"Words Can Kill": A Look at Contemporary Antisemitism and Freedom of Expression (Column 118)
With God's help
A look at contemporary antisemitism
It is common knowledge that in recent years we have had a problem with antisemitism in Europe. It is driven by a pincer movement: Muslim immigrants intensify it on the one hand, and the far right, which opposes and persecutes them, adds fuel to it on the other. And what about the Left? It is even more antisemitic and anti-Israel (and it has already been noted that it is hard to separate the two) than either of them. Usually left-wing parties are anti-Israel, whereas right-wing parties in fact identify more with and support Israel. The Right, of course, is always presented as extremist, antisemitic, and Holocaust-denying (have you ever heard of a non-extreme Right? Alternatively, of a party that advocates the oxymoron called "non-piggish capitalism"?), yet it is precisely the Right that supports Israel (or at least displays less hostility). Well, A starling does not go to a raven for nothing, but because it is of the same kind. (birds of a feather flock together) — after all, cruel, conquering Israel too is, as is well known, a dangerous extreme right. A good illustration can be seen in MK Yehuda Glick's meetings with the leaders of Austria's Freedom Party, which took place a few days ago. These meetings were, of course, condemned by the Left in Israel, which itself does not hesitate to meet with and support Palestinian murderers and Holocaust deniers and dyed-in-the-wool antisemites from BDS (you make peace with enemies, remember?). But that is not what I wanted to write about here.
The antisemitism report
A few weeks ago I heard a report on the radio about a Foreign Ministry report indicating a rise in contemporary antisemitism in Europe. It seems to me that this is a fixed ritual. Every year something of this sort is published, and as best I recall it is always said to be increasing. In the discussion that followed the report, however, it emerged that according to the report there was actually a decline in the number of violent incidents, and the increase was in the number of antisemitic statements and in their severity.
The wonders of statistics are already well known. They allow us to present a rise in antisemitism every year, so long as we choose to focus on whichever index rose among all those examined. I have already mentioned here in the past that one of the problems with arguments supported by numbers and data is that they sound reliable and well founded, whereas usually the numbers do not say very much. They are presented tendentiously, in accordance with the a priori assumptions of whoever uses them.
But that too is not what I intend to discuss today. My subject is specifically freedom of expression, or the relation between violent statements and physical violence.
On the correlation between verbal and physical violence[1]
A common refrain has it: "Words can kill," and Rabin's assassination proves it. Really? Let us assume, solely for the sake of discussion, that there is a correlation between verbal violence (the number of statements and their severity) and physical violence. What does that mean? Leibniz, in his well-known parable of the clocks, asks us to imagine two clocks on the wall that constantly show exactly the same time. What is the explanation for this marvelous correlation? Presumably clock A causes clock B. But that is by no means necessary. It may in fact be clock B that causes clock A. In fact, that too need not be true. There may be a third factor synchronizing the two clocks with one another (for example, the clockmaker who built them, or the passage of time itself: time is the same time, and the clocks merely reflect it and show the hour).
The same applies in our case. Even if we accept the claim that there is a correlation between verbal and physical violence, one can offer one of three possible explanations:
- Verbal violence causes physical violence ("words can kill").
- Physical violence gives rise to verbal violence.
- There is a third factor that causes an increase in both physical and verbal violence alike.
What might this third factor be? For example, the actions of the person at whom the violence is directed (Rabin), or some social atmosphere (anger, frustration, fear, and anxiety), or perhaps both, or anything else (for example, a virus responsible for both phenomena).
Does this discussion have practical implications? Absolutely yes. The question is whether freedom of expression on the internet should be restricted in order to prevent physical violence. This implication, which seems self-evident to so many of us, is not at all self-evident to me. Only if explanation A is correct is there any point in prohibiting and preventing violent statements online. According to the other two suggestions, that has no significance. There may be reason to prevent those statements because they themselves harm people, but we should not expect that this will curb physical violence. I doubt whether it is right and proper to infringe freedom of expression without real and tangible benefit (a reasonable concern about physical violence; see below).
Is there such a correlation?
All this was said on the assumption that we do indeed accept the existence of a correlation between these two phenomena. I am not at all sure of that. Thus, for example, the above report on antisemitic violence in Europe can serve as a good illustration of the opposite mechanism. It indicates that there is a decline in the number of violent acts and an increase in the quantity and severity of antisemitic statements. There you have it: words do not, in fact, kill. There is no correlation between the phenomena (and perhaps there is even an inverse correlation between them).
Of course, one can argue that the security emergency in Europe, awareness of the phenomenon, and the intensive police activity there are what cause the decline in violent acts (statements are harder to stop), and therefore this does not refute the claim that words can kill. Verbal violence does indeed lead to an increase in physical violence, but police activity blocks it.
You surely will not be surprised to hear that this was the explanation offered for the phenomenon in that radio interview. That is, the assumption that was self-evident both to the interviewer and to his interviewees was that words kill, and the only question was why in this case they do not. But that is precisely why one says that the supply of excuses never runs out. It is clear to them that there must be some local explanations, so long as the central article of faith — that words really can kill — is left untouched.
So can words really kill?
From what we have said thus far, it follows that the claim that words can kill is far from self-evident. To examine it, we must check whether there is any correlation at all between verbal and physical violence. If not, that claim should be rejected outright. But even if there is such a correlation, we need to conduct a regression analysis in order to determine which of the three explanations presented above underlies it. As stated, only one of the three explanations (explanation A) supports the claim that words kill.
If so, the claim that words kill is subject to a double doubt, with the second doubt being among three different possibilities. And yet, as I illustrated above, in our public discourse it is hard to find anyone willing to cast doubt on this religious dogma. The claim that "words can kill" is the 14th principle of faith — hy"d (a Hebrew acronym for May God avenge his blood., "may God avenge his blood").
Legal implications
The Attorney General and judges before whom a case comes involving verbal violence and the value of freedom of expression must decide whether there is a near certainty of physical violence. Only in such a case is there justification for infringing freedom of expression, which for us is a constitutional right. On what basis do they make that assessment? Do they have any data? Or perhaps, as I suspect (understatement), only the severity of the expressions and the social atmosphere as such are the indices that determine the matter? As we saw above, those indices are far from satisfactory.
Would it not be worth examining the matter properly, at least once? Perhaps this has been done and I do not know of it, but it seems to me that if I do not know, many others do not know either (including the judges, the Attorney General, and all the radio pundits). And even if it has been done, I already expressed above my opinion about "data" and "studies" of this sort. A priori, I would cast great doubt on how reliable they are. In any case, it is hard to justify action that restricts freedom of expression without conducting a proper examination. Here there is certainly an infringement of freedom of expression, and only a doubtful concern about physical violence and harm to people. We have received from our rabbis that A doubt cannot override a certainty. (uncertainty does not displace certainty).
Words prevent killing
In the absence of a systematic examination (at least one known to me), I will allow myself to raise another possibility, or to propose the opposite article of faith: words actually prevent killing. I want to suggest that perhaps freedom of expression is not only a value in itself, as we have assumed until now, but even has a positive contribution to making physical violence less likely. My impression is that if people are allowed to vent their rage online and in various verbal ways, this may actually lead to a release of tension and a lowering of the violent potential that otherwise might erupt in graver forms. Instead of hitting and shooting, one can curse. Incidentally, a few days ago I heard an interesting recommendation from a veteran sports instructor: if someone feels difficulty while running, he should swear and curse vigorously (preferably in Arabic and not in the holy tongue, of course). Tried and true. True, here the cursing is meant to energize and not necessarily to release tensions, but I think many people experience the point that verbal violence enables a catharsis that releases the potential for physical violence.
Does Rabin's assassination not prove that I am wrong? Ostensibly, there too they repeatedly explain to us that words led to the murder. I do not see a shred of evidence for that. The verbal violence may be the result of the aggressions rather than their cause, and there may also be a third factor that produced both phenomena. Is it not possible that even if verbal violence had been curbed, he would have been murdered anyway, and perhaps even earlier? As stated, the possibility of demonstrating, cursing, and letting pent-up anger out can have value in preventing violence. This is of course not a necessary argument, but the opposite argument is not necessary either. As noted, the burden of proof is on whoever seeks to suppress freedom of expression (A doubt cannot override a certainty.).
The preventive value of freedom of expression
Even if for some reason we adopt the factual conclusion that words may kill, there is preventive value in a policy that allows verbal violence and freedom of expression. If people are silent, you do not know what is in their hearts. They curse behind closed doors, and you do not know that a potential for physical violence is brewing there. By contrast, if they are allowed to express themselves, one can see and diagnose whether and where there is potential for dangerous violence.
An implication for the religious world[2]
To my mind, the same is true of the religious policy that rejects engagement with questions and doubts. There too there is an assumption that such engagement may lead people to heresy and abandonment of faith and religious commitment. And there too I am not at all sure that this is necessary. In fact, I am quite sure that for some people the situation is exactly the opposite. Precisely airing the doubts and discussing them openly can prevent the abandonment. That is beyond the intrinsic value of free thought and autonomous decision-making, and beyond the value of freedom of expression as such. Restricting freedom of thought and speech often does not really help.
Back to the data of the antisemitism report
The data in the above report ostensibly point to such an inverse correlation. We saw there an increase in antisemitic expressions and a decrease in incidents of physical violence. Needless to say, this too of course does not prove my claim, but it at least supports its plausibility. It may be that verbal venting of the violence reduced the need for physical violence, in which case this would express the correctness of my position. Of course, it may also be that police activity suppressed physical violence, leading to the decrease in physical violence and leaving the verbal kind at its previous level. In fact, it is possible that this very activity led to an increase in verbal violence, which burst out through the channels still left available to it (and even then the causal relation is not from the verbal to the physical but the reverse). And it is also possible that this is merely accidental (one would have to see whether the increase is clear and statistically significant, and what happened in other years).
[1] I have already written several times about the parable of the clocks and about correlations in general. See, for example, here.
[2] See on this in column 6 on freedom of expression and "Do not stray".
Discussion
Well, an apostate—we already know that.
A truly incorrigibly wayward post.
Thank you very much for the post.
[
A. The discussion relies on the assumption that what is called “verbal violence” should not be prohibited (because of the sacred value of “freedom of speech”) unless there is a good reason (= it leads to “physical and tangible” violence).
But the distinction between verbal violence and “physical and tangible” violence seems artificial to me. In my humble opinion, what should limit freedom of speech is the harm to another person itself, not the manner in which it is carried out.
The entrenched distinction between permitted kinds of violence and prohibited kinds leads, in my view, to absurd results. For example, it is accepted in society that it is permissible to humiliate a person live on the radio, even though there is not the slightest doubt that such a thing hurts a thousand times more than landing a stinging slap on him. Why is that allowed? I understand that the dividing line between physical and verbal violence is a convenient place to draw a boundary, but it seems to me that very often the harm caused by this distinction outweighs its benefit.
B. Studies based on collecting data—as you write—usually (and some would say always) reveal only correlation. What kind of investigation are you expecting that would show a causal connection between verbal and physical violence?
On the face of it, a priori it seems obvious to me that violent and coarse speech has *some* causal effect on harming others in other ways. I am persuaded that it may also have a “pressure-release” effect and not only an aggravating one, but I find it very hard to believe that the restraining effect outweighs the aggravating effect.
Such an a priori position really would lead me to interpret statistical data in a way that fits those assumptions, and I see nothing wrong with that. The question that should be asked is whether it is indeed justified to prohibit anything that could indirectly cause violence. I think not. But as stated—my opinion is that there is good enough reason to prohibit verbal violence in its own right.
Thank you for the column.
I think the link between verbal violence and physical violence is more in terms of “starve it and it is sated; sate it and it grows hungry.”
Maybe verbal violence inflames the impulse (more like demagoguery),
whereas heretical questions are thinking (rhetoric).
These are two different systems.
There is no problem at all with raising questions that contain heresy. But to go around all day saying “God is dead,” “Who needs this religion,” etc.—that is simply demagoguery.
It doesn’t sound far-fetched to me that such a person could succeed in leading his friends to sin in some way that, if they think about it afterward, they would regret.
The fact that it is possible to cast doubt on any connection between two phenomena does not mean one must do so.
(I’m risking Godwin, but what can you do—this is not a bad example for the matter.) Hitler regarded anti-Semitic propaganda and rhetoric as a very important tool for incitement against the Jews, and entrusted Goebbels with great power in order to invest in it. As is clear to any reasonable person, this propaganda increased violence and cost the lives of many Jews, not the other way around.
The 1929 riots as well are attributed by historians to the incitement of the Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini. Even these days, whenever al-Aqsa Mosque makes the headlines and speeches in the mosques grow heated—the masses go out into the streets. So the assumption that there is a connection between incitement to violence and violence itself seems entirely reasonable, even if “entirely reasonable” is not absolute certainty.
The excuse for prohibiting verbal violence is incitement. That is, curse as much as you like, but don’t encourage others to harm physically.
Therefore, cursing as a way to vent tension, like a rowdy crowd at a soccer game, is permitted, unfortunately. But incitement is forbidden. I can definitely see a causal connection between encouraging violence and someone else carrying it out.
What is still a mystery to me is the concept of incitement to racism. Making racist statements is indeed very impolite, offensive, and often untrue, but why is that different from other insults? But that too is a question that an Ashkenazi like me is not allowed to ask nowadays.
So it’s you, “pure of speech,” over at Zaguri’s? 🙂
Actually it does. Perhaps you meant that it doesn’t require drawing a conclusion. True—not this conclusion and not its opposite. But the moment something is not proven, by definition it is indeed doubtful.
Beyond that, I raised a reasoned doubt here. And as I wrote, the consideration that doubt cannot override certainty places the burden of proof on whoever claims that incitement kills.
Incidentally, of course one must distinguish between types of incitement. When people lash out at someone, that does not necessarily lead to violence against him. When they call to kill him, then it probably does. The cases you brought generally belong to the second category.
Maor Zaguri is king of the world in the exemplary series Zaguri Imperia. And once in an interview he explained that the motto of the series is apparently a prettified anti-Ashkenazi Moroccan assumption that telling the truth is more important than hurting feelings. And when you think about it, that is a healthier approach than the fear of offending that is common in the West.
Sometimes direct speech leads to very vivid language, and the line between that and foul language is very thin.
A. You are repeating what I wrote. I explicitly wrote that verbal violence can be prohibited because of the harm it itself causes, and not because it leads to physical violence. Even so, when set against freedom of speech and the preventive value, I think there is a difference between the two. And certainly when people bring the argument that words kill, which assumes that verbal violence leads to physical violence—and that is what I challenged here.
B. One can do research that identifies the direction of the correlation as well. The fact that in many cases they do not do so stems either from ignorance, or superficiality, or from the fact that sometimes it really is difficult.
In conclusion I will repeat what I wrote above in a response here: one should distinguish between violent expressions that directly call for harm and expressions of slander and insult.
I’ll just comment on the correlation you presented between Mizrahi identity and directness. I deny it. On the contrary, there are Ashkenazim for whom it is very important to say the truth directly and without prettification, even if they do so in gentle words (the Yekkes). On the other hand, many Mizrahim have a mentality of concealing things out of discomfort.
In sum, it is important to distinguish between using blunt language and directness and truth-telling. They are really not the same thing. When Zaguri refers to the profession of the mother of the fish his mother cooked, he does not mean to tell the fish the truth to its face. It is only a coarse and blunt way of praising the fish by saying the opposite of what is meant. (One can do that even when the fish is terrible, so it has nothing whatsoever to do with truth-telling. And it depends on the dispute between Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel at the end of Tractate Gittin, regarding “a fair and gracious bride” versus “a bride as she is.”)
A word in its proper time is how good it is: after all, today is the 30th of Shevat, the day of the passing of our master Immanuel Kant, may his memory protect us, who ruled that one must tell the truth even when a murderer asks about a person in order to kill him. However, we who merited to receive the Torah, received even before it the obligation to proper conduct, to carefulness about the ways of peace and human dignity. We are forbidden to shame our fellow publicly, and even when there is a need to rebuke him, this must be done gently so that we do not bear sin because of him. And we were also warned against evil speech and talebearing even when it is true, and to judge our fellow justly, so that we may merit to fulfill: “Love truth and peace.”
With blessings, Shatz Levinger
With God’s help, 1 Adar I, 5778
We have merited that RMDA is going from strength to strength in the path of Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev and even beyond him, teaching merit even regarding antisemites, for whom it is not clear that their words of hatred constitute “contributory guilt” that creates an atmosphere inflaming violence. Brilliantly said.
It should be added that the antisemites, in their hatred, uphold the value of commitment to halakhah, namely the halakhah that “it is a well-known rule that Esau hates Jacob,” and their abysmal hatred even benefits us by reminding us that we are Jews and that our place is in the Land of Israel and not among the nations.
Not for nothing must one become intoxicated “until one cannot distinguish between Haman and Mordechai,” for Haman’s hatred too contributes to us by ensuring that we do not forget our identity and mission to be the people of God and not assimilate among the nations.
With blessings, Shatz Levinger
As for the remark that antisemitism is increasing even though incidents of violence are decreasing, one may say that violence is decreasing because increased awareness of the danger brings the authorities in decent countries to increase protection and law enforcement, and the fear of the government keeps the hatred from spilling over into violence.
That is in the short term, but in the long term intensified incitement to hatred may become the possession of the many, and then even the authorities may join the hatred or at least behave toward it with indifference. So there is a serious concern that the decline in violent incidents is only temporary.
Hello Rabbi,
In social psychology there is a theory dealing with “group polarization.” The theory says that a group will adopt a more extreme decision than the average that would result from aggregating all the decisions each individual would make.
This theory has been tested by research, and several explanations have been given for it.
According to this theory, when a group forms in a physical or virtual setting (for example, on a Facebook page), and it engages in violent messages, the individual who enters it because of his initial affiliation will become more extreme in his views than he was to begin with.
For example, right-wingers who supported Elor Azaria and formed into a group supporting him and condemning the legal system will, over time, become more and more extreme than they were at the beginning, and perhaps will attack the Chief of Staff.
Therefore, in my opinion, insofar as this theory is correct, the dissemination of violent views should be restricted, because they cause violent people to coalesce, become more violent, and move from verbal violence to physical violence.
First, I’m not at all sure you are right.
1. Because even if you prohibit violent expressions on the internet, the people involved still talk among themselves. Usually when saying things is prohibited, they will come out on the personal plane in a more extreme way because of frustration and a sense of persecution.
2. Beyond that, even if verbal violence does indeed intensify over time, you are assuming that this will translate into physical violence—but that is precisely what we are discussing. This begs the question.
But even if we assume you are right (and as stated I’m not sure of that), what about the opposite considerations I raised in the post: the preventive value and the importance of ventilating aggressions? And the value of freedom of speech.
With God’s help, 1 Adar 5778
To Aharon—many greetings,
The outbreak of physical violence does not come all at once. A person has natural inhibitions that keep him from sliding into extreme acts, whether fear of criminal entanglement or various moral inhibitions. Hatred bursts forth and develops into violence when there is a spark that breaks through the barriers.
This may be the herd effect you mentioned, where a person who sees many people rushing in “gains courage” and charges with them. It may be a severe political or economic crisis, in which despair breaks the inhibitions, as Nazism erupted after the global economic crisis of the 1920s and 1930s. In a severe crisis, all the seeds of hatred that had developed over hundreds of years burst forth. —
To the seeds of traditional Christian hatred of the Jews as “killers of God” was added the hatred inflamed by 19th-century German nationalism, which was joined by the hatred fostered by German philosophers toward “the Jewish-Christian slave morality” (about whom my father, Prof. David Shmuel Levinger of blessed memory, wrote in his Hungarian book “The Prophets of Germany,” Budapest 1946; see his Wikipedia entry). And when there is a crisis that brings existential despair, and there is a strong group inciting—then all the currents of hatred erupt into a “tsunami.”
Accordingly, you are right that one should not make light even of the early stages—stoking hatred and verbal violence—just as in a fire, the one who lit the flame is responsible, since he should have been aware of the possibility that a wind would come and fan the spark into a giant blaze.
With blessings, Shatz Levinger
Another factor that may inflame hateful passions into violence is alcohol. This is one of the reasons the worst riots occurred דווקא in Christian countries and on their festivals, when the priest’s words of abuse in church joined with the fumes of alcohol and turned into a pogrom. Among Muslims, whose religion forbids them to drink wine, there were far fewer eruptions of riots.
They thought like you in Weimar too: let the Nazis run wild a bit and they’ll vent their rage… The end of the story is known!
With blessings, Shatz Levinger
And from your own words I will bring proof. After all, you educated your children (as written in column 117) that even a threat to hit counts as hitting, and you did not think the children should vent their anger verbally so that they would not come to actual hitting, but rather you made a safeguard!
With blessings, Shatz Levinger.
It may very well be that at the level of governmental intervention it is difficult to stop “verbal violence,” since this may lead to blocking legitimate criticism or to selective enforcement.
The main struggle against verbal violence should be educational-social. Besides forceful rebuke against verbal violence, leaders who have influence on public opinion can and must set a personal example that one can disagree and criticize sharply without sliding into the realms of personal degradation. Whoever practices what he preaches, and whose criticism is substantive, will be able to influence things in the direction of purifying the atmosphere and creating a healthy culture of debate.
With blessings, Shatz Levinger
I find it very hard to understand how one can doubt that verbal violence may lead to physical violence. That is an assumption I would indeed have accepted as self-evident even before examining a single datum.
I think it would be very hard to defend the claim that there is no such causal effect at all.
Studies that identify the direction of the correlation are generally based on inference to the best explanation. In this case, I find it hard to imagine a study that would lead me to think that, according to the best explanation, there is no causal influence at all from violent speech to actions. But perhaps my imagination is limited…
Agreed (and I wrote that above). Your second paragraph illustrates the distinction in the first.
Incidentally, if racism is itself problematic (not only because of fear of violence), then one can understand the concept of incitement to racism.
Indeed. But the ventilation effect exists in both cases.
Going around saying something is not like raising questions that trouble you. There is a difference between incitement and raising the claims themselves.
Of course this can influence others, but not necessarily as incitement; it may simply be because people are genuinely persuaded by the arguments. On the other hand, for the speaker himself or for others who have doubts like his, it can ventilate and allow answers to be given.
My claim is not that verbal violence cannot lead to violence, nor that there is no causal effect at all between them (again, I saved you the use of imagination. There is no need to imagine those claims, since they are not the subject of my column). What I claimed is that verbal violence does not necessarily lead to violence, and I brought several reasons why it could have a moderating effect from several aspects (and those too need not be imagined—just read).
You may agree with the reasons I wrote or not, but I do not see why imagination is needed here.
At least at the principled level, it is not difficult to test the direction of the correlation. For example, one can examine changes in the level of violence after raising the threshold of prohibition on publishing violent speech online and in the media. Here one demonstrates not only correlation but also its direction clearly. Here is some further help in overcoming deficits of imagination.
(Sorry that I got caught up in imagination, but it came up quite a bit in your remarks and I didn’t understand what it was doing there 🙂 )
Regarding Rabin’s murder, Feiglin already argued at the time in his book In a Place Where There Are No Men that the silencing of the demonstrations and the inability to express nonviolent protest during the Oslo period (see the book there at length) created in extremists (who in any case exist in every population) the need to express the protest violently as well, which led to the murder.
With God’s help, eve of the holy Sabbath, “Speak to the Children of Israel,” 5778
Indeed, Feiglin’s activity in blocking roads was blocked, and that itself has an element of violence. But the protest campaign led by opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, which operated only by legal means—demonstrations and protests in the media and in the Knesset—was active and bore fruit. Public support for the prime minister plummeted to a low, and it was expected that in the elections due only a few months later he was going to lose.
The lawful public protest against the prime minister achieved its purpose and reduced the popularity of the left-wing government to a low. It was precisely the murder—carried out by the good friend of the provocateur Shin Bet agent and with the provocateur’s encouragement—that suddenly raised the left’s chances of winning the election, and only the many terrorist attacks that occurred close to the election tilted the scales back in favor of the right.
Those who depicted Rabin in an SS uniform, and those who kept saying to Yigal Amir, “Let’s see you do it,” and those who sent him to incite and made sure to close every case against him for acts of violence and incitement—cannot say, “Our hands did not shed this blood.” By contrast, the figure of our prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu stands out for good, as one who knew how to lead public protest effectively and by proper means.
With blessings, Shatz Levinger
Paragraph 3, line 3:
…By contrast, his figure stands out…
And a disclosure:
My daughter-in-law’s co-mother-in-law is a second cousin of Sarah Netanyahu’s sister-in-law. I even made the effort to disclose this to my former neighbor Mr. Alsheikh, who was present at the wedding 🙂
With blessings, the above-mentioned Shatz Levinger
I do not agree with your response.
1. You wrote that prohibiting the publication of verbal violence on Facebook cannot completely solve the problem of “group polarization” that I raised, because people can still gather physically and exchange ideas orally.
I am puzzled: if a problem cannot be solved fully, should we not solve it partially?
2. I did not understand why this begs the question. After I argued that group polarization leads to an exacerbation of the prevailing opinion, it follows that each individual may intensify his violence. Therefore, someone who stood close to the boundary between verbal and physical violence is expected to cross it when he becomes part of a group.
That is on the assumption that verbal and physical violence lie on the same continuum, on the same scale. Would you not agree with that?
3. I did not object to the values you raised at the end, nor did I downplay their importance. I only noted the concern that has, in my opinion, been demonstrated. (I assume there are more focused studies on the subject.)
4. It has now been published in B’hadrei Haredim that extremists in Jerusalem organized a mass ceremony in which they burned ten wigs, out of opposition and protest against the severe breach. Each wig was attached to the name of one of Haman’s sons, and at the ceremony they recited a special “for the sake of the unification,” and since it was “an auspicious time,” each participant requested his personal requests in silent prayer.
An opinion piece wrote that there is concern that the burning of the wigs will lead to physical violence.
And here is another report from Kikar HaShabbat: An ISIS-style intimidation campaign in Bnei Brak: “Women with wigs will be slaughtered”—one of the pamphlets tells at the end of the week about a dream that simultaneously struck dozens of Lithuanian yeshiva men from Kiryat Sefer. “Thirty-seven yeshiva men dreamed in one night that they saw our matriarch Rachel showing them how, in the coming war, all the women who go with sheitels are slaughtered,” etc. “And dozens of other people around the country dreamed this too.”
In your view, is it legitimate to conduct a PR campaign in this way?
For me, the dispute about “a fair and gracious bride,” etc., appears in Ketubot 17.
Indeed. I got it mixed up with the dispute over the grounds for divorce at the end of Gittin. In passing, I was not precise…
1. I didn’t say a partial solution is worthless, only that a partial solution is less able to override the other considerations. Fair enough: if there were a complete solution here, then freedom of speech would be overridden. But when it is partial, and in fact it is doubtful whether there is any solution here at all, even a partial one (since there are the ventilation considerations and the rest, which may increase the problem), then the value of freedom of speech is less overridden.
2. You assume there is a continuum between verbal and physical violence with a boundary, and that as one advances in the verbal one reaches the physical. That begs the question, for that is precisely the dispute. It may be that verbal violence actually reduces the likelihood of physical violence.
3. That concern has not been demonstrated at all. I explained in my remarks why there are several refutations of it.
4. It doesn’t seem pleasant to me, and it is also quite stupid, and still I do not know whether it increases the likelihood of violence compared to talk within the Haredi community that does not go outside. Both from the standpoint of ventilation and from the preventive standpoint.
I will remind you again of what I already wrote here: one must distinguish between expressing views in violent terms and incitement (an explicit or even implicit call to acts of violence). They are not the same thing.
There comes a point at which coercion regarding “verbal” violence is already thought police.
In a society where individual liberty is (or ought to be) a supreme value, you cannot imprison everyone who blurts out a joke or an insult with a racist flavor, as long as he is not calling for harm to other people. Enough with this. There is no end to it.
I’m tired of people obsessing over insults and talk—this one said “the Arabs are heading to the polls in droves,” and that one said “mezuzah-kissers.” If we deal with this too much, we are a sick and fragile society like a child in kindergarten (especially since politicians use it instead of real content and exchanges of ideas). So he said it—what are you, six years old?
In addition, there is a serious danger here of restricting individual liberty and granting unlimited power to law-enforcement authorities to turn a person’s life into hell. At the media level we are not far from there, and it would not take much for this to reach the level of punishment and criminal treatment.
It seems to me that many times the word “incitement” is used cynically in order to gain political profit or to harm freedom of speech.
Take for example the case of the Bezalel student who, במסגרת his art project for school, hung a display of a noose next to a picture of the prime minister. The whole country was horrified, and condemnations were heard wall to wall against the severe incitement to violence.
And I, a simple fellow, do not understand: if the display incites to violence and poses a danger, why was it not censored?
The Bezalel student placed the “inciting” display in a place seen by a handful of people, who likely did not pay much attention to it. Meanwhile the media and Likud people published the inciting display in the public square and asked that the whole world view it. Now if the claim is that the display incites to violence, who is the greater offender—the student who exposed the display to a few dozen people, or the media that spread the incitement to millions of people?
The matter reminds me somewhat of the Talmudic discussion about the problem of accepting testimony against someone who cursed God: the very giving of the testimony constitutes a severe transgression.
And, to separate the sacred from the secular, the matter also reminds me of the Monty Python bit where the English found the “doomsday weapon” against the Germans—a joke that anyone who hears it dies of laughter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBYZiiSXj6w
If incitement arouses violence like a virus whose spread must be prevented, don’t publicize it to the masses and then say “tsk tsk” to the “inciter” with a sanctimonious look.
Danny, I agree with your words in principle, but not with some details.
First, at Bezalel there is no authority responsible for preventing incitement that can shut down an event of five students because it contains incitement. So the fact that they didn’t shut it down there proves nothing. True, what was there (an Arab female student, not a male student) did not contain even a trace of incitement. I think I already wrote about that here.
Another point: when one publishes an inciting picture or statement with an explanation attached—that is, with condemnation and indication that this is incitement—that is not passing the incitement along. Just as in the example you brought, “Jose shall strike Jose” said in court is not cursing God (and just like the difference between the Monty Python joke and its implementation in real life). Incidentally, there is no comparison, because cursing God is prohibited not because of what it causes but because it is intrinsically forbidden. Incitement, by contrast, is forbidden only because of its expected consequences (and therefore one should discuss passing it on according to that criterion).
Perhaps the heads of Bezalel did not censor the inciting display because they too hate the prime minister, and the incitement against him is to their liking?
With blessings, Shatz Levinger
Perhaps. As the saying goes, “Or perhaps these things never happened at all” (ibid., ibid.). And perhaps you are judging them unfavorably (with no apparent basis whatsoever) because your opinion differs from theirs? Perhaps…
It seems to me that people who act rationally are less influenced by provocative incitement, as opposed to an ignorant and inflamed mob that incitement may ignite and drag into violence.
That may be the reason the rabbi comes out strongly against the view that incitement leads to violence. If a person acts according to decisions he reaches on the basis of rational give-and-take, then ostensibly incitement should not cause him to change that decision. After all, there is no new knockdown argument here that justifies changing the prior conclusion not to use violence.
What can one do—quite a few people act impulsively, and there incitement may lead to violence.
Therefore I think the rabbi’s solution—that there need not be a destructive effect to incitement if it is published together with condemnation and an indication that it is incitement—will not help.
If incitement were a rational consideration, then the rabbi would be right and it would be possible to balance the incitement with a warning note that incitement is improper and worthy of condemnation; the negative effect would cancel out and the publication would have no impact on the balance of considerations.
The problem is that in reality it doesn’t work that way. Incitement arouses the “demons” hidden deep in the soul and causes them to burst outward. The fact that condemnation is attached to the incitement, in my view, will not prevent the negative effect of the incitement.
If a picture of Rabin in an SS uniform causes someone to resort to violence, adding condemnation to the publication will not help. It is like telling someone not to think about a white elephant.
Regarding Shatz Levinger’s comment,
my puzzlement was not why Bezalel did not censor the inciting display. My puzzlement was at all those preachers who claimed the display might cause violence against the prime minister, while on the other hand they were the ones giving the incitement publicity and themselves causing the spread of the incitement.
I argue that if they really believed there was a danger that the display would lead to the murder of the prime minister, they would censor the display, not publicize it further.
With God’s help, 5 Adar 5778
A picture of the prime minister with a noose is a clear statement: “He deserves death.” An institution that displays such a picture in an exhibition on its own behalf is a full partner in incitement to murder!
The left’s hatred for the prime minister is no secret, and it is understandable: he defeats them again and again. As Ephraim Kishon of blessed memory said: Sorry that we won!
With blessings, Shatz Levinger
With God’s help, 5 Adar 5778
To Danny—many greetings,
Incitement by a person or institution of influence affects mainly the circle of their associates and admirers who are subject to their influence. When an innocent student sees that an academic institution considered respectable presents as a work of art a poster declaring that so-and-so deserves death, it is likely that the student will be influenced by the decisive opinion of his teachers, whom he regards as great intellectuals and luminaries of the generation.
Bringing the affair into the light of day, and the public condemnation aroused against it, can open the eyes of those incited and lead them to second thoughts about the spiritual greatness of their teachers, when they hear other well-known intellectuals condemning the matter. Sometimes public protest also affects the inciter himself, who comes to understand the gravity of his words and begins to soften their terrible meaning. And even this softening has a positive influence on his admirers.
With blessings, Shatz Levinger
If you think that publishing the report about the picture of Bibi with a noose in the media was itself a transmission of the incitement, then truly we live on different planets. [Though it is true that even in the original picture there was no incitement at all.]
I do not know which Indians you know or who lives around you. I know no such creatures.
Shatz Levinger, what is faded and certain to you is, for me, not even in doubt. But you keep seeing the projections of your own heart, as I already wrote.
Still, so as not to leave the page blank, I will add some small logical grain.
The fact that leftists hate Bibi is indeed known. The fact that at Bezalel most are leftists is also known. [And of course the fact that such a picture is incitement is not only unknown, it is also incorrect.]
But the conclusion you drew from this—that there certainly was incitement there that was not censored because of hatred—not only is it not certain, it does not follow from the premises (even if you do not accept the claim in the square brackets).
And in passing I will add something I found very puzzling in your words: how can one be a partner to a murder that was never committed at all? (You wrote that the Bezalel people are partners in Bibi’s murder.)
To RMDA—many greetings,
Regarding your objection in the last paragraph.
I did not write that the heads of the respected and terrible artistic-academic institution are “partners in murder,” but that they are “full partners in incitement to murder.”
With blessings, Shatz Levinger
Presenting a person’s image with a noose is a clear statement that he deserves death, transparent incitement to murder. However, often it achieves the opposite effect, causing the viewer to recoil from the message toward which the picture leads.
Even regarding Der Stürmer, Himmler and Göring disagreed. Göring opposed the blunt and horrifying style in which Der Stürmer expressed hatred of the Jews, among other things because it caused reputational damage to Nazi Germany. Himmler, however, supported the newspaper’s way.
Göring, who came from military circles, understood the diplomatic harm in such incitement, whereas Himmler, the man of the SS and Gestapo, saw the benefit of horrific incitement in motivating the perpetrators of crimes and removing their moral inhibitions. For someone raised on such horror propaganda, it was easy to carry out…
Protest and expressions of shock at Streicher-style propaganda by Jews against Jews can open the eyes of someone surrounded by such propaganda and bring him to a “recalculation of route.”
With blessings, Shatz Levinger
Shatz Levinger, indeed I was mistaken )for some reason I read incitement and murder(.
Hello to the honorable rabbi.
You wrote: “In the absence of a systematic examination (at least one known to me), I will allow myself to raise another possibility, or to propose an opposite article of faith: words may actually prevent killing. I want to suggest that perhaps freedom of speech is not only a value in itself, as we have assumed until now, but that it even has a positive contribution to preventing physical violence. My impression is that if people are allowed to vent their rage online and in various verbal ways, this may actually help dissipate the tension and lower the potential for violence that otherwise might have erupted in more severe forms. Instead of beating and shooting, one can curse,” end quote.
I am currently studying a course in social psychology (from David G. Myers’s book), and it has a chapter on prejudice and aggression. In the chapter on prejudice there is a long discussion of the argument that verbal violence leads to physical violence, but that is not what I wanted to get into. Rather, I wanted to address the discussion of whether discharging violence in one form (verbal) reduces tension and lowers the likelihood of discharging violence in another form (physical).
So this claim is called “the catharsis hypothesis.” It originates with Aristotle (who used it with regard to other emotions as well), and later with Freud and his students. Various therapists use this theory, and many laypeople believe in it. However, social psychologists are almost unanimous that this theory has no basis in reality, following a series of experiments that were carried out. People were allowed to vent their anger in all kinds of ways and variations after various aversive stimuli had aroused their anger, and it was always found that aggression intensified aggression, and that “expressing anger in order to reduce it is like extinguishing a fire with gasoline.”
I would be glad for your response on the matter, since you prefaced your remarks by saying that you were not aware of a systematic examination on the subject, and here I have noted it and its sources.
I have nothing to say. It may be so. Though my trust in psychological research is rather limited.
You may be surprised, but despite what I wrote, I really don’t like profanity. Even somewhat lowbrow expressions make my ears perk up. And still, I can’t resist posting here the beautiful (and somewhat disgusting) post that Maor Zaguri wrote:
https://www.yediot.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4701412,00.html
I think he did it much better than I did. I should also add that despite the annoying curses, he has a very, very impressive command of language and an impressive ability to express himself and write. That in itself is thought-provoking.
The letter Zaguri received reminds me of the immortal story about my teacher, Rabbi Rabbi Mark Twain, who received a hate letter from one of his readers containing one word: "Idiot." Twain immediately replied with a letter of his own: "I have already received letters without the writer’s signature, but never in my life have I received a letter with a signature and no text." (I wonder what the addressee’s name was on the envelope of the reply?)
My thanks to a reader of the site named Alon who sent me this link.