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Nearly half of American college students agree with the notion that “words can be violence,” according to a 2,000-person survey commissioned by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) in the weeks following the assassination of Charlie Kirk. While the form of the question may create confusion, it does serve to reveal one way progressivism has watered-down American ideals in American universities.

“Words can be violence” either “mostly” or “completely” describes the thoughts of a full 47.8% of respondents to the FIRE survey. In the context of the survey’s other questions, controversial political ideas were clearly in view. Nearly a third of students (29%) also agreed with the statement, “silence is violence,” a left-wing slogan demanding that individuals express the right opinions on every issue, even ones on which they would rather stay silent.

This finding suggests that many American college students have imbibed radically warped notions about violence — notions which carry ominous implications for American civic life.

Altering the Definition of ‘Violence’

For decades, a bipartisan consensus has held that political violence has no place in American public life. This consensus applied to physical violence and was invoked to denounce any assassination, assault, or vandalism.

Yet new notions of violence simultaneously expand the term and erode its meaning. Suddenly, the term violence applies not only physically but verbally. Those who understand speech as violence readily interpret the rhetoric of their opponents as violent speech. This logical leap, in turn, incentives them to rationalise the use of physical violence, which they see as proportionate retaliation.

This logical train omits a crucial step. In discussions of violence (as with faith, love, and many other abstract nouns), any sound assessment of the merits must consider the object in view. Consider, for example, the contrast between a soldier’s violence toward an enemy in wartime versus violence toward his own mother.

The definition of violence, causing injury by force, ensures the word is often used to describe physical violence against either people or property. But the word has accepted metaphorical uses as well. For instance, violent emotions are forceful enough to injure a person’s mental stability. (Although this is outside the scope of the FIRE survey, even words can be metaphorically violent. A brazen lie does violence to the truth. Misusing a word does violence to its definition. But such uses are highly metaphorical.)

Violence is wrong when it targets an object with a right to be free from injury. Violence against a person is wrong because people have a right to their own bodies. Violence against property is wrong because people have a right to be secure in their property. These natural rights comprehend a right to be free from injury.

When applied to the new definition of violence, this theory reveals an essential point. If certain forms of speech are to be considered as violence, what is the object injured by the violence? And does that object possess an inherent right such that violence against it becomes wrong?

Feelings at the Centre of the Universe

The object in view is a person’s feelings. When leftist radicals define political speech as violence, they will argue that it is attacking a person. But the supposed attack is not a physical one; the words wield no pistol or machete. Instead, what they mean is that the words attack a person’s feelings. The words accused of violence are so labeled because they make another person feel bad.

The next question to consider is whether a person’s feelings have a right to be insulated against the onslaught of words they take to be offensive or demeaning. Historically, the answer, at least for those engaged in American public discourse, has been a resounding “no.” Biblically, the answer is also “no,” at least if the words “all have sinned” are to have any meaning.

But powerful cultural forces (the “everyone gets a medal” movement, therapy culture, transgender ideology) have recently argued that the answer should be “yes.” And this question — whether people have a right to insulate their feelings against anything that might upset them — underlies many of the social debates currently raging across America.

The topline takeaway from the FIRE survey suggests that roughly half of American college students buy into this warped notion of violence, suggesting that teachers and administrators have done them a criminal disservice.

Survey: Can Words Be Violence?

However, surveys can elicit different responses based on how they ask a question. So, before sealing that conclusion in concrete, it’s worth analyzing what, exactly, the FIRE survey measured. “How much, if at all, do the following statements describe your thoughts?” was the question. Under the statement, “Words can be violence,” the survey recorded the following responses:

It’s evident that the survey question was attempting to create a five-point sliding scale, running from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree.” Indeed, this was how FIRE interpreted the question, only counting the first (strongest) two categories as agreement in its press release.

However, it’s also possible to interpret the options as four categories of agreement and one category of disagreement. A veteran reporter at The (conservative) Washington Times wrote Tuesday, “Nine out of 10 undergraduates agreed to some extent that ‘words can be violence’ …. Of the 91% who agreed that ‘words can be violence,’ 22% said they agreed ‘completely,’ 25% said ‘mostly,’ 28% said ‘somewhat’ and 15% said ‘slightly.’ Just 9% said the statement did not describe their views.”

The point is, the Times interpreted the data quite differently than FIRE. And, if their reporter could get confused, it’s possible that many undergraduate survey respondents could be confused by the survey question as well. It’s even possible that many students overthought the rather vague question, reasoning that words can indeed be considered violence in limited contexts (such as threats, or when they are calculated to induce panic). Perhaps the surprising answers were partly due to a poorly constructed question.

Although this analysis of FIRE’s survey question may call into question the extent to which college students are indoctrinated, other features of their study suggest that the phenomenon they identify is nevertheless real. In particular, FIRE notes that American college students are far more likely to agree that “words can be violence” (47.8% by their measure) than the general population (34%) by their measure.

Sadly, the opinion equating words with violence is widespread enough on college campuses to cause widespread consternation, especially after the assassination of Charlie Kirk. The FIRE survey also found that nearly half of students are less comfortable expressing views on controversial topics in class (45%), on campus (43%) or on social media (48%). This is the definition of a “chilling effect.”

Over the next 20 years, the minds currently gripped by fears of campus violence will become the next generation of American adults, which means today’s campus problems will be tomorrow’s problems for all of American society.

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Republished with thanks to The Washington Stand. Image via Adobe.