Free Speech and Censorship
Censorship, as defined by the encyclopedia Britannica, is as follows: it is the changing or the suppression or prohibition of speech or writing that is deemed subversive of the common good. Furthermore, it occurs in all manifestations of authority to some degree, but in modern times it has been of special importance in its relation to government and the rule of law.
This definition might seem a little presumptuous; suppression of speech occurs even not in the context of furthering a good - or perhaps, as I will argue - suppression rarely furthers a good, except in the most extreme cases.
Noam Chomsky once said the following: “Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re really in favor of free speech, then you’re in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of free speech.”
This is absolutism; either one is for it, or one is against it - there is no middle ground. Yes, maybe you should not be allowed to yell “fire!” in a movie theater, but that is an action that will cause people to get hurt and in which no ideas are being imparted. Thus, it shouldn’t be protected. I would argue that any speech, no matter how odious, should be permitted if it is both meaningful and not a clear and direct incitement to violence. Even impassioned speech, which might cause violence depending upon how it is interpreted, should be allowed imo because one cannot account for every single interpretation and action taken by those listening or reading; some people are just angry, idiotic, mentally ill, etc.
Of course if someone wants to just post absurdist memes or something that should also be protected, but I feel like the meaningfulness test can eliminate a little bit of problematic speech. Other things, like death threats, are indeed meaningful but shouldn’t be allowed, obviously. With regards to impassioned speech: it occurs on both the right and left, but as far as I can tell it more often results in violence when coming from the right (probably because the right is generally more authoritarian, and authoritarians have fewer issues with using political violence).
So what of the censorship going on today? What about Trump, for instance? As the ACLU notes, sometimes the speech of those in power “can reveal intent or uncover the meaning of policies in ways that matter for voters and courts alike.” A collection of Trump’s tweets with regards to the Muslim travel ban can be found here, a series of statements which contributed to the striking down of said travel ban. As ridiculous and xenophobic as the statements were, they provided a clear and consistent picture of Trump’s agenda. Thus, for the sake of making the intentions and positions of politicians clear, the speech of politicians should have robust protections.
Furthermore, do we really want to see the views we disagree with fester? No - the solution is more constructive or corrective speech. Wherever there are Nazi marches there should be counter protestors. Wherever someone makes a claim considered controversial but still valid, they should be given protections. Any progressive worth their salt would agree with this (even though progressive policies, such as Medicare for all and a living wage, are overwhelmingly popular). To the lefties in favor of suppression of speech: what if it gets turned around on you? What will save you from the censorious beast once it gets a taste for blood? Your unimpeachable orthodoxy? Human progress is slow enough - we don’t need to be silencing each other.
As for an argument that I dredged up from another thread saying that censorship is necessary because humans in our current state are not perfectly rational: Where does it end? Should we have a tiered society in which only the super-rational, trained philosophers are allowed to vote on the things that matter? Should we have prepackaged, government-created news pamphlets delivered to the less-than super-rational class via the postal system?
That would be a crappy society because if you do enough reading on something, even if you are of subpar intelligence and not perfectly rational, you can almost always get to the bottom of it. And if you can’t you can just defer judgement. It’s that simple.
I would love to read some objections.
This definition might seem a little presumptuous; suppression of speech occurs even not in the context of furthering a good - or perhaps, as I will argue - suppression rarely furthers a good, except in the most extreme cases.
Noam Chomsky once said the following: “Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re really in favor of free speech, then you’re in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of free speech.”
This is absolutism; either one is for it, or one is against it - there is no middle ground. Yes, maybe you should not be allowed to yell “fire!” in a movie theater, but that is an action that will cause people to get hurt and in which no ideas are being imparted. Thus, it shouldn’t be protected. I would argue that any speech, no matter how odious, should be permitted if it is both meaningful and not a clear and direct incitement to violence. Even impassioned speech, which might cause violence depending upon how it is interpreted, should be allowed imo because one cannot account for every single interpretation and action taken by those listening or reading; some people are just angry, idiotic, mentally ill, etc.
Of course if someone wants to just post absurdist memes or something that should also be protected, but I feel like the meaningfulness test can eliminate a little bit of problematic speech. Other things, like death threats, are indeed meaningful but shouldn’t be allowed, obviously. With regards to impassioned speech: it occurs on both the right and left, but as far as I can tell it more often results in violence when coming from the right (probably because the right is generally more authoritarian, and authoritarians have fewer issues with using political violence).
So what of the censorship going on today? What about Trump, for instance? As the ACLU notes, sometimes the speech of those in power “can reveal intent or uncover the meaning of policies in ways that matter for voters and courts alike.” A collection of Trump’s tweets with regards to the Muslim travel ban can be found here, a series of statements which contributed to the striking down of said travel ban. As ridiculous and xenophobic as the statements were, they provided a clear and consistent picture of Trump’s agenda. Thus, for the sake of making the intentions and positions of politicians clear, the speech of politicians should have robust protections.
Furthermore, do we really want to see the views we disagree with fester? No - the solution is more constructive or corrective speech. Wherever there are Nazi marches there should be counter protestors. Wherever someone makes a claim considered controversial but still valid, they should be given protections. Any progressive worth their salt would agree with this (even though progressive policies, such as Medicare for all and a living wage, are overwhelmingly popular). To the lefties in favor of suppression of speech: what if it gets turned around on you? What will save you from the censorious beast once it gets a taste for blood? Your unimpeachable orthodoxy? Human progress is slow enough - we don’t need to be silencing each other.
As for an argument that I dredged up from another thread saying that censorship is necessary because humans in our current state are not perfectly rational: Where does it end? Should we have a tiered society in which only the super-rational, trained philosophers are allowed to vote on the things that matter? Should we have prepackaged, government-created news pamphlets delivered to the less-than super-rational class via the postal system?
That would be a crappy society because if you do enough reading on something, even if you are of subpar intelligence and not perfectly rational, you can almost always get to the bottom of it. And if you can’t you can just defer judgement. It’s that simple.
I would love to read some objections.
Comments (119)
Everyone agrees that free speech should have some limits, the one which is pertinent here is the exception of violence and oppression. Perhaps this is best defined as a disagreement between enlightenment principles and postmodernism. Free speech is used by those in power as a means of oppressing minority groups, basically, the free speech of some leads to the oppression of others. Postmodernism says that rather than our rationality being imperfect, it's a product of our race/gender/wealth and our rationality just reinforces convenient logic. So Trump talking about banning Muslims is a rich, white, powerful male using his free speech to oppress and disadvantage Muslim minorities. To protect these minorities, a valid response might be censorship, which's far easier than alternatives and if oppression is occurring then the stakes are arguably high enough to go to such measures. Violence could be redefined as causing damage, which speech can do, violent speech can be argued to be censored.
Violent speech…one can scan the annals of medicine and not find a single case of anyone being injured by words. This is because violence is caused by certain human actions, and the act of speaking is not one of them.
“Violent speech” fits neatly into a more accurate category of speech, which is speech the censor does not like. History is replete with such magical claims against speech, used as they were in order to justify censorship. Speech “corrupts the youth” as in the trial of Socrates. Making contrary world-views explicit leads to “disorder and mischief” against the one true faith, as in the inquisition of Galileo. Nowadays laws teach us that others can be “incited”, encouraged, roused into various fits of immorality—hatred, discrimination, lawless action—by speech.
But is this true? Is the mere possibility, essentially a fantasy, of the corruption of Athenian youth a good enough reason to silence the expressions and life of a philosopher, and thereby deny posterity the insights he may have imparted otherwise?
The overestimation of the power of speech is a sin, as is the censorship applied in its name, and the untold casualties thrown to the noose and stake testify that censorship is where the violence always lies.
I always thought if one only wanted to hear one's own opinions...find a mirror.
Quoting Judaka
But others in power can use their own speech to defend against the slander and oppression, can they not? Just because one might be able to use free speech as a lever to impel some to treat Muslims poorly doesn't mean that said person needs to be silenced. If anything the statements Trump made on the travel ban, for instance, helped reveal just how xenophobic he is, and caused many to become even more obstinate in their opposition of his agenda.
With someone like Trump you just have to give him enough rope to hang himself, so to speak.
Quoting Judaka
But surely rationality can help us select between different logics, too? Maybe we can start from a neutral point and come to some conclusions that are not influenced by our wealth/identity?
There are definitely a number of people who disagree with me on this one.
The choices are, it's a classic dilemma (lose-lose), either let bad people speak (free speech) or stop good people from speaking (censorship). Like Protagoras did long ago in ancient Greece, we can offer a counter, more agreeable dilemma (win-win), either let good people speak (free speech) or stop bad people from speaking (censorship). It appears all that's needed is to change one's point of view and all is well...that ends well!
Trust me, I know how odious speech can get - I deal with odious speech on a regular basis. And yes, even the Westboro Baptists should be allowed to spew their bile.
Quoting tim wood
I think that it is obvious when one is calling for violence, and if it is ambiguous it can be decided by the courts. If it matters enough then it can go to the supreme court.
Killer Mike said he wanted to see the world burn down in the aftermath of George Floyd's death. That might be considered incitement, but he also clearly said prior to that not to burn down one's own house but rather to mobilize and use one's voting power, to fortify it. And it was obviously straight from the heart.
Now should Killer Mike be arrested? Of course not, he would have to be taken out of context for it to even seem like incitement. But if one were to isolate that statement it might seem as much an incitement as some of Trump's tweets. As long as it isn't something like "overturn a democratic election via political violence" or "go and burn down your neighborhood drug store" it isn't incitement, and it is pretty clear when it is.
Quoting tim wood
No doubt. And great reference btw.
I wouldn't put it in terms of good and bad people, but rather good and bad speech. Everyone is capable of sifting through the news and ascertaining the truth of an issue unless they are willfully misinforming themselves (I know someone who is smart that is determined to read and regurgitate fake news like it's going out of style).
Now that I think about it, there really isn't even good or bad speech. It's more like that all speech should be allowed but only some of it advances human progress and understanding, but often times this "good" speech comes from the minority with less power over institutions and popular opinion. Thus the importance of free speech; hopefully people will recognize it when someone is speaking truth.
I also suppose, like Judaka said, free speech becomes a lever by which the rich and powerful can oppress minorities. But so what? The only way to battle such a thing is by correcting it with more speech; censoring the powerful would never be acceptable due to the inherent power dynamics in the US; the billionaires and executives and CEO's hold most of the power, and would turn the censorship around on the less powerful once the threshold has been crossed. I think that this is likely one of the only valid slippery slope arguments around.
We can't have people living their lives in fear, can we? It can be traumatic for someone to get doxed and have their life threatened. It directly causes undue suffering and doesn't constitute the imparting of any ideas, so I wouldn't want to see something like that protected.
Quoting tim wood
A noise complaint is valid, but I don't think it should matter that it's on a Sunday. But yes, I think the Westboro Baptists should pretty much be able to speak wherever and whenever - even if it might turn out to be dangerous for them. They should be warned, but they can make their own decisions. They're adults.
Well that's fine. Suppression is censorship when it serves the common good. But I'd also dispute the "of the common good" since that could cast mere censorship as broader suppression when in the defense of minorities, for instance.
Quoting ToothyMaw
Much hate speech is not clear and direct incitement: it is rabble-rousing against a particular person or subset of people. Another poster here recently pointed me in the direction of an anti-trans website dedicated to giving the impression that trans = criminal, and not caring too much for facts in its efforts. it's not outright calling for violence against the trans community, but it's certainly doing its utmost to generate that sort of hatred.
There are also other ways of hurting people than physical violence. I don't think protecting speech that would encourage, say, distrust in the Irish work ethic is to be encouraged.
Quoting ToothyMaw
It does, of course. I've been censored often. And to not be hypocritical, one has to check one's own behaviour against that one claims to endorse or censure. But that's just not being a douchebag. Someone like Trump, who persecutes and vilifies anyone who disagrees with him while going out of his way to harm others with his free speech, is a hypocrite and a douchebag.
Reciprocity is key. What you should and shouldn't say isn't an objective set of rules, it's consensual politics: I don't want my feelings hurt and I don't want to hurt yours. And it mostly works. The problem is the people who don't want their feelings hurt but want to hurt your feelings, and have an inconstant relationship with censorship as a result.
The way I understand it is that it's more so that censorship is suppression of speech/ideas considered objectionable, harmful, etc. The intentions behind such suppression can be both in the service of a greater good or not so much. Suppression of speech on the basis of protecting minorities would count as suppression serving a greater good - at least for those in favor of it. Thus it would be censorship. Those opposed to it might argue that it doesn't serve what they consider to be a greater good. Thus they might not see it as censorship, but rather unjust suppression. Sorry if that's a little pedantic. I think we mostly agree.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Yeah, I know. I think hate speech should be allowed, along with things like Holocaust denial.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Once more, something like that needs to be countered, and censorship is the worst way to go about it. Banning it just adds to its draw and validates purveyors of hate; "Our views are true and they can't tolerate it - they have to censor us". Such things are just pushed underground, while keeping it in the open allows it to be addressed.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
You will find only agreement here. The guy is the worst criminal to come about in a long time.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
I personally have little regard for people's feelings - and maybe that is a fault - but I also have little in terms of feelings to be hurt. So, overall, hurt feelings is a pretty crappy reason for censorship, imo. But the hypocrisy you describe is definitely real.
Someone is going to jump in and call me a shitty philosopher or something now to be clever.
In my view there are several reasons for this:
a) Modern technology has created a situation were there aren't the old limits to public speech, but also tech has created new methods for censorship, surveillance and propaganda.
b) After the Cold War ended, terrorism was put on the pedestal as it never had been. The successful 9/11 attacks created a pro-security environment which changed just what was tolerated. The security-apparatus in all countries were enlarged.
c) Just what is considered "racist", "fascist", "communist", "hate speech" etc has changed, which has moved the Overton window. Because not much new has been invented to describe the present, the solution then has been to beat the old horses by redefining just what is harmful speech.
d) The two political parties in the US enjoy the "culture war", which has the effect that any topic that the two party system takes into focus becomes politicized. Because of the dominance of the US media in the Western World, these issues are copy-pasted everywhere instantly.
Ok, so death threats shouldn’t be allowed because they cause fear? So does yelling “spider” around my wife, who’s a legitimate arachnophobic. I agree about certain speech being traumatic, but the issue is where to draw the line. I’m sure whenever the president declares war it’s very traumatic for whom ever it is we’re about to start bombing. So when is it ok to induce fear/harm through speech? I’m sure you’re answer will be something like “whenever it imparts an idea.” But I think all speech communicates something, that is it’s purpose. Death threats communicate that I want you dead. Isn’t that an idea? It’s at least a thought, and why would communicating thoughts be any less worthwhile than communicating ideas?
Absolutely true. Mark Zuckerberg proclaimed that social media platforms would allow the common person the ability to be heard unlike ever before; it would be a "fifth estate". In this case that appeared not to be true. While the case I linked has more to do with the school's infringement on the cheerleader's first amendment rights, it is relevant because the average person can create content and distribute it like never before with social media - but there is often times a cost, be it at the hands of a mob or a censorious school district.
Yeah, I'm having trouble with this one. Maybe death threats should be allowed some of the time. And all speech communicates meaning, yes. I would say, with regard to the president threatening to bomb a country or a people for no good reason: that just sounds like a terrorist threat, and so by our own laws said president is a terrorist and should be tried.
I suppose one could say that death threats inspire terror more than most things, and thus is different from abusing one's wife. If one person is issued death threats then others may begin to fear the same fate.
Precisely: it's contingent.
Quoting ToothyMaw
That's fine,I was also being pedantic :)
Quoting ToothyMaw
What about other acts of harm that involve speech? Lying, slander, etc. There's a Venn intersection between acts of speech and acts of harm, and I see nothing about speech that exempts it.
Quoting ToothyMaw
I don't really buy that leaving a website running that promotes hate of oppressed minorities is less harmful than removing it. I've heard this argument many times, but experiment, measurement, can and has put it to the test. Social media is proof positive that platforming vile crap just makes more suckers that believe it.
Quoting ToothyMaw
Substitute for "ass kicked", "rights removed", "opportunities limited" or all the other aims of hate speech.
Why?
Since the emergence of the idea of "Free Speech", the limits and the abuse of this right has been debated and thought about. It's shouldn't come as something new. We have been able to decide where we draw the line, times and the society just change. A good rule of thumb is to use "common sense". And that "common sense" naturally tells something about the existing society we live in and it's norms at a certain time. In my view to seek an irrefutable and timeless guideline to all present and future societies is simply futile and plain silly.
The question isn't whether one "needs" to be silenced, it's about whether there's sufficient justification and motivation for silencing. It's not about silencing people who think differently, it's about viewing speech as a vehicle for power. The consequences of that power can't be corrected so easily, it's not as though opposing views cancel each other out. Each person who stops to think, whether unfavourable treatment of a minority is justified and decides it is, is likely going to be worse now having done that than if they hadn't had the opportunity.
Defending free speech as a principle sounds nice but what is actually being defended? There are consequences on both sides of the issue and it's an evolving issue because technology evolves and changes the game. You use slippery slope fallacies to defend a hardline stance which doesn't actually make much sense. This idea of "festering" makes little sense. When a view is given a platform, even if only 1% of people agree with the message, that's just a numbers game. Reach enough people and 1% is a lot, views which don't recruit new members, wither and die.
There is only really a single problem I recognise which is "who decides what speech is harmful" and that is a very serious problem. Many posters here, who I agree with a lot, I would never want to trust to make this decision. There are some truly disagreeable ideas out there on what constitutes racism, sexism, anti-trans and anti-Islam and how these things (their interpretation of them) can never be appropriate. Postmodernism in general has a view valid points but is overall highly disagreeable to me. But I think that's where the discussion should be, to figure out what speech can be limited to protect the vulnerable, without tearing apart our ability to criticise political, cultural and social trends and decisions in a way that is too broad.
But in this case I think the slippery slope arguments are valid. Consider a left wing nationalist. Such views exist but are really not all that common. This potential radical is about as left of center as a radical libertarian is right of center - and both views could be prone to censorship if we left such decisions to the social media company executives/politicians. I think left-wing nationalism is actually potentially not that bad, whereas radical libertarianism is ridiculous; these two views are not equally valid but are equally dangerous to the establishment. So yes, I agree - the main issue is who is to decide what is harmful speech. And the speech that will go first is the speech that is critical of the establishment.
And if it is limited then it isn't even free speech anymore. I agree - there are downsides to the absolutist position - but limiting speech deemed offensive/harmful is just too risky imo.
I was specifically referring to death threats. I don't quite know what I think about them yet (other than that they are horrible).
When did I say I was aiming to do that? I am just trying to start a discussion, if only to see where people's "common sense" lies.
Studies?
Who would you trust?
Free speech is crucial for fostering a well informed electorate, but it has proven to also be pivotal in creating the conditions for a large portion of the population to be deliberately mislead about several keystones of the American system... free and fair elections, easy access to exercise voting rights, and the peaceful transition of power.
Jan. 6, and the circumstances surrounding it, is not good reason to silence free speech. It is more than adequate reason to punish those who've defrauded the American electorate by convincing so many to believe known lies and falsehoods to the extent that they believed it was necessary to stop the peaceful transfer of power by any means.
The free speech of such leaders perhaps ought not be looked at as good reason to silence dissent, but rather as a prima facie example of what domestic enemies of America look like and punish them accordingly, even given that they were/are elected officials. They were, and have continued to be complicit in an erosion of trust in the government that has it's only precedent in how blacks, minorities, and recently poor whites view the government. The latter was and remains well founded belief. The former(Jan. 6) was ginned up by the likes of Trump and all those who did not act to remove him and/or fight against him during the time he was promoting all the distrust while taking actions to impede the success of the last election simultaneuosly.
Free speech, much like anything really, is just a convenient name, which if we weren't being lazy, should actually be broken down into a multitude of contexts and circumstances. A student at school doesn't have free speech, one will be punished for expressing certain opinions but this is necessary for maintaining order and protecting students. Even here, you're talking about censorship with private businesses in social media but private spheres such as this very forum, actually do have the right to police the types of speech allowed on their platform. Your positions sound nobler than they are, really, free speech isn't free anymore if it's restricted? Then there's nothing for you to protect, no such free speech exists.
Your only problem is that private businesses have so much influence now, such as Twitter actually being in a position to seriously restrict a president's ability to communicate directly to the public. You worry over private businesses ability to censor on their platforms, that is your main concern, correct? Not only this but also people being disincentivised to speak by being barraged by others (or seeing this happen) on social media and the consequences of these activities, right? I think you see yourself as defending the status quo but you're actually calling for reform and don't realise it. Isn't it your duty to tell us how things should be reformed or at least state what you're trying to change? You actually want more rules, more policing of speech and more policing of business practices but instead, you talk about slippery slopes like you are protesting such things. Your position is confused because you do not call for reform but maintenance of a status quo that doesn't exist nor solves any of the problems causing your concern.
Quoting ToothyMaw
Probably the most important aspects of free speech and where it's generally wrongly restricted; is the ability for one to criticise those with power and secondly, to criticise social, cultural, religious institutions and practices. To be able to express oneself freely is something we all value but it's also essential for the survival of democracy and to allow people to shine a light on problems that people without free speech, aren't able to. That is why I find some definitions of sexism and racism to be too broad, as to be ideological, and to curtail one from criticising the government freely. I don't believe logic should be censored for the sake of promoting the "correct" way of thinking, which is indoctrination. I don't believe one's offence or interpretation should serve as an objective measure for what shouldn't be allowed to be said. But who makes these decisions? There are many contexts that call for restrictions on speech, mainly because maintaining order depends on it in contexts such as classrooms and workplaces and now many online spaces such as this one. Generally, we gave freedom to teachers, bosses, moderators to make these kinds of decisions and the kinds of decisions they made and what decisions are considered acceptable to make has evolved with the times. Now on social media, corporations such as Facebook and Twitter, moderate with such power that it can affect the entire democratic system. Thus, this freedom has become a new kind of potential tyranny, where such corporations can restrict speech on their platforms, which are monopolies with virtually no alternatives. And the second problem is that through social media, unpopular opinions can cost people through damage to reputation, their jobs, safety, mental wellbeing and so on. This is free speech magnified to the extent that it harms people. Neither of these problems has simple solutions.
For the first one, probably these tech giants need government oversight and specially crafted laws which name them because they are too big to be left alone but I don't know the specifics of how this might look. For the second, I have no idea, I don't know if there is a solution, maybe but I can't think of one. And as for what kind of censorship I would like, I no longer feel that this is worth discussing in your thread, you have enough to deal with as it is.
This exclusively academic right to freedom of speech however soon devolved into a general such right, applicable to any citizen, and the reason for this lies in the very notion of the Enlightenment: the life lived according to reason, Socrates’ ideal, had now come within the grasp of everyman: once the LIGHT of reason has been shone on human life for every man to see the truth, he will unqualifiedly choose light over darkness, truth over falsehood, reason over unreason...
This modification for the plebs of the life lived according to reason was, of course, quite different from that of the original philosophers. It hinged on calculation of material self-interest as opposed to the purely philosophical one of obedience to, or love of the discovery of, nature—which sometimes conduced to actions contrary to self-interest. One need only consider Archimedes’ ignorance of the invading Roman army at Syracuse, or Thales’ failure to realize he was about to step into a well as he absentmindedly contemplated the heavenly bodies, or Allan Bloom putting the lit-end of his cigarette to his lips while engrossed in a discussion.
At any rate, once the scientists and commoners had become allies against altar and throne, the former could not, in principle, deny the latter any of their own rights, and this lead to the citizenry daring to express whatever opinion they will against their leaders and their country’s and religion’s most sacred opinions or symbols: one could now either burn the American flag in protest of the Vietnam War, or declare he was more popular than Jesus ever was, as John Lennon did, or immerse a crucifix in a vat of his own urine and name it Piss Christ, or drive a pickup truck up and down the road in SW Virginia flying a flag that reads, “FUCK BIDEN: and fuck you if you voted for him”, with impunity.
Let us now return now to the ancients, to the Socrateses, Archimedeses and Thaleses of antiquity, who pursued the truth according to reason for their own personal satisfaction: had they foreseen these consequences of an Enlightenment, what do you think they would have thought?
That's awfully impractical, at the very least. To have one's time and efforts commanded by other people like that??!
"Freedom of speech" is a dud anyway. We have free speech, there is no demon or angel on our shoulders making us say or withold this or that. What we don't have is freedom from the consequences of what we say. And there are always at least informal consequences. When people don't like what you have to say, they will retaliate in one way or another, whether by firing you from your job or by spreading mean gossip about you that can destroy your reputation. Either way, you'll suffer the consequences of what you're saying and other people not liking it.
The problem is conferring power to speech is much like conferring power to kings; the only power they have is what society gives them. Speech possesses no actual, physical power, insofar it lacks the capacity to transfer more energy than any other sound from the mouth. Yet there are people who believe speech has consequences beyond the expelling of breath, that it can oppress minorities, injure or influence the weak, or lead to varying fits of societal disorder. This may be the most ubiquitous superstition of man.
To confer power to some articulated sounds but not to others is magical thinking and folk psychology at best, but at worst a kind of sophistry used to justify censorship. It is why censorship is the handmaiden of injustice, ever-erecting a false cause (speech) while continually absolving the actual ones (actions).
It is simply untrue that words possess any power over that of man. After all, he is the creator of them. So we should work to dispel that myth, defang speech, remind people of their power over and above that of words and opinions, and free ourselves from our most deep-seeded superstitions.
Interesting example... last I checked, Warhol's exhibit had been banned for exactly that piece. In Cincinnati anyway. Not exactly impugnity, but not exactly banned either...
It's not the 'conferring' of power to speech that is the problem Nos. Speech has power. We all know this. That's why we use it. That's why you're here using it as well. As a means to convince others that speech has no power(if by that I mean the abillity to influence subsequent thought, belief, and behaviour). Your stance here is untenable. If you believed that speech has no power, then you would not be using it as a means to convince others that it has no power.
Quoting NOS4A2
It does not follow from the fact that man created something that that something does not have the ability to influence man's thought, belief, and behaviour. Your reasoning here contradicts your actions. I think it's called a performative contradiction...
If you believe that words have no power, then what sense does it make for you to use them as a means for convincing others of that idea?
To use the idea of promoting diversity and inclusiveness as a means to suppress discussions and expressions of dissenting and/or oppositional ideas/thoughts in order to promote more conservative(politically speaking) ideas and discussions is disgusting.
I don’t use them as a means of convincing others. I use them as a means of expression, of creativity, to communicate my thoughts and to manifest my thinking. It’s not up to me whether you agree or not, and it’s clear that despite the power you confer to speech, my speech lacks the power to alter you in any way. So the performative contradiction is yours.
But if you want to test your theory I submit myself as your willing subject. Oppress me, injure me, exert your power, do what you will.
Nah, Nos, you're full of shit.
You claim words have no power. Then you use them because they do, in fact, have the power to...
Quoting NOS4A2
The ability to express is a power. The ability to communicate is, once again, a power. The ability to manifest thought is, yet again, a power...
Your speech says more about you than it does about me. Your evasions and ridicule reveal to me all I need to know about the contents of your mind and methods of thinking and speaking. So much for power.
We have a lot of abilities, but moving human beings against their will with speech isn’t one of them. But again, I’d love to see you try. Until then…
Saying something is also a power. Moving the goalposts is yet another. You're doing both... with speech.
I’ve never said we don’t have the ability to speak. You said speech has power; now you’re saying we we have the ability to speak. You never had any goal posts to begin with.
This doesn't help your case Nos. Now you're just muddying the waters with irrelevant gibberish, false accusations, misinformation, and demonstrably false accounts of our conversation...
...and you're doing all that, once again, with the power of speech.
I suspect you’re so tied up in your own equivocations and proofs by assertion that this is all you could come up with. A shame. I almost hoped to see some power here but could only find the lack of it.
Yet again, a power of speech.
Thankfully, it seems that enough people know better than to claim that the promotion and manufacture of doubt and mistrust in the election of 2020 had no effects/affects on the followers of Trump and/or the current confidence of Republican voters in the American system. We all know, including Mitch McConnell, as per his own initial condemnation of Trump's central role in the insurrection of Jan. 6, that Trump's free speech had effects/affects that led directly to certain beliefs and behaviours culminating in the attempt to stop the peaceful transition of power.
You're on the internet dude, I don't have to do your research for you. It's not exactly obscure.
It is one thing if @NOS4A2 believes speech has no power only because he wants to exonerate Trump; another entirely, if he held this opinion prior to Trump’s promulgation of “widespread election fraud”...
...of course, only he can answer this question for us.
It shouldn’t matter either way. I never mentioned Trump, at any rate, so the criticism is projection or worse. But I thank you for letting me speak for myself.
The overestimation of the power of speech is an old tale it and goes back thousands of years or more to the Sophists. Gorgias, for instance, believed speech had an effect like drugs upon the body.
That’s not an argument. So go ahead and make one.
What’s the argument?
His wants are irrelevant.
I wasn’t making that argument. I was only drawing a parallel between sophists, sophistry, and the belief that words and incantations can manipulate matter.
To spell it out even more clearly, your argument against consequences for Trump inciting a riot against the Capitol is that the power of speech is overestimated. Your illustration of this is that Gorgias believes speech to be potent, like a drug. This is a bizarre approach to making your point. If you'd cited someone suggesting that speech is impotent that would be, at worst, an ad hom. But citing someone who believes speech to be potent is not an argument for dismissing the potency of speech. The invitation remains open if you ever fancy actually engaging with your own beliefs but, like I said yesterday, I do understand why you prefer not to.
I only mentioned Trump once and that was to say I never mentioned Trump once. There are only a few reasons why you’d spread such a falsity and all of them suggest a perversion of some sort. What is bizarre is that you approached a minor side point I was making, accused me of not making an argument while you yourself made no argument, and then continue to invite me to engage with it as if you did, and implying I’m a bullshitter while doing so. This is bullshit of the highest order.
I assure you I have focussed on those topics, and long before you “invited” me to do it. So now what?
Quoting NOS4A2
So now could you show some evidence of it?
That’s not quite true. If I want to say specific things my ability to do so is limited, not entirely restricted, but limited nonetheless. Only certain things are allowed on major social media sites, TV, radio, newspapers, articles, etc. If my speech doesn’t fit their imposed restrictions it will not be published, or otherwise available for viewing. Thereby restricting my options for where I can go to express these opinions freely.
So it isn’t just that if I say X there will be negative consequences, it’s that I can only say X privately, because virtually no public forum will allow it to be seen/heard en masse.
That’s not true. Those who’ve suffered from emotional/psychological trauma/abuse will beg to differ. I do not believe that we have control over our emotional reaction to words, and it should be clearly obvious that our particular emotional states are quite often strongly correlated with our actions. So words do indeed have power over our emotional states, which then affects our actions. The exact extent of this affect is unclear, but I don’t think it’s existence can be reasonably denied.
:100: :fire: :up:
Your freedom of speech doesn't obligate others to provide the material means for your speech (tv channel, radio station, publishing books and magazines, etc.). Those material means you need to fund yourself.
Why should they accomodate you? Can you explain?
I can try. What would you like me to argue or defend?
For the third time (and I don't think the last), your claim of:
Quoting NOS4A2
So, the way I view things is that absolute freedom is the default position, and from there any laws, restrictions, etc. need to be justified. I see it the same way in this case. Whichever media outlet starts with absolute freedom of speech, and then needs to justify their reasons for excluding certain types of speech.
Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s what happens in the real world. Instead, it seems like every outlet is more focused on pushing some ideological agenda, and would rather be a massive echo chamber. We see where this type of approach has gotten us. The increasing polarization and distrust in the media in general has led to a distrust in facts and truth itself. But anyway, that’s enough rambling. The point is that there is now very few, or perhaps no, outlets for true free expression of ideas. Perhaps the idea of relatively unbiased news/media outlets is a myth, I don’t know, but there certainly don’t seem to be any now.
Have there ever been any media outlets that started with absolute freedom of speech?
To the best of my knowledge, all media outlets have always been the means for promoting a particular ideology. That they characterize themselves with epithets like "the only news outlet interested in telling the truth" or that they are "defenders of free speech" is just part of their ideology.
“...Strauss was acutely aware of the abuses to which the public expression of philosophy is subject. Philosophy is dangerous for it must always call everything into question while in politics not everything can be called into question. The peculiar horror of modern tyranny has been its alliance with perverted philosophy. Strauss...was susceptible to...the rhetoric of Rousseau and Nietzsche, but he also saw to what extent the passions they aroused and the deceptive sense of understanding they engendered could damage the cause of decency as well as that of philosophy. Aristotle or Maimonides could never provide the inspiration or the justification for a tyrant. They were no less radical, but their voices were softer and attracted less dangerous passions while abandoning excessive hopes. Rousseau was not the cause of the Terror, nor Nietzsche of the Nazis, but there was something in what they said and the way they said it which made it possible for them to be misinterpreted in certain politically relevant ways. Strauss, WITH HIS RESPECT FOR SPEECH AND ITS POWER, believed that men are responsible for what they say...”
“Italics” mine.
The philosophers have shown, more even than the poets and statesmen, that speech has power. This power is not directly physical in nature, but it has physical consequences far beyond the scope of its original intention.
What if one's free speech is another person's broken record?
New speech should be accorded free speech. How about repetitive speech? Ad infinitum?
I really don’t know, but I think theoretically (philosophically?) the default position is the state of nature, meaning only the restrictions imposed by nature apply (physical limitations basically). Then in an effort to domesticate ourselves we create self-imposed restrictions. These restrictions now seem to be taken as a given, a starting point, rather than something that requires justification. Do you think restricting speech needs to be justified?
Do you think restricting who can enter your home needs to be justified?
Why do people use irrelevant extreme analogies to try to prove a dubious point.
Freespeech is in no way similiar to having a door on your house.
A conversation is not a private house.
See @Protagoras’s reply…
Owning a media outlet is similar to owning a house. You don't let just anyone in.
Not if you hold that your country has a free press.
Many countries claim freedom of speech and press and yet censor freespeech.
So I need a printing press to have free speech?
Because the government's freedom of speech trumps your freedom of speech.
Yes, or pen and paper, as the case may be.
So if its that restricted its
not freespeech then is it.
Philosophers have not shown, but surely some have said, that speech has power. But if it is not physical in nature, how can this “power” have physical consequences? This is action at a distance, or worse, magic and sorcery, and without a viable theory to explain how speech can manipulate matter that’s the kind of superstition it shall remain. It’s clear to me, though, that the only physical energy powerful enough to set those events into action began and ended within the individuals who acted them out.
At least Bloom was reasonable enough to say that Rousseau and Nietzsche did not cause the horrors that followed them.
Yet here you are, talking relying on the power of speech.
But then again, hot air lifts baloons!
I'm afraid you're equivocating between my ability to speak and the power of speech.
I don't fear equivocation. It says more about you than it does about me.
No, you just use empty filler phrases.
Again, with all the words! Accomplishing things!
The state has never been democratic. Its always been champagne socialism.
Political double speak,the bread and butter of the media and politicians.
Freespeech,another rich man's euphemism and carrot.
It is physical. Spoken words are heard via physical vibrations. Written words are obviously written on something physical. BTW, are you intentionally leaving my post regarding emotional abuse unanswered?
So are all other sounds from the mouth. Unintelligible scribbles are also written on something physical. What I want to know is what makes speech and words more powerful. I explicitly stated this: "Speech possesses no actual, physical power, insofar it lacks the capacity to transfer more energy than any other sound from the mouth."
I did intentionally leave your post unanswered. That some people beg to differ with my view is not compelling enough to change my mind, and I could not follow the argument much further.
Consider this scenario: my wife leaves me, takes her things and goes to live somewhere else. I assume you would consider this a physical consequence of some previous action, for she removes her physical person and possessions from the premises and takes them physically elsewhere...obviously for some reason, and one you would insist must be physical in nature; as a stationary billiard ball, struck by another such moving one, acquires a velocity thereby and direction of movement that conform to the laws of physics. The previous action in this case is the striking of the stationary ball by the one moving...
...but in the case of my wife’s departure, what is the previous action? There are many possibilities. She may have decided to move in with her invalid parents, to take care of them. What is the causative action in this case? Doesn’t it lie in the change of the physical circumstances of her parents? Not that alone: it also lies in her piety. Both that change of circumstance, and the presence of piety in her soul must obtain for her to do what she does...
...she may have been ordered by a court of law to remove herself from the premises. What is the causal factor here? Is it the brute force of the cops who grab her by the arm and lead her out? Is it the force of the judge’s edict that moves the hands of the cops? Is it her unfitness as a mother that sways the mind of the judge, or is it rather her addiction to drugs that results in such unfitness?
Finally, she may have decided that she doesn’t want to be my wife anymore. What previous action caused this? Was it because I struck her (a very physical action)? Or because my words “I cheated on you” struck her ears? Did the striking of her ears by these words impel her physical departure, like one billiard ball striking another?
If the data transferred from my computer to my SSD is no more energetic than random bits, how come I can store files with high fidelity?!? :O Your move, scientists!
Speech is information. Brains are information processors. How much energy the medium requires is largely irrelevant. It's what's encoded and how it's processed that is important. If you instruct your computer to download fake nudes of Trump, as I expect you have, the energy requirements of this aren't what makes your instruction work: it is how your instruction is encoded ("cute puppy videos" won't work) and what system you are instructing (trying to get your microwave to do it won't work).
The issue with Trump is that he was encoding information that, while meaningless nonsense to microwave people (systems not prone to storming government buildings because an idiot told them to), was easily parsed by internet people (violent paranoid morons who'd walk off a cliff if a particular idiot told them to). That was the "power" (not the physical variable Joules per second but rather "influence") of Trump's speech: he spoke moron extremely well.
Frequently it is exactly that. Those of us that think in a more outlier fashion are frequently silenced because we question the foundation of "obvious", mainstream thoughts or values. Not because we are inherently bad people, but we are looking for a more robust answer than "because it's obvious."
I get banned all the time for asking these sorts of questions. Uncomfortable? it's ok, ban that guy!
We are emotionally affected by the words of those whose words we have allowed to emotionally affect us. Therefore, we have control over our emotional reaction to words, inasmuch as we empower those whose words can affect us emotionally.
Some random person tells me they are disappointed in me: no reaction at all. Hearing the same from my wife would have a far different effect. Equally true with positive feedback. Although I acknowledge that most people like positive feedback, regardless of the source, but that is usually just ego-stroking.
Even if I did believe in the computational theory of mind (I don't), we've avoided entirely how a subsection of sounds from the mouth or scribbles on paper possess more power than others. Now they have "influence", which according to the dictionary is "the capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behavior of someone or something". It's magical thinking all the way down.
"It's what's encoded and how it's processed that is important". If I try to translate this back to biological terms, I find only one type of object that encodes and processes speech: the human body. When I search around for a reason you might keep bringing up Trump, I see only one culprit.
The reason you can't get Trump out of your mouth is because you've developed through conditioning the requisite neural connections surrounding that man and his name. I could just as easily blame Trump for the state you find yourself in, but that's too superficial, and doesn't explain how others have come to vastly different conclusions under the same conditions. I cannot blame propaganda for an act of belief that you yourself commit, any more than I can blame it for my disbelief. The reason you orientate yourself around Trump in such a fashion is you, yourself, your body, achieved via the methods, principles and means of understanding that you've spent a lifetime developing. So it's almost a tragedy that the output rarely rises above mediocrity.
I rest on the sensible fact that, until she is struck by something like a billiard ball or kinetic energy, every move she makes begins and ends with her. So unless something forcers her to move against her will there could be only one cause to her actions. There are probably a vast array of external and environmental factors she may be considering, of course, but the choice and the action itself comes from only one being.
What theory of mind do you ascribe to? How does an intention form, and how does it then get to have physical results, and how do these then in turn again travel "into" the mind?
Feel free to give basic descriptions, I'm not expecting you to write a book here.
Quoting NOS4A2
So, connected with what I wrote above, when does "she" begin? Does her mind rest somewhere fully formed for all eternity, or is it temporal, and if it's temporal, what causes it to change?
That is, whatever she does is not attributable to any outside influence, but only to her will. A human being is assumed to have independence from all outside influences, unless those influences are physically coercive.
Quoting NOS4A2
And that cause is her individual will. The human will is something free of outside influence, able to make decisions and take actions that sometimes fly in the face of what its circumstances appear to dictate. It is Cato, thrusting a sword into his own guts rather than surrender to Caesar; it is Diogenes, breaking his drinking-cup after watching a slave-boy drink from his cupped hands; it is Socrates abiding by Athens’ death penalty rather than scurrying off into exile, urged by his aristocratic friends willing to put up the money; it is a widow woman putting all she owned, two mites, into Jerusalem’s coffers...
...it is certainly not someone, hearing that toilet paper will be in short supply, running off to the supermarket to purchase a closet-full of it; nor is it a mother who fears snakes and poison-ivy forbidding her children go down to the creek to play; nor is it someone storming the Capitol because he heard from his president that his country was being taken away. These sorts of ppl must not have a truly individual will. Their actions must be attributable to external circumstances, for what they think and what they do conform to their fears...
...but let me ask you: which of these sorts best describes the human will? The sort that is rare and immortally inscribed in the annals of history, the one that does outstanding deeds and makes decisions worthy of lasting recognition, that stand as models of exalted human behavior? ....or the sort that is commonplace and expected of most everyone?
I believe mental states are really body states. I’m not one to say we should eliminate the concept of mind altogether, just that we should never forget the object it abstracts. Embodied cognition is somewhat appealing, but I prefer biology to philosophy when it comes to mind.
What do you believe?
She probably begins at conception.
It would be irreproachable to consider psychology a subset of biology—if the phenomena of the soul could be deduced from those of the brain; alas, they cannot, just as the phenomena of biology cannot be understood solely by applying the principles of chemistry to them. That is why different sciences have been developed to explain the different categories in nature.
Your mistaken belief that nature is homogeneous in this respect rather than heterogeneous blinds you to the peculiar workings of the human soul, which has laws and phenomena that must be understood on their own merit, without being reduced to the more basic elements that are its mere infrastructure.
They have meaning, which unintelligible sounds/scribbles lack.
Quoting NOS4A2
The argument was that speech does have power; hence the ability to suffer as a result of it, which victims of verbal abuse is an example of. Do you deny that these victims truly suffer? If not, then how do you explain their suffering?
I don’t entirely agree with this. If that were the case, then why would we ever “allow” another’s words to upset us? At best, I would say that the effect of other’s words can decrease due to either desensitization from prolonged exposure to such comments, or something like a tolerance being built up over time, but I believe (although I could be mistaken) that physiologically all sense data is processed emotionally prior to cognitively. That’s why our first reaction to some stimuli is usually an emotional one. So, I’m not sure how you could make the case that somehow we have control over our emotional reactions. That would seemingly require some sort of thought, which doesn’t occur until after our emotional reaction. Now, we certainly can control our actions after we’ve had whatever emotional response, but that’s entirely separate. Although, there is some evidence that our behavior also affects our mood, so suffice to say it’s more complex than I’m making it out to be, but regardless I think our emotions are somewhat involuntary.
It depends on whether we perceive our emotion to be justified. First comes the emotion (as you have suggested); then, the rational part of the soul weighs in and either condemns or justifies the emotion. If the former be the case, that reason condemns the emotion, then she as though says to it, “I can see these words caused you upset, but they are not true, and so you need not be upset”, or reason says to the stirred-up emotion, “do not be so angry and hurt: maybe the words said against you are true, in which case they were correctly spoken. Let’s consider whether this is the case before we take action”, etc.
Whenever reason is absent from the economy of the soul, the emotions feel what they feel and act on that feeling and justify whatever action they take. Or rather, since reason is the only element that can cast judgement, they hold her hostage, and force her to agree with whatever they do.
It makes sense to me that you don't think your brain in an information processing system.
It sounds like you don't believe in things like rhetoric which is precisely about making speech more effective. I'm guessing you think that preachers don't get crowds, that no one would pay to see a poet, that no one ever turned up to Dickens' readings. Braveheart was just making a series of sounds no more potent than random squawks.
Or, at least, it seems perfectly reasonable to pretend for the sake of argument. Personally I'm an empiricist and will look to Martin Luther King Jr, Winston Churchill, even Adolf Hitler for empirical evidence of the power of speech. But these are only facts, not blind ideology, so take it with a pinch of whatever it is you're on.
Quoting NOS4A2
Really? That's incredibly ignorant. Have you never seen any nature documentaries at all?
I believe in rhetoric, I just don't believe it works how you say it does. I also believe that some language is far more appealing and beautiful, some ugly, that people enjoy some language more than others, that MLK and Winston Churchill were great orators, and so on. I'm just trying to be clear where these feelings are coming from. One doesn't need to believe speech has power to note the genius of Shakespeare's writing, simply because the feelings and ideas one gets when reading it isn't generated in the ink and pages.
There is no empirical evidence that some combinations of sounds and marks on paper have more power than others. There is no instrument that can measure it, no hypothesis to account for it, no formula to describe it.
The danger of this superstition is that it weakens people and justifies tyranny. It teaches them to treat symbols, words and the people who speak them as the cause of their pains, and the only way to protect themselves is to excise the speaker and the language from the environment. Such thinking leads the censor to pretend that an execution for the crime of blasphemy is the consequence of the blasphemer's words, and not the consequence of the superstitious and barbaric laws that bind them. Socrates wasn't executed because his words floated around the marketplace corrupting the youth, but because people like Anytus and the Athenian statesmen couldn't deal with what he was saying.
Anyways, I know we won't agree, but I appreciate the ear nonetheless.
They don't have meaning. Meaning is generated in and provided by the person who views the symbols. Meaning does not exist outside any human being. We can't understand a foreign language just by listening to it, for example. We must learn what the words mean and learn to associate them with the sounds and symbols, and forever be ready to provide meaning to them.
I do not deny their suffering. All I know is neuroplacticity suggests the brain wires itself. If someone is consistently in an abusive environment the brain adjusts itself in a certain way. It is only through training—whether through cognitive therapy or meditation, perhaps medication—that it can readjust and be undone.
Yes there is.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0304395909004564
Quoting NOS4A2
Yes there is.
https://www.gosh.nhs.uk/conditions-and-treatments/procedures-and-treatments/functional-magnetic-resonance-imaging-fmri/
Quoting NOS4A2
Yes there is.
http://www.andrewnewberg.com/books/words-can-change-your-brain-12-conversation-strategies-to-build-trust-resolve-conflict-and-increase-intimacy
Quoting NOS4A2
Yes there is.
https://www.compoundchem.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Neurotransmitters.pdf
At least do the bare minimum of research before vomiting up whatever version of reality happens to support your preferred brand of sociopathy.
Only someone beholden to the superstition would try pass off evidence of the power of the brain as evidence of the power of words without irony. In fact, I've been saying the brain is the cause all along, and you present the brain imagining techniques and investigations into neural mechanisms as a refutation. So thanks for providing even more evidence, not only of the power of the brain, but also of your own sociopathy.
Well, not sure why you’re talking about souls, but my only point is that we can’t prevent our emotion from occurring. We will feel angry, sad, etc. no matter what. But definitely we have some control over whatever actions come next.
Quoting NOS4A2
Same difference. The point is that we recognize and accept words to mean something, whereas we don’t with unintelligible scribbles.
Quoting NOS4A2
Ok, do you deny that their suffering is caused by the words said to/about them? If so, then words have power; the power to affect our emotions.
Quoting NOS4A2
Therapy also works because of the power of words.
You don't even follow it to the right person.
You do have to believe in the power of speech to believe there can be great orators. It's rather confused to think you can have powerful speeches but no powerful speech. The medium isn't irrelevant, but it's not the most relevant attribute of speech, which is the power of words on human minds.
I don't know what you could possibly mean by 'the power of the brain' in this context. Are you the kind of person who insists that it's not the gun that kills you it's the bullet? Do you really go through life as if you don't understand the difference between proximate and non-proximate causes?
"The high demand for wheat's going to cause a rise in prices"
"No, actually I think you'll find, the high demand for wheat isn't going to actually cause anything, the key presses on the stock exchange computer is going to cause the price rise, anything else is one step removed and so irrelevant"
I bet you're a hoot at parties.
I’m not sure how you get from “MLK and Winston Churchill were great orators” to “it’s rather confused to think you can have powerful speeches but no powerful speech”. Oration is an action they perform and I like the way they do it. None of that means or implies that they have powerful speech.
From the resting metabolic rate we can understand the rate of work of the brain and how much power it requires. We can even view its activity with brain scanning technology. We have a general idea of what it does and how it effects the rest of the body.
Can you do the same with words? We can measure the intensity of sound and understand how that effects the body, sure, but do words come with more intensity? If they do not, then how do they affect you different than other sounds from the mouth? Do words on paper possess more mass and energy than arbitrary scribbles? If not, then in what way are they more powerful?
“Words have power.”
“How?”
“Look at these images of the brain! [insert appeal to ridicule]”.
Oration is speech.
If you consider oration powerful then?
The oration is speech. Speech is an act. Speech is powerful.
What are you thinking here?
Speech is a noun, which is a person, place or thing. To "give" a speech, or "speaking", is the act. I mistakenly nominalized "orate" with the suffix "tion", which only served to confuse things.
OK,so speaking can be powerful?
So spoken words do have effects.
Well it was powerful enough to inspire a lot of people, irrespective of your confusions.
That’s exactly why I’m talking about souls.
When I was a child I learned that the soul is the part of you that flies off to heaven after you are dead; when I grew up (and got some liberal education) I learned that it is rather the term that describes the immaterial part of you that exists down here on earth, that comprises the rational and irrational sides of a human being. I learned that the rational part of this economy or polity is one: reason; and that the irrational part, the one prone to the multifarious vices of the emotions, fear and pride and ambition, etc, are many; but that they all, reason and the emotions, make up this one thing: the soul...
...it all depends on who rules for his little economy; whether it be reason, or the passions.
Yes. Obviously. The sequence of pitch, timbre and rhythm is different for different words and our neurons are capable of responding differently to these variations. Why would you think otherwise? Do you imagine that all words are physically identical and we just make up the difference between them?