THE ORIGINAL PIECE
What would scar you more, a stinging slap or a wounding word? Please pause a minute to consider the question before you move on.
The freedom to offend and insult has been championed by many as a logical extension of the right to free speech and expression. They consider it obvious that if a view challenges an existing practice or belief, it has the potential of offending someone somewhere. It is, therefore, argued that freedom of speech would be an empty principle if it did not also provide the freedom to offend.
However, while offending speech is sacred, the argument goes on, physical violence is abhorrent.
In this argument, if someone is hurt at something that is said, it is his problem. He is too thin-skinned, not sufficiently versed in the art of democratic practice, not sure enough of his ground to engage meaningfully in a conversation, not cognisant that all desirable change in society has required someone to be offended or insulted. He should go and fix himself. Law should stay out of it.
But if someone hurts another with his hands, he is a brute and a thug, not sufficiently versed in the art of democratic practice, not sure enough of his ground to engage meaningfully in a conversation, not cognisant that physical violence cannot bring anything desirable into existence. We should go and fix him, using the power of law and the state.
What would scar you more, a stinging slap or a wounding word?
As you considered this question at the beginning of this article, as you relived your own experiences, you probably saw that words, uttered with sufficient malice, can hurt far more grievously than a raised hand would.
Why, then, the fond protectiveness for the hurtful word?
Could it be that the people who make the case for freedom for hurtful words do so because they are more skilled at using them than those they wish to defeat? If my preferred weapon is the word and someone else’s the hand, it is quite clever to tilt the field by making his weapon reprehensible and mine noble.
It doesn’t quite work like that, of course. The other side prefers to shift the battle to his familiar ground, the theatre of physical violence. They are both doing the same thing, seeking an advantage by employing their native skills. So, while the champion of free, hurtful speech cries himself hoarse over his right to do so over TV channels, the other person simply goes and beats up his target. The only voices they both hear are their own arguments for why they are right.
Is it possible, then, to consider a different, but by no means new, standard for freedom of speech? Of course, free speech must be protected, for it is the very basis of renewal and creativity in a society. In the process of being expressed, an idea may indeed offend, or hurt. But it must never be expressed with the intention of hurting or offending and certainly never with a sense of entitlement to do so.
It is unquestionably true that the right to tell our truth is fundamental to our well-being. Can we establish it as equally true that the very claim to a right to offend is abhorrent, just like a claim to a right to physical violence?
In civilised society, this standard has always existed. The values of practically every society, the precepts of practically every religion, exhort us to speak the truth, but speak it with care, lest we hurt. The celebration of the right to hurt is a very recent phenomenon, one that seems to seek only a personal satisfaction at insulting or hurting someone who does not agree with us, regardless of what it might mean for the actual resolution of the problem and conflicts in society.
On the other hand, when we seek change and press our cause firmly but give up the right to offend, a completely new dynamic arises. It is now possible to sincerely apologise if hurt does shows up because it wasn’t our intent to do so. It is possible to feel the pain that our words have caused because it wasn’t a part of what we expected to see. It is possible to rephrase what might have been uttered with insensitivity or lack of awareness of the other’s being. We may even discover that we are happy to modify what we said to accommodate an alternative view-point. It is a state of mind in which it is possible to realise that we both have a shared problem that needs to be solved, rather than each of us being a problem for the other.
None of this need, in any way, compromise the opposition to injustice, oppression or distorted traditions. It is short-sighted fallacy to believe that vigorous challenge to such practices cannot be mounted except through speech which hurts. And it is even more fallacious to believe that, if such hurt is inadvertently caused, we are powerless to assuage it without giving up our challenge. In fact, practically every one of us has experienced the power of a word to change us, when it comes from someone with affection, with concern and with serious intent.
When we challenge a practice, but reach out to the practitioner, we create the ground for a genuine meeting of minds. It adds a new dimension to dialogue, expanding it from “through words” (which is what dialogue literally means) to “through affection”.
And then, perhaps, neither the word, nor the hand need rise in anger.
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Returning to the question
I wrote this piece sixteen years ago, troubled by the distinction we were making between physical violence and hurtful speech. A hand raised in anger was readily recognised as violence, while words intended to hurt were defended in the name of freedom of expression. The question seemed to me then, as it does now, to be less about politeness than about intention: are we speaking because something needs to be said, or because we have discovered that words are an effective way of hurting someone without having to accept responsibility for the hurt?
If realising that that was what we were moving towards was difficult then, it has grown considerably harder today. We have acquired extraordinary new means of speaking to one another, and we celebrate the ease of communication that technology has ushered in. But most of them share a disturbing characteristic: they have removed the speaker from the presence of the person spoken to. I may write something about you without seeing your face, hearing your response or even knowing what my words have caused. I can remain anonymous, use a pseudonym or simply disappear into the enormous crowd of people communicating through a screen. The distance is not merely physical. It creates a curious separation between the act and its consequence that makes cruelty much easier.
Most human beings flinch when they see pain in another face, especially if they have caused it. Psychopaths may not, but for ordinary people, it is impossible to continue with violence, verbal or physical, when they see its consequences. What the anonymity of the perpetrator and the victim does is make more ordinary people behave like psychopaths would.
Hurt itself, of course, is no argument for silence. Some truths are uncomfortable, some questions are unsettling, and some practices need to be challenged firmly. To speak honestly, knowing that it may hurt, is one kind of choice, to speak with the intention of causing hurt is an entirely different one. And when we make that choice while hiding behind anonymity, we remove one of the most important disciplines of human speech – the knowledge that we may have to stand before the person who receives it.
Technology, then, has not created our capacity to wound, but it has made it easier to wound without meeting the wounded.
Perhaps this is why listening matters so much. To listen does not mean agreeing with another person, nor does it require us to abandon a strongly held position. It means remaining sufficiently open to recognise that the person with whom we disagree is not simply the position we oppose. When we are face to face, there is at least the possibility of discovering this. We may find that what sounded offensive was clumsily expressed, that what we thought was malice was fear, or that beneath two apparently opposed positions lies a problem both people are struggling to understand. Distance makes such discoveries harder; anonymity can make them almost impossible.
The more difficult question today seems to be what happens to a society when increasing numbers of its conversations take place without the possibility of relationship. If I can attack you without knowing you, and you can answer me without knowing me, we can both become increasingly certain that the other is the problem. But when we remain in one another's presence – even when that presence is difficult – something else becomes possible. We may still disagree, and we may still cause one another pain, but there remains a chance of discovering that neither the word nor the hand need rise in anger.
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