The Devil Himself
Or, Hysterical Woman Is Hysterical:
Hate speech… makes one wish one was dead or worse had never been born, the ultimate existential black hole. Hate speech is a speech act that can harm the central nervous system, it can result in PTSD, and when used by police and jailers to humiliate prisoners hate speech is psychological torture, a civil rights and human rights violation. In short, hate speech is an act of violence.
So writes Nancy Scheper-Hughes, an anthropology lecturer at Berkeley. She’s referring, of course, to the recent visit by Ben Shapiro. Though quite why Mr Shapiro should be mentioned alongside psychological torture and the violation of human rights remains unclear, and Dr Scheper-Hughes takes care not to offer even a single direct quotation by way of evidence. Instead, we’re treated to some inventive ventriloquism, to the extent that readers are expected to believe that Shapiro has somewhere referred to black people, all of them, as “criminally inclined, drug addicted, homicidal losers.” Those familiar with Mr Shapiro’s actual output may find this a little bizarre. Almost as bizarre as the claim that Shapiro is not only “racist, sexist” and “misogynist,” but also “very dangerous” and a “physical threat” to students.
Perhaps Dr Scheper-Hughes has some thoughts on whether publicly and hyperbolically defaming people – accusing them of racism and misogyny, and of being a physical menace to students, for instance – also constitutes “violence” and a cause of post-traumatic stress disorder.
But they’re so passionate. We should compromise with them. After all, we don’t want to be extremists, do we?
Oh, most definitely. I want to push them out of a helicopter at 5,000 ft; they’d prefer 0 ft. We’ll split the difference! 2500 ft it is!
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Oh good, I’m not the only one (albeit I’m pro-choice). It was a weird little two-step he did on that question. IANAL, but my understanding of mens rea is that it means the person knew (or should reasonably have known) that what s/he was planning to do was illegal, but chose to do it anyway. Abortion is not legally considered murder, as a fetus is not legally considered a person, a fact the doctor would likely be, if anything, even more aware of than the woman seeking the abortion. Should the legal definition of personhood be expanded to include fetuses, that would change, but in that case both should be charged with murder.
It’s too bad the girl asking the question didn’t follow up on that, but I had the impression she assumed she was launching a devastating rhetorical knockout punch and didn’t have a backup plan in case it didn’t land. Having watched a number of videos of Shapiro fielding questions from young people, that seems to be the pattern. None of them bother to familiarize themselves with his arguments beforehand to come prepared to refute them. Instead they waltz in figuring they’re going to whale on Straw Ben and get their asses handed to them.
(a) that none of her student readers know anything about Ben Shapiro, and (b) that none of them will bother to check anything she’s said about him
Yes – the both of those.
And it’s one of several reasons why I find it troubling when, in lieu of a rebuttal, certain people will simply resort to slander and libel with the express purpose of shaming anyone out of getting too curious.
The warnings are as stark (and effective, both in the real and ironic sense) as something like the forbidden zone from The Planet of the Apes:
You know, to ward people off finding out for themselves something that would prove to be more than inconvenient to the narrative those same certain people wish to impose as the one true and irrefutable doctrine.
It always amazes me when people employ such a strategy – surely they must realise that making something taboo is in itself an incentive for someone to find out for themselves why it is so taboo?
And anyone who does venture into the ‘forbidden zone’ and finds out what is there is likely to be contemptuous if not downright resentful of any and all previous attempts at keeping them deliberately in the dark. And not only that but the very kind of people who are willing to venture that way tend to be people who are of an independent mind – a fact which in itself can make them quite persuasive to others.
Surely almost every hero and heroine ever written of is the one who went beyond the known horizon to find out what was on the other side?
And, of course, for any such ‘hero’ who does venture into that ‘forbidden zone’ it also immediately calls into question the value of the arguments (or ‘arguments’) of people such as Scheper-Hughes they may have been brought up with or strenuously educated in – because what kind of politics, what kind of ideology, would need to rely on mumbo jumbo to protect itself other than, well, … mumbo jumbo?
OT
Oh, dear God – La Mademoiselle horrible, Penny Dreadful, has truly excelled herself – this is likely the most intense cringe I have seen all year.
I hate hate speech.
Question – and this may betray a fundamental lack of knowledge about American libel law – but is there no recourse for a charge of slander? Clearly if this professor doesn’t believe in free speech then the irony would be lost on her if she were sued for speaking defamatory lies about Mr. Shapiro. The damages could easily be argued; the false characterization of Mr. Shapiro’s views results in the need for additional security, increases the costs of his speeches, potentially reduces the number of speaking opportunities presented to him, and on and on. Why not go that route and do what the Left do and use the courts to punish the opposition?
It always amazes me when people employ such a strategy – surely they must realise that making something taboo is in itself an incentive for someone to find out for themselves why it is so taboo?
Well, you’d think. It’s about as far from the academic ideal as it’s possible to get, short of burning down an orphanage. Even from the perspective of partisan badmouthing, surely the most effective approach is to quote your opponent’s own words…? But as we saw with the Middlebury protest-cum-riot against a visit by Charles Murray, it’s remarkable how many Mao-lings will behave like savages based on hearsay, with few, if any, of them having actually read Murray’s work or even bothering to Google his biography – a sixty-second task that would undermine the premise of their self-righteous posturing.
And so they don’t.
@Marko
It’s a good question. The problem is that opinion is immune to libel and slander. Defamation actions require an assertion of fact which is false with knowledge of its falsity or reasonable suspicion that it’s false. The fact must be such that it involves something a reasonable person would find abhorrent. Name calling, by itself, is not defamatory. For example, saying “John is a heroin addict” may be defamatory. Saying “John acts stoned all the time” is probably not, even if the implication is that John is an addict. Further, certain false facts may have been defamatory at one time, but changing social mores may cause the prior defamatory speech to be considered harmless.
The bottom line, courts in the U.S. have traditionally put severe restrictions on defamation law because of the 1st Amendment. The professor’s diatribe probably would survive a defamation suit, or, more precisely would not be considered defamatory by a court, even if it contains gross misrepresentations.
The ball pits were perfect for allowing students to feel comfortable
They look like they could be fun. If pacifiers were offered, however, I would decline.
There is a grain of truth in Scheper-Hughes’ gibberings. If a person is isolated, and subjected to continual intense verbal attack for an extended period of time, from multiple people the target cannot dismiss… the effects can be traumatic.
This was the method developed by Mao for the Red Guards, where a crowd would be directed to denounce a designated “class enemy” or “backslider”.
Of course, looking at the so-called”violence” of Shapiro and the like, and the actions of Scheper-Hughes and her ilk, it is rather obvious who is using these methods.
“Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?”