Charlie Kirk and the ‘violence of words’
Deranged individuals have come to believe violence is, somehow, a more appropriate response to "offensive" speech than merely finding better words of their own.
Speech is not violence — but can it be responsible for it?
Historically, speech is the most peaceful way to effect change in our world. It’s capable of shifting entire cultures not with guns, death, war or oppression, but with the mere expression of ideas and appeals to persuasion.
The fact that a man was killed last week in front of his two young children and wife for engaging in such a quintessentially peaceful behavior is grotesque and heartbreaking; but it’s also unnerving in a world where we like to think we’ve outgrown the barbarism of humanity’s worst historical tendencies toward violence.
We clearly haven’t.
The classically liberal concept of free speech is more than the mere freedom to speak one’s mind, it’s about tolerance and acceptance of divergent viewpoints. The willingness to embrace even the most wicked disagreements as part of a free world is what has allowed our culture to move beyond the days of bloody battles between tyrants, and into an era where social change is enacted by peaceful trips to the ballot box instead.
And regardless of how one felt about his politics, Charlie Kirk represented the essence of this liberal tradition — not because of what he advocated for or what agenda he sought to advance, but rather because he used reason, speech and the peaceful exchange of ideas to motivate the change he wanted to see in society.
His dedication to the art of changing minds through the deployment of words was indicative of what makes our enlightened era such a stark departure from mankind’s historically bloody way of changing the world. And even if one finds Kirk’s philosophies abhorrent, his approach should be lauded as a premiere example of peaceful persuasion in politics.
Simply put, when he decided to go out and fight for change in the American experiment, he didn’t take up arms or begin terrorizing those who might stand in his way. Instead, he decided to proselytize in the least violent method possible for his cause: He spoke to people.
And yet, he was killed for it.
Despite our dismay whenever it happens, political violence isn’t inherently difficult to understand. At its core, it’s rooted in little more than an unbridled hatred for those who think differently.
Unfortunately, in today’s political world, there’s no shortage of hatred being fomented to turn us against our ideological “others.”
Indeed, such hatred is not only promoted by peddlers of partisan outrage but also outrightly justified by political opportunists looking for a way to rationalize the illiberal attitudes we instinctively harbor against those with whom we disagree. This is why the right portrays the left as demented malicious destroyers of democracy, and the left portrays the right as bigoted authoritarians hellbent on bringing back another Reich.
Neither portrayal is representative of the more benign truth that well-intentioned and compassionate human beings often just simply disagree on important philosophical questions.
Nonetheless, much of today’s political discourse is reminiscent of witch hunts and religious purges — a discourse built upon our tendency to succumb to those who peddle contempt, hatred and disdain for our ideological “others.” As I’ve written before:
… those who [seek] power or influence [have always been] highly incentivized to stoke the flames of public outrage as a means to an end. Even today, leading a mob gives one great opportunity to profit politically and monetarily — look no further than the absurd wealth some opportunistic “leaders” of the Black Lives Matter movement have amassed from inciting protests in the streets.
…
Perhaps, the real lesson we should learn from the absurdity of our modern “post-truth” era is that, while we may no longer believe witches are incapable of drowning, we’re nonetheless just as susceptible as we’ve always been to believing absurd or slanderous fictions — and trusting those who spout them — if they just so happen to comport with our worldview.
Burning witches in the modern era
·When we look back on the “logic” of identifying witches in the 16th century, one can easily conclude that, several hundred years ago, humans were pretty much idiots.
In such environments where we’ve come to loath those with whom we disagree, the same speech used to incite action in support of our political agenda can easily lead some small groups of people to believe it necessary to go beyond mere civic action.
Indeed, we’re beginning to learn that Kirk’s shooter wasn’t some malicious discontent born with an appetite for violence — he was an objectively intelligent young man who seemingly became radicalized by narratives rooted in fear and hatred for “conservative” politics.
Radicalized narratives about any political ideology are ripe breeding grounds for violence, as they often unwittingly lay out ostensible justification for a few crazed individuals to indulge their fantasies of sparking a revolution. And modern politics is, unfortunately, brimming with such examples nowadays.
That’s a scary thought, considering the tremendous power words have to shape our world.
Words, as it turns out, are powerful things — powerful enough to incite action, shift entire cultures and transform society. Indeed, pretty much all Political discourse is designed to incite such results — to incite huge swaths of the public into donating to campaigns, voting for candidates or advocating for a cause. The words chosen by activists, politicians and even neighbors having civil conversations about civic happenings are chosen to illicit certain responses; usually responses that are more than mere philosophical musings, but deliberate actions to move society in the direction we desire.
At our best, such political discourse is inspiring, hopeful and aspirational — even when we might not agree with the direction it attempts to move us.
Today, however, it’s rarely at its best. Political profit is too often tied to how effectively one can sow distrust and disdain for their political others among would-be voters.
Unfortunately, even the type of unnerving act of violence we saw last week isn’t likely to deescalate this poisonous environment of hatred-fueled discourse. As I wrote after one of the attempts on Donald Trump’s life, any reprieve will be short lived:
Like the 1950’s tobacco companies providing doctor testimonials in their cigarette adverts, today’s media is laden with pundits, analysts and politicians assuring us the hate we feel for our political “others” is justified and warranted. And through such hate, they enrich their wallets, consolidate their power and expand their influence — further incentivizing the peddling of contemptuous partisanship at every opportunity.
… until someone eventually takes a (literal) shot at a former president.
Even then, however, the proliferation of political contempt is only momentarily paused. And why would we expect things to “calm down” merely because of a little political violence? How long can we really expect those who profit off our division to remain restrained when there’s so much power, influence and wealth to be gained by preserving our hate-fueled political culture?
Addicted junkies and the politics of hate
·“Not everybody is comfortable with the idea that politics is a guilty addiction. But it is. They are addicts, and they are guilty, and they do lie and cheat and steal — like all junkies. And when they get in a frenzy, they will sacrifice anything and anybody to feed their cruel and stupid habit, and there is no cure for it.” — Hunter S…
Despite Democratic politicians and progressive voices condemning the shooting last week, a vocal and grotesque minority of leftist activists have gleefully cheered on the death of a man they knew only as a political foe. (I refuse to reward these people with a link… ) And on the right, Kirk’s death is already being used by some of the more militant activists to assert that leftism, itself, is solely responsible for inciting violent political tendencies.
Indeed, everyone seems eager to point a finger at everyone else’s speech as the root cause for such unnerving political violence.
Such petty politicking is sickening as a wife and children grieve the loss of their loved one — not least of all because it’s painfully indicative of just how dehumanizing modern politics has become. Far from viewing each other as well-intentioned patriots who happen to disagree about important policies, modern politics encourages us to view each other as malicious usurpers of human dignity who must be neutralized — electorally or otherwise.
In a world percolating with “us vs them” political outlooks, there is no shortage of partisan zealots eagerly pumping their veins full of such addictive hate filled propaganda. Like a junkie chasing a fix, each dose requires an ever-greater level of contempt to satisfy our itch for self-righteous indignation.
And tribalist cheerleaders all along the political spectrum are seemingly more than happy to provide such junkies with an ever-growing supply of their drug — a supply that crazed radicals of any (or all) ideological stripes are happy to overdose on.
And in that sense, our public discourse — contemptable speech from all corners of the political landscape — has undoubtedly contributed to the sort of violence we saw in Utah this past week.
However, conflating the violence such discourse has encouraged with the right for such discourse to exist in the first place would be a dangerous rejection of what has made our world a fairer and freer place over the last several centuries.
Even with such blatant hate fueled partisan opportunism feeding radicals more of their preferred poison, the proliferation of speech is the only thing capable of deescalating our current cultural tensions. Only when there’s a wide variety of speech is it possible for us to preserve and even strengthen tolerance for ideas with which we disagree — a tolerance which, more than the mere freedom to say what we think, is the crux of the classically liberal tradition.
It should be self-evident to everyone following a political assassination that speech — even speech someone might find abhorrent or illiberal — is simply not the same thing as violence. With very few exceptions, even the most contentious words are simply not equivalent to picking up a rifle and murdering someone from 200 yards away.
In the hands of provocateurs and unscrupulous partisan outrage artists, speech can certainly be a dangerous tool used to drive controversy, division and discontent. It can escalate our contempt for one another in an already contemptuous social era and can be weaponized by those who are willing to abandon our classically liberal order.
However, speech is also the only peaceful antidote to the violence, oppression and genocidal turmoil that has traditionally plagued the human condition. Killing each other doesn’t diminish the hate, contempt or disdain promoted by political or philosophical differences — it instead fuels it to ever more destructive levels.
Violence begets violence, but speech has the ability to disarm, deescalate and even heal. If we are now plunging into a new era marked by a greater frequency of political violence, it’s not because we have enjoyed “too much” free speech or even the “wrong” kind of speech over the years.
Instead, responsibility for violence lies with the deranged individuals who have convinced themselves that murder is, somehow, a more appropriate response to discomforting speech than merely finding better words of their own.
Michael Schaus is a communications and branding expert based in Las Vegas, Nevada, and founder of Schaus Creative LLC — an agency dedicated to helping organizations, businesses and activists tell their story and motivate change.
