Hacker News Reader

Comment by masterleep | Hacker News Reader

It is certainly a misguided and disproportionate tactic, but it is not a violent one.

This is absolutely violence

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IEFD_JVYd0

No, it's not. It's yelling. Yelling is not violence. Words mean things, and if you need an illustration, think of all the times the police have used the false equivalence between discourteous or angry speech and violence in order to harm people.

Damn, that was rough on that poor guy who had to stand there and be bullied like that. I'm half a globe away from this and at the moment that lady started shouting my blood started to boil. Also, it's absolutely not ok to shout at someone, it's a very dick move.

Professor's reply: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM-VE8r7MSI

It is violent, not physical violence but it is violent. Especially in a world where people toss around the ideas of microaggression, death by a thousand cuts and others.

How is publicly shaming someone and aggressively lobbying for them to be fired not violent?

It may be aggressive, but it is not violent. Violence is generally understood as the use of physical force.

Violently going after someone's job would be punching their boss in the face until they agree to fire the person.

EDIT: Speaking from an American English perspective, anyway.

You know, I agree with you. But in a world of "microaggressions" and a systematic devaluation of the meaning of English words, I'm not sure the people you're sort of defending would necessarily agree.

If you mean the students, they'd call it violence when it was done to them, and not violence when done to the administration (or others they disagreed with).

Likely they would not. That does not mean we should cooperate with them to change the meaning of words to confuse people.

I confess, I'm not myself an English native speaker, but there seems to be a proper definition for non-physical violence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence#Non-physical

That's not a definition, it's a modern attempt to hijack the emotions associated with violence into a non-physical setting.

Definitionally, violence is physical. Redefining it to include non-physical acts is pure politics, and I for one will not let it pass without calling it out for the bullshit it is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence#Non-physical

I mean, if I stretch the definition far enough, Ghandi's nonviolent protests were actually a (nonphysical) violent assault on the East India Company. So it's a question of where you want to draw a line.

Wikipedia talks about nonphysical violence in the context of a "power relationship," where someone with a significant amount of power/control over the victim is the instigator. Things like emotionally abusive relationships. A bunch of people with no direct authority over you trying to get someone fired for inappropriate behavior doesn't fit that narrative.

If you told me people were violently going after someone's job, 100% my assumption is going to be "so they burned his garage down and threatened that his house is next unless he quits?" (or something along those lines). Calling phone calls and #FireBob tweets coming from people of no authority "violent" is an attempt at grabbing all the emotional baggage that comes with the word and attaching it somewhere that it doesn't belong.

If you think of the phrase "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me" (ironic in this context, isn't it?) making someone lose their job is closer to the sticks and stones side.

Statements are not violent, even if they have harmful effects.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com