Academia Free-For-All Politics

I’m In Charge Of What You Can Say Because I’m So Humble

May 6, 2026 by David 56 Comments

I paraphrase, of course. Though not, I think, wildly:

A new psychology study suggests that Americans who believe words can cause “lasting” psychological harm are also more likely to support censorship, safe spaces, and silencing controversial viewpoints.

The alleged harms of debate and the citing of statistics are not mere rudeness or a failure to flatter, but “lasting psychological damage.” Because statistics can do that, apparently.

What might constitute controversy in the minds of such implausibly delicate creatures is not made clear, though we are told that the terms “blind review,” “handicap parking” and “immigrant” were considered “harmful language” by Stanford University’s IT department. Which does rather suggest a kind of neurotic contrivance.

These individuals are also more likely to struggle with depression and believe themselves to be intellectually humble, according to the research, published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences.

Humble, you say. We’ll get to that in a second.

The study identified demographic patterns among participants.

You can guess where this one’s going.

Researchers found that individuals who scored higher on the scale were somewhat more likely to be younger, female, non-white, and politically liberal.

And,

Participants who strongly believed words can cause harm were more likely to report anxiety and… difficulty regulating emotions.

And what better gift to the world than imposing your own hang-ups and inadequacies on everyone else, quite emphatically, at every opportunity?

And then we arrive at this glorious conundrum:

Another finding from the study is that individuals who scored higher on the Words Can Harm Scale also rated themselves as higher in intellectual humility, even while expressing greater support for silencing opposing viewpoints. 

The study, found here, informs us that those most keen to pre-emptively shut down discussion, including by vigorous means, also “rated themselves as higher in… empathy.”

The inversions of progressive “empathy” – and its routine departure from reality – have of course been poked at here before.

And regarding those claims of humility, nothing says, ‘I entertain the possibility that my assumptions may be wrong’ like forbidding any and all attempts at contradiction.

Consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.




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