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We hear so often that either political side is poisoning the environment with their "violent rhetoric" and creating a "climate of fear". People come up with all sorts of explanations such as: "crazy talk encourages crazy people" or "If violent rhetoric didn't cause this shooting, it will cause next one" Is the underlying philosophy at work here determinism? |
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It may be, to the extent that people believe that words can compel other people to act. But these accusations may also come from an inability or refusal to distinguish metaphor from reality. If, for example, political pundits were urging the assassination of government officials, such speech would be morally reprehensible and possibly illegal. But I have not seen evidence of such incitements; rather, the only "violent" language has been the familiar martial metaphors of American electoral politics. |
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Because man has ascended, culturally, from the animal capabilities he inherits, in the manner so well documented by Bronowski's book, "The Ascent of Man," and in the sense of Rand's "self-made man," society includes both people who, for the most part, live by reason and people who don't. Rhetoric urging violence falls in the category of influences that work in default of a thoughtful response to events. It incites unthinking people, to a greater or lesser degree. But, while it may be intended to incite violence, and it may succeed in doing so, it is the violent individual who is responsible, not the speaker, for the result. Like the willing incapacitation of a drunk driver, they put themselves in the position, through long neglect of reasoning, of being suggestible, plus their capacity and known responsibility to reason about the violence being urged remain intact. They may be swayed, but still they may choose to think and reason, and thus resist. That doesn't excuse the speaker from moral evaluation. Assuming this is an unjust action being urged (rather than a call-to-arms to oppose a tyrant, for example,) the speaker is responsible for his tactic of rabble-rousing as well as his expressing a threat of violence. Those who want to place the blame exclusively, or principally, with the speaker are not, however, implicitly deterministic. It is a valid observation that people can be aroused to act irrationally. Blaming the speaker for making this use of those people is a proper blame, without implying deterministic control. The people who say the things that are quoted in the question above recognize that too many people can be influenced outside of reason, and fear accordingly. Unfortunately, that fear can lead them to reach for oppressive solutions. It is in that situation that analysis is needed, so that the people fearful of unreasoned rhetoric's affects don't succeed at doing the very thing they condemn, though in a quieter, and probably legislative, way. |
