interesting article..
reason.com
The trick of transforming speech into "verbal acts" of "psychological violence" is the subject of Franklyn S. Haiman's book. "Speech Acts" and the First Amendment is a sharply focused rebuke of the idea that certain kinds of speech are not really speech and therefore fall outside the scope of the First Amendment. Haiman, a professor of communication studies at Northwestern University and a vice president of the ACLU, recognizes that this sort of reasoning threatens the distinction between word and deed that underlies the liberal tolerance for diversity of opinion. "Speech is not the same as action," he writes, "and if it were, we would have to scrap the First Amendment." He carefully dissects the major rationales for treating offensive speech like a crime or tort.
Haiman writes: "What has converted speech into a speech act for those who choose to define it that way--be it fighting words, obscenity, racist slurs, orders, or threats--are the ideas or meanings that have been communicated to persons who understand them. One can call it an act if one wishes to--as Humpty Dumpty in Through the Looking Glass observed, you can name anything whatever you want to--but it is essentially a symbolic, not a physical, transaction. And though it is true that symbols can, and commonly do, arouse physiological as well as mental responses in their audience, the mental response comes first and mediates what follows. Without a response of the mind, nothing follows, for nothing has been comprehended."
Haiman therefore rejects the idea of "situation-altering utterances" (such as orders or promises), noting that something beyond mere words--at the very least, the listener's interpretation--is always required for the utterance to have an effect. Similarly, he observes that the impact of fighting words and incitement hinges on the reactions of the people to whom they are addressed. The target of a racial epithet has to understand the message and decide how to respond--whether with silence, a rejoinder, or a fist. The same is true of a rabble-rouser's audience. When a conscious mind intervenes between speech and action, nothing is inevitable. |
