4 Comments

While I am an advocate of free speech, I disagree that there is a clear cut distinction between speech and actions. The whole linguistic discipline of Pragmatics is devoted to analysing how words perform actions. I can use words to deny, to explain, to interrupt, to ask questions, to invite, to order, to insult. These verbs describe actions. If I use words to ask a question, my conversational partner performs an action in return. She can choose to explain, to obfuscate, or even to ignore me. These are all actions too.

Expand full comment

Yes, what you say is correct but partial. There is the spectrum of actions arising from speech, which range on the mild end from "unsettling" to the extreme antisocial end, like violence against property or people.

Expand full comment

The most interesting aspect of the words are violence crew is that yelling at a Jewish student "intifada" or "from the river to the sea" both of which invite real violence and death seem to be ok.

Expand full comment