But scientifically speaking, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not that simple. Words can have a powerful effect on your nervous system<\/a>. Certain types of adversity, even those involving no physical contact, can make you sick<\/a>, alter your brain<\/a> \u00e2\u20ac\u201d even kill neurons<\/a> \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and shorten your life<\/a>.<\/p>\n Your body\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s immune system includes little proteins called proinflammatory cytokines that cause inflammation when you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re physically injured. Under certain conditions, however, these cytokines themselves can cause physical illness. What are those conditions? One of them is chronic stress.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Your body also contains little packets of genetic material that sit on the ends of your chromosomes. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re called telomeres. Each time your cells divide, their telomeres get a little shorter, and when they become too short, you die. This is normal aging. But guess what else shrinks your telomeres? Chronic stress<\/a>.<\/p>\n If words can cause stress, and if prolonged stress can cause physical harm, then it seems that speech \u00e2\u20ac\u201d at least certain types of speech \u00e2\u20ac\u201d can be a form of violence. But which types?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n That last question is a critical one. Barrett’s\u00c2\u00a0answer seems to depend on the duration of the stress caused by the speech:<\/p>\n That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also true of a political climate in which groups of people endlessly hurl hateful words at one another, and of rampant bullying<\/a> in school or on social media. A culture of constant, casual brutality is toxic to the body, and we suffer for it.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Here’s the payoff:<\/p>\n That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s reasonable, scientifically speaking, not to allow a provocateur and hatemonger like Milo Yiannopoulos to speak at your school. He is part of something noxious, a campaign of abuse. There is nothing to be gained from debating him, for debate is not what he is offering.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Well, there’s the problem. In the first place, to Milo’s many adoring fans, he’s not abusing anyone. If anything, he’s got to put up with your abuse (as they frequently allege). Besides, they might claim they get a rush of pleasure from the truth he speaks and that the discomfort people feel is the pain of cognitive dissonance. \u00c2\u00a0Second, there’s an easy to way to avoid Milo’s noxious message: don’t go to his talk.<\/p>\n I’m sympathetic to the idea that there’s a psychological cost to unwelcome ideas. I’m also sympathetic to taking that into account as we offer them. But it’s difficult to see how these two things yield banning Milo. That his beliefs impose a high cost on hearers doesn’t seem sufficient to ban or even avoid them. I’ll leave it to the reader as an exercise to come up with counterexamples to Barrett’s view.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" To my mind, argumentation studies doesn’t pay enough attention to the psycho-economics (and the just plain economics) of argumentation. How much, for example, does it cost you to engage (or not engage) in an argument with someone? How much do you have invested in your beliefs? What will it cost you in time, \u00c2\u00a0money, and … Continue reading Stress test<\/span> \n
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