many great speeches, so South Africa must be a democratic utopia for sure.

Well, if you put two speakers of similar capability in front of crowds, and one spreads a message of "You need to change so that everyone can get along", and the other one one of "You are perfect just as you are, it is all those guys fault, go get them" ... people tend to go and grab pitch forks and torches.
The logic is that history showed that large crowds can and do fall for capable orators spreading messages of hate, over and over again. Followed by atrocities these same people would have found abhorrent a year before.

[Ketraar]

Well, if you put two speakers of similar capability in front of crowds, and one spreads a message of "You need to change so that everyone can get along", and the other one one of "You are perfect just as you are, it is all those guys fault, go get them" ... people tend to go and grab pitch forks and torches.
The logic is that history showed that large crowds can and do fall for capable orators spreading messages of hate, over and over again. Followed by atrocities these same people would have found abhorrent a year before.

Yes I agree, but the people are the problem not the fact that some one was allowed to say it. The argument is not, are people idiots and mostly behave on instinct even if they can manipulate a microwave? The answer to that is, yes. The question here is, where do you draw the line of when, who or what is ALLOWED to be said, who defines that line and is it sensible to even have such a line.

Anything anyone can say has the potential to hurt some ones feelings, inspire some one to invent the cure to cancer or join a suicide cult, in some cases this is true for all with the same speech. At the end of the day its just speech, words. You cant physically harm anyone with words, it will always require some one to perform an action for words to have consequences and this is why allowing the most speech as possible is key to a democratic society, INCLUDING some hate speech, some idiotic speech and the likes. It doesnt mean there should be no consequences from the speech, in some cases even legal ones (but very limited). But pre-emptive trying to silence groups WILL NOT solve anything, in fact all it does is push these groups to the "underground" and unless all people care is to not be bothered, this is the last thing anyone should want.

MFG

Ketraar

[clakclak]

Such movements also use freedom of speech to gain ground and followers, fuelling them and allowing them to start. If they were crushed early on or prevented from growing they would never get beyond a few deranged extremists.

Yes sure but no one is forced to listen. I fail to understand the logic here. Some one says something and people suddenly start doing things because they were told to? How on earth has that ever worked? Also why is anyone using Hitler's speeches as example? MLK made many speeches and why didnt the US stopped to be racist then? Mandela made many great speeches, so South Africa must be a democratic utopia for sure.
[...]

Easy answer, I used Hitler's speech as an example because Who said that if Hitler had been more blunt in speeches and spoken more freely, then fewer jewish people would have been murdered in the Shoah. I used an example from Hitler's speech to show that they got murdered despite him being very blunt and free in his speech.

[BaronVerde]

Language is coupled with human evolution and cognitive development. Saying "it doesn't do harm" goes too short. The pen (or microphone) is mightier than a sword.

It can indeed quite materially harm, or heal.:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... th-health/
https://www.jospt.org/doi/abs/10.2519/jospt.2018.0610
Miscommunication:
https://telelanguage.com/patient-safety ... ient-harm/
Different cultural backgrounds (Also for @Imperial_Good as an example that different cultural context may have different views e.g. on violence, and the implication that can have on pre-historic groups and the way they solve their aggresions in and among the groups without killing potentially for survival needed group members):
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog ... y-we-think

Not speaking of conditioning or going through processes of mental and physical development triggered by language, and language quite obviously shaping the way we think.

(Those were just random links, something more sciency would serve my case better, but it would be too time consuming now)

[clakclak]

Language is coupled with human evolution and cognitive development. Saying "it doesn't do harm" goes too short.

It can indeed quite materially harm, or heal.:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... th-health/
https://www.jospt.org/doi/abs/10.2519/jospt.2018.0610
Miscommunication:
https://telelanguage.com/patient-safety ... ient-harm/
Different cultural backgrounds (Also for @Imperial_Good as an example that different cultural context may have different views e.g. on violence, and the implication that can have on pre-historic groups and the way they solve their aggresions in and among the groups without killing potentially for survival needed group members):
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog ... y-we-think

Not speaking of conditioning or going through processes of mental and physical development triggered by language, and language shaping the way we think.

While this scientific approach is obviously interesting and important, the fact that speech can harm and shape the way we behave is self evident to most humans.

Those of us that where in the army probably can tell a bit about what it feels like to be screamed at. The goal (in the armies that do scream at you) is to condition soldiers to follow a certain behaviour.

Those of us that got bullied can attest to speech hurting even if it isn't in a physical way, then in a mental way.

Those of us that have faced discrimination, be it sexisim, racism, ableism or any other form, can attest to speech leading to a feeling of alienation and frustration.

And everyone of us knows the feeling of anger that comes from hearing something and vehemently opposing what is being said.

Speech is the very essence of human communication.

Books, speeches and poems can inspire us to do great things or commit terrible crimes. Yes, "you cant physically harm anyone with words" directly, but that sentiment fails to acknowladge is the fact that words CAN do harm one way or another.

[BaronVerde]

@Clakclak, fully ack. Our two posts where interleaved, sotosay, I believe I was reacting to the same phrase "speech does not harm" than you were, it does, much worse than any thermonuclear warhead.

It goes even farther, groups can develop language (among other behaviour) to avoid and solve conflicts, for instance when every group member is needed and a conflict would likely endanger the whole group. That insight comes from early and mid twentieth century anthropologists who worked among hunter/gatherer or forager tribes, circumpolar Inuit and African groups mainly. Then we possibly enter the mental realm of ice age hunter gatherers and have a potential explanation of why there's no clear sign of violence among them, yet (@Imperial Good).