Very nice to see the data supporting what many of us observed empirically -- that the definitions off "harm" and "hate speech" have stretched to include just about anything.
I'll add that the broadening of the concept of harm is not entirely an organic/spontaneous development. It's a result of a concentrated, prolonged effort by various activists-academics, who for decades have indirectly and sometimes underhandedly advocated for its expansion in various academic writings (there are very visible trends in the literature I’m familiar with, in law and philosophy).
This broadening appears to have been directly motivated by the U.S. first amendment doctrine, which maintains that speech is protected unless it causes imminent harm (the incitement exception). So instead of arguing directly for a change in constitutional protections or the law more broadly, these scholars-activists have tried to expand the notion of harm. This has gone along with similar attempts to expand the notion of trauma and other mental health-related concepts, as legal doctrines in many countries have traditionally acknowledged only physical harm and not any form of emotional distress as “harm” for legal purposes, unless it amounts to a medically recognized mental condition; and with attempts to claim that various things are actions and not speech (e.g., that insulting minorities/women is not speech but an act of humiliation/subordination)—because actions are not protected by the first amendment.
All of these attempts have for decades used various technically sophisticated theories and argumentative moves to support those conceptual expansions/conflations, making them appear like good-faith academic inquiry, when in reality much of this is driven by the underlying lawfare. All the while, the application of the concept of harm, for instance, has been very biased and selective – e.g., it’s been used to support only certain efforts that conflict with freedom of expression, while completely ignoring other causes that may be equally supported by the same arguments but are not favored by the relevant scholars/activists, and generally, while ignoring the harms stemming from suppression of free speech.
This is only a tangential point, but, having taught American college students, I have some doubts about their ability to carefully read, correctly understand, and analytically think about, questions in general. For instance, do the many student who think that "students should report an instructor who says something perceived by some individuals as harmful" really believe that students should report an instructor who has offended their Holocaust denying classmate by teaching about the history of Nazi Germany?
"The boundaries have also expanded to include both behaviors that cause physical harm as well as behaviors that are subjectively felt to be (or labeled by the receiver as) harmful." I'm not sure how this is framed in the USA, but in the UK where I'm based the concept has been codified into law to the point ANYONE who feels something was/is 'harmful' can report it to the 'thought' police for investigation and persecution (the reality of such prosecutions), even if they only hear about it third hand!
Good research; good essay. It may interest the readers to compare with the SCOTUS' grappling with the concept of "true threats," contemporaneously, with a decision in Counterman v. Colorado due this summer (2023). At issue are various ways of deciding what constitutes a true threat: 1) a reasonable person standard, 2) the intent of the speaker, and 3) a reckless negligence on the part of the speaker. The 'reckless' standard is an interesting middle interpretation. If we adapted it from the SCOTUS' task of defining a 'true threat' to the idea of the 'potential harm of words' in the academic setting, it could provide a useful tool in balancing the academic freedom of the speaker and a sympathetic+interested audience versus a third party performatively defending a supposedly offended person, or in another case, the performative free-speech-absolutist using certain words just to test the line of what can be said in a classroom or a dormitory common room without sanction. There's hundreds of pages of amici briefs on the topic in the link below. Of course, the academic setting is different than the public square, but still the briefs in Counterman may be useful.
Very nice to see the data supporting what many of us observed empirically -- that the definitions off "harm" and "hate speech" have stretched to include just about anything.
Thanks for the excellent post!
I'll add that the broadening of the concept of harm is not entirely an organic/spontaneous development. It's a result of a concentrated, prolonged effort by various activists-academics, who for decades have indirectly and sometimes underhandedly advocated for its expansion in various academic writings (there are very visible trends in the literature I’m familiar with, in law and philosophy).
This broadening appears to have been directly motivated by the U.S. first amendment doctrine, which maintains that speech is protected unless it causes imminent harm (the incitement exception). So instead of arguing directly for a change in constitutional protections or the law more broadly, these scholars-activists have tried to expand the notion of harm. This has gone along with similar attempts to expand the notion of trauma and other mental health-related concepts, as legal doctrines in many countries have traditionally acknowledged only physical harm and not any form of emotional distress as “harm” for legal purposes, unless it amounts to a medically recognized mental condition; and with attempts to claim that various things are actions and not speech (e.g., that insulting minorities/women is not speech but an act of humiliation/subordination)—because actions are not protected by the first amendment.
All of these attempts have for decades used various technically sophisticated theories and argumentative moves to support those conceptual expansions/conflations, making them appear like good-faith academic inquiry, when in reality much of this is driven by the underlying lawfare. All the while, the application of the concept of harm, for instance, has been very biased and selective – e.g., it’s been used to support only certain efforts that conflict with freedom of expression, while completely ignoring other causes that may be equally supported by the same arguments but are not favored by the relevant scholars/activists, and generally, while ignoring the harms stemming from suppression of free speech.
This is only a tangential point, but, having taught American college students, I have some doubts about their ability to carefully read, correctly understand, and analytically think about, questions in general. For instance, do the many student who think that "students should report an instructor who says something perceived by some individuals as harmful" really believe that students should report an instructor who has offended their Holocaust denying classmate by teaching about the history of Nazi Germany?
"The boundaries have also expanded to include both behaviors that cause physical harm as well as behaviors that are subjectively felt to be (or labeled by the receiver as) harmful." I'm not sure how this is framed in the USA, but in the UK where I'm based the concept has been codified into law to the point ANYONE who feels something was/is 'harmful' can report it to the 'thought' police for investigation and persecution (the reality of such prosecutions), even if they only hear about it third hand!
Good research; good essay. It may interest the readers to compare with the SCOTUS' grappling with the concept of "true threats," contemporaneously, with a decision in Counterman v. Colorado due this summer (2023). At issue are various ways of deciding what constitutes a true threat: 1) a reasonable person standard, 2) the intent of the speaker, and 3) a reckless negligence on the part of the speaker. The 'reckless' standard is an interesting middle interpretation. If we adapted it from the SCOTUS' task of defining a 'true threat' to the idea of the 'potential harm of words' in the academic setting, it could provide a useful tool in balancing the academic freedom of the speaker and a sympathetic+interested audience versus a third party performatively defending a supposedly offended person, or in another case, the performative free-speech-absolutist using certain words just to test the line of what can be said in a classroom or a dormitory common room without sanction. There's hundreds of pages of amici briefs on the topic in the link below. Of course, the academic setting is different than the public square, but still the briefs in Counterman may be useful.
https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/counterman-v-colorado/
https://www.scotusblog.com/2023/04/justices-hear-true-threat-protected-speech-case/
Meanwhile, Joe Frazier said Ali's words hurt plenty.
https://www.espn.com/sports/boxing/news/story?id=3065738