When Is Speech Violence?

When Is Speech Violence?
If words can cause stress, and if prolonged stress can cause physical harm, then it seems
that speech — at least certain types of speech — can be a form of violence.
We were modeling for the students a fundamental principle of a university education, as well as civil society: When you’re forced
to engage a position you strongly disagree with, you learn something about the other perspective as well as your own.
Certain types of adversity, even those involving no physical contact, can make you sick, alter your brain — even kill neurons — and shorten your life.
Your nervous system evolved to withstand periodic bouts of stress, such as fleeing from
a tiger, taking a punch or encountering an odious idea in a university lecture.
This question has taken on some urgency in the past few years, as professed defenders of
social justice have clashed with professed defenders of free speech on college campuses.
The process feels unpleasant, but it’s a good kind of stress — temporary
and not harmful to your body — and you reap the longer-term benefits of learning.
If you spend a lot of time in a harsh environment worrying about your safety,
that’s the kind of stress that brings on illness and remodels your brain.
Your body’s immune system includes little proteins called proinflammatory cytokines that cause inflammation when you’re physically injured.