A world where “Words are violence” is more common than “Sticks and stones…” is a world oriented against free speech principles. But we can turn that around.
"Sticks and stones ....." .was said all the time by kids when I was in elementary school in the 50's. Be curious as to whether it's said anymore.
Victimhood has become a status symbol as to where you rank in opposition to "the other". The same with the increase in alleged "disabilities", many of which seem to be self identified from TikTok. The idea that you need to just pick yourself up and deal with it , that you were expected to be resilient, seems to have been replaced by a diagnosis culture. The worst part is victim culture undermines real areas of concern that need to be addressed. It all becomes noise.
Also, “It’s not my cup of tea.” Wokies take offense when a person indicates lgbtq, political activism, collectivism, racial grievance, “social justice,” etc. just “aren’t my thing.” Seriously, some of us enjoy simple conversations about music, movies or baseball. Call us old fashioned.
I seem to misremember this from a poster sold in head shops, the opening in a lengthy, pacifist sentiment, possibly a bastardization of Ehrmann's musings or the Desiderata (sp?)... Now only familiar boomers or Generation Jones (like me). One of the more positive sentiments or "policies" that were (rightly or wongly) associated with "hippies." Later version incoporatd into songs by Dylan and Neil Young.
I say these things very, very often -- and certainly said them when we were raising our child -- because they accurately express what I mean, believe wholeheartedly and live by.
My writings on Substack are based partly upon this principle, and that the reader is welcome to disagree, supporting the response with evidence and persuasive language without ad hominem.
“…these particular sayings tend to communicate perspectives that are in favor of “small-D” democratic values like free speech, epistemic humility, and intellectual pluralism…”
More accurately, they are in favour of “small-L” libertarian/classical liberal values. Democracy, whether real or the normal oligarchic pretence, is a danger to them.
Free speech must be doing pretty well if these are the lengths you have to go to in order to complain about something. Do you ever stop to conside the fact that your whole cause is dedicated to being offended by what people are saying about free speech?
FIRE literally just filed a lawsuit against the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Homeland Security over their crusade to deport legal immigrants over protected speech.
Why don't I use these phrases more often? Mostly because they used to be schoolyard taunts. "Sticks and stones...", "It's a free country...", "You don't have to make a federal case out of it" - these were phrases we used on the schoolgrounds to egg on some overly dramatic playmate as expressions of the ridiculousness of whatever that playmate was expressing.
I just don't use elementary school taunts in my daily conversations anymore. They are pithy, but they are a verbal 'slap in the face', which I do not generally choose to administer to an adult. Maybe I should.....I'll think about it.
In the mid-18th century, Montesquieu penned a fictional correspondence between Persian travelers and their homeland, using the lens of outsiders to critique the slow erosion of civic freedom in France. Beneath the satire lay a deep worry that liberty might vanish not through dramatic decree but through gradual forgetting. So too with the quiet disappearance of certain idioms that once upheld a resilient, pluralistic civic culture. These expressions, often dismissed as schoolyard clichés or dated slogans, once served as compact defenses of intellectual humility and emotional sturdiness. Their waning presence is not just linguistic drift. It signals a cultural recalibration away from the habits of tolerance and self-restraint that once buttressed democratic life.
Though recognition of these phrases remains relatively high, active usage has become rare. That gap matters. Idioms like “to each their own” or “sticks and stones may break my bones” are not ornamental. They encode norms that distinguish between disagreement and aggression, between discomfort and harm. The old grammar of dignity culture gave citizens a language for resilience and dissent without coercion. Its decline suggests not just a new generation but a new ethic: one that equates offense with injury, elevates subjective harm above public reason, and welcomes authority as an arbiter of disputes once settled informally through argument and endurance. In such a landscape, even well-meaning speech risks being reclassified as threat, and the virtues of tolerance and pluralism lose their common tongue.
Yet not all signs point to decline. Among younger generations, there is a tentative, uneven return to some of these older expressions. This flicker of familiarity offers a narrow but promising path forward. Cultural norms are not dictated from above; they are sustained or dismantled in daily interactions, in classrooms, on social media, at family tables. The values implicit in these sayings: humility, resilience, the refusal to equate speech with violence, can still be modeled, reinforced, and restored. This is not a plea for nostalgia. It is a recognition that habits of speech shape habits of thought, and that the words we forget may be the virtues we lose.
Montesquieu’s travelers observed a society confident in its freedoms but inattentive to the forms that sustained them. Their letters were not calls to revolution, but to recollection—to remember what made liberty durable. Likewise, a culture that loses the ability to say “Who am I to judge” or “Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion” is not merely changing its style. It is, quietly, rewriting its ethos.
Speaking of the canceling of the American mind and the war on words, please consider that people who advocate or expound on "the First Amendment" are egregiously failing America and Americans. I previously thought the source of the problem was SCOTUS, but as I learned more, I learned that SCOTUS justices have told the truth, while advocates and exponents of "the First Amendment" have failed to do so. As a consequence, Americans have forgotten that "the freedom of speech" and "press" and "the right of the people" to "assemble" (declared in the First Amendment) were not granted by, and do not exist because of, the First Amendment.
The First Amendment exists because our freedoms of expression, communication and association existed (and were demonstrated) long before the First Amendment. Such freedoms were demonstrated and documented in and by the Declaration of Independence and the original Constitution.
We the People simply have forgotten that our freedoms of expression, communication and association arose from our own nature (as people) and the nature of our relationship (as sovereigns) to the public servants who represent us in government. As the Declaration of Independence declared in 1776, those freedoms arose from "truths" that (to the People of 1776) were so obvious they were declared to be "self-evident."
First Amendment rights and freedoms arose from our inherent equality before the law ("all" citizens "are created equal") and the most important qualities we decided and declared regarding all American government. In America, all "Governments" must be "instituted" with only "just Powers" derived "from the Consent of the Governed," and the overarching purpose of all government (the duty of all public servants) is to "secure" our "Rights," including our "unalienable Rights" which include our rights to "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."
Clearly, the people manifest "the Consent of the Governed" by exercising "the freedom of speech" and "press" and "the right of the people" to "assemble" (declared in the First Amendment). Voting is speaking. Suffrage is the speech of sovereigns. Speech regarding public issues (consenting or objecting to the public service of public servants) is at the very core of the rights and freedoms "We the People" secured for "ourselves" when we did "ordain and establish" our "Constitution" to "establish Justice" and "secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves" (as the Constitution's Preamble declares).
Simply put, as John Stuart Mill put it in On Liberty and as the Declaration of Independence put it, our liberty (our freedoms of expression, communication and association) are derived from our independence (our sovereignty over our own selves) and our sovereignty over all our public servants.
SCOTUS sometimes has articulated very similar principles pretty clearly. In our “republic” clearly “the people are sovereign” and “the ability” (the power) “of the citizenry to make informed choices” about public servants and public issues “is essential.” Citizens United v. FEC, 558 U.S. 310, 339 (2010). “Speech is an essential mechanism of democracy;” it is “the means to hold officials accountable to the people” in our “republic where the people are sovereign.” Id.
“The right of citizens to inquire, to hear, to speak, and to use information” is essential “to enlightened self-government and a necessary means to protect it.” Id. Accord id. at 339-341, 344-350. “Premised on mistrust of [all] governmental power, the First Amendment stands against attempts to disfavor” the “subjects or viewpoints” of speech, especially regarding public servants’ abuses or usurpations of power. Id. at 340.
“For these reasons,” our “political speech must prevail against” regulation “that would suppress it, whether by design or inadvertence,” so regulation “that burden[s] political speech” is “subject to strict scrutiny,” which “requires the Government to prove” how such regulation “furthers a compelling interest and is narrowly tailored to achieve that interest.” Id. To do so, courts must fulfill their “duty” to “say what the law is” protecting speech about public issues and public servants. Id. at 365 (quoting Marbury v. Madison).
"Sticks and stones ....." .was said all the time by kids when I was in elementary school in the 50's. Be curious as to whether it's said anymore.
Victimhood has become a status symbol as to where you rank in opposition to "the other". The same with the increase in alleged "disabilities", many of which seem to be self identified from TikTok. The idea that you need to just pick yourself up and deal with it , that you were expected to be resilient, seems to have been replaced by a diagnosis culture. The worst part is victim culture undermines real areas of concern that need to be addressed. It all becomes noise.
Also, “It’s not my cup of tea.” Wokies take offense when a person indicates lgbtq, political activism, collectivism, racial grievance, “social justice,” etc. just “aren’t my thing.” Seriously, some of us enjoy simple conversations about music, movies or baseball. Call us old fashioned.
And of course right alongside “words are violence” we get “silence is violence”.
I really miss the Left that gave us “do your own thing” and “make your own kind of music”.
"You go your way, I'll go mine."
I seem to misremember this from a poster sold in head shops, the opening in a lengthy, pacifist sentiment, possibly a bastardization of Ehrmann's musings or the Desiderata (sp?)... Now only familiar boomers or Generation Jones (like me). One of the more positive sentiments or "policies" that were (rightly or wongly) associated with "hippies." Later version incoporatd into songs by Dylan and Neil Young.
I say these things very, very often -- and certainly said them when we were raising our child -- because they accurately express what I mean, believe wholeheartedly and live by.
My writings on Substack are based partly upon this principle, and that the reader is welcome to disagree, supporting the response with evidence and persuasive language without ad hominem.
“…these particular sayings tend to communicate perspectives that are in favor of “small-D” democratic values like free speech, epistemic humility, and intellectual pluralism…”
More accurately, they are in favour of “small-L” libertarian/classical liberal values. Democracy, whether real or the normal oligarchic pretence, is a danger to them.
https://jclester.substack.com/p/democracy-a-libertarian-viewpoint
Free speech must be doing pretty well if these are the lengths you have to go to in order to complain about something. Do you ever stop to conside the fact that your whole cause is dedicated to being offended by what people are saying about free speech?
FIRE literally just filed a lawsuit against the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Homeland Security over their crusade to deport legal immigrants over protected speech.
We can walk and chew gum at the same time, Joe.
https://www.thefire.org/news/lawsuit-fire-challenges-unconstitutional-provisions-rubio-uses-crusade-deport-legal-immigrants
Why don't I use these phrases more often? Mostly because they used to be schoolyard taunts. "Sticks and stones...", "It's a free country...", "You don't have to make a federal case out of it" - these were phrases we used on the schoolgrounds to egg on some overly dramatic playmate as expressions of the ridiculousness of whatever that playmate was expressing.
I just don't use elementary school taunts in my daily conversations anymore. They are pithy, but they are a verbal 'slap in the face', which I do not generally choose to administer to an adult. Maybe I should.....I'll think about it.
In the mid-18th century, Montesquieu penned a fictional correspondence between Persian travelers and their homeland, using the lens of outsiders to critique the slow erosion of civic freedom in France. Beneath the satire lay a deep worry that liberty might vanish not through dramatic decree but through gradual forgetting. So too with the quiet disappearance of certain idioms that once upheld a resilient, pluralistic civic culture. These expressions, often dismissed as schoolyard clichés or dated slogans, once served as compact defenses of intellectual humility and emotional sturdiness. Their waning presence is not just linguistic drift. It signals a cultural recalibration away from the habits of tolerance and self-restraint that once buttressed democratic life.
Though recognition of these phrases remains relatively high, active usage has become rare. That gap matters. Idioms like “to each their own” or “sticks and stones may break my bones” are not ornamental. They encode norms that distinguish between disagreement and aggression, between discomfort and harm. The old grammar of dignity culture gave citizens a language for resilience and dissent without coercion. Its decline suggests not just a new generation but a new ethic: one that equates offense with injury, elevates subjective harm above public reason, and welcomes authority as an arbiter of disputes once settled informally through argument and endurance. In such a landscape, even well-meaning speech risks being reclassified as threat, and the virtues of tolerance and pluralism lose their common tongue.
Yet not all signs point to decline. Among younger generations, there is a tentative, uneven return to some of these older expressions. This flicker of familiarity offers a narrow but promising path forward. Cultural norms are not dictated from above; they are sustained or dismantled in daily interactions, in classrooms, on social media, at family tables. The values implicit in these sayings: humility, resilience, the refusal to equate speech with violence, can still be modeled, reinforced, and restored. This is not a plea for nostalgia. It is a recognition that habits of speech shape habits of thought, and that the words we forget may be the virtues we lose.
Montesquieu’s travelers observed a society confident in its freedoms but inattentive to the forms that sustained them. Their letters were not calls to revolution, but to recollection—to remember what made liberty durable. Likewise, a culture that loses the ability to say “Who am I to judge” or “Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion” is not merely changing its style. It is, quietly, rewriting its ethos.
Speaking of the canceling of the American mind and the war on words, please consider that people who advocate or expound on "the First Amendment" are egregiously failing America and Americans. I previously thought the source of the problem was SCOTUS, but as I learned more, I learned that SCOTUS justices have told the truth, while advocates and exponents of "the First Amendment" have failed to do so. As a consequence, Americans have forgotten that "the freedom of speech" and "press" and "the right of the people" to "assemble" (declared in the First Amendment) were not granted by, and do not exist because of, the First Amendment.
The First Amendment exists because our freedoms of expression, communication and association existed (and were demonstrated) long before the First Amendment. Such freedoms were demonstrated and documented in and by the Declaration of Independence and the original Constitution.
We the People simply have forgotten that our freedoms of expression, communication and association arose from our own nature (as people) and the nature of our relationship (as sovereigns) to the public servants who represent us in government. As the Declaration of Independence declared in 1776, those freedoms arose from "truths" that (to the People of 1776) were so obvious they were declared to be "self-evident."
First Amendment rights and freedoms arose from our inherent equality before the law ("all" citizens "are created equal") and the most important qualities we decided and declared regarding all American government. In America, all "Governments" must be "instituted" with only "just Powers" derived "from the Consent of the Governed," and the overarching purpose of all government (the duty of all public servants) is to "secure" our "Rights," including our "unalienable Rights" which include our rights to "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."
Clearly, the people manifest "the Consent of the Governed" by exercising "the freedom of speech" and "press" and "the right of the people" to "assemble" (declared in the First Amendment). Voting is speaking. Suffrage is the speech of sovereigns. Speech regarding public issues (consenting or objecting to the public service of public servants) is at the very core of the rights and freedoms "We the People" secured for "ourselves" when we did "ordain and establish" our "Constitution" to "establish Justice" and "secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves" (as the Constitution's Preamble declares).
Simply put, as John Stuart Mill put it in On Liberty and as the Declaration of Independence put it, our liberty (our freedoms of expression, communication and association) are derived from our independence (our sovereignty over our own selves) and our sovereignty over all our public servants.
SCOTUS sometimes has articulated very similar principles pretty clearly. In our “republic” clearly “the people are sovereign” and “the ability” (the power) “of the citizenry to make informed choices” about public servants and public issues “is essential.” Citizens United v. FEC, 558 U.S. 310, 339 (2010). “Speech is an essential mechanism of democracy;” it is “the means to hold officials accountable to the people” in our “republic where the people are sovereign.” Id.
“The right of citizens to inquire, to hear, to speak, and to use information” is essential “to enlightened self-government and a necessary means to protect it.” Id. Accord id. at 339-341, 344-350. “Premised on mistrust of [all] governmental power, the First Amendment stands against attempts to disfavor” the “subjects or viewpoints” of speech, especially regarding public servants’ abuses or usurpations of power. Id. at 340.
“For these reasons,” our “political speech must prevail against” regulation “that would suppress it, whether by design or inadvertence,” so regulation “that burden[s] political speech” is “subject to strict scrutiny,” which “requires the Government to prove” how such regulation “furthers a compelling interest and is narrowly tailored to achieve that interest.” Id. To do so, courts must fulfill their “duty” to “say what the law is” protecting speech about public issues and public servants. Id. at 365 (quoting Marbury v. Madison).
Suum Cuique is literally tattooed on me.