This article was first published as a comment (#43) at the Unz Review in an essay written shortly after Hamas had initiated their October 7 attack on Israel during which some 1200 persons were killed and hundreds more kidnapped and removed to Gaza. To date, the Israeli reprisal has resulted in upwards of 25, 000 Palestinians dead and the entire population uprooted and displaced, many of them on the brink of starvation.

Please note that my comment focuses on the free-speech issue which is under concerted assault today. It does not address the “Jewish question” nor should it be read as “anti-Semitic” in any way. If you find anything which I said to be offensive, then you are trying to be offended. Your problem, my pity.

Slight, grammatical corrections have been made from the original.

“To the main point here: Should calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard University’s code of conduct?

If that was what the student protestors were calling for, the answer has to be yes. “Genocide” means killing an entire race of people. If you want to do that, you are a homicidal psychopath. In a civilized society there should be no institution whose code of conduct validates homicidal psychopathology.”

https://www.unz.com/jderbyshire/give-em-an-inch-they-take-a-harvard-yard/

Well, along with Ms. Gay, I would say, “That depends.”

In a civilized society SHOULD THERE BE an institution whose code of conduct validates homicidal psychopathology? Well, no, of course not, any more than there should be a movie theater which would tolerate someone shouting, “Fire!” during a very crowded session. However, this misses the point of free speech. It is called FREE speech, after all.

In a civilized society where free speech is encouraged and allowed, there should be no limits placed on what is said. Anyone should be able to speak his mind about anything.  Any institution should be able to support and allow any speech it wishes, even if it is detrimental (and it would be) to the institution itself.  Offense taken because of words spoken is a personal issue and should be addressed as such. However, in today’s society, the emphasis is placed on the “offense taken” and the only remedy which is prescribed for it is to outlaw and prohibit, not the offense nor the reaction, but the words which caused it.

“You cannot say that. Someone might be hurt.”

All of society, civilized or not, is geared around one thing–conformity to the established norm. Anyone who deviates from that automatically becomes uncivilized, a pariah, one of the hairy, unwashed, deplorables who deserves to be eradicated or thrown out of the group. It does not matter what the issue is or how flagrant the violation is–any violation is cause for alarm and voices which speak freely generate the greatest concern and response.

It is not the speakers themselves who are the real threat, rather the response by others who hear the words and are motivated to action because of them. Jim Jones and Adolf Hitler would have been nothing more than abrasive loudmouths IF the people who heard them refused to act on what they heard. Those who scream, “Kill all the Jews!”, would make no progress at all if everyone within earshot simply ignored them and went about living as if they had not heard them. No one would ever be trampled to death in a crowded theater if everyone would simply sit still for two or three seconds and rationally assess the situation before stampeding.

The problem is, they don’t. People react, from emotion, according to what they hear and listen to–whether it is right and true or not. Therefore, we have laws prohibiting the FREE exercise of speech and substituting some truncated version of it, a limited form of it, somewhat less than free speech–all of it conditioned on and by the level of “civilization” we have reached.

If we are ever to be free, truly free, then the right to say anything, anything at all, must become sacred within the society. Otherwise, we labor under the shackles of someone else’s opinion and feelings, all of which are meant to “protect” from “harm”. Until we learn, as individuals and as a cohesive group of individuals, that we are NOT harmed by the words and, therefore, have no need to react, we will never be free. We will always be under the control of someone else who will decide for us how we MUST respond. In other words, there oughta’ be a law against that sort of stuff.

“I may not agree with what you are saying, but I will defend your right to say it.” ought to be our operating mantra, but it is not. Instead, we have arrived at the conclusion that because I disagree with and do not like what you are saying, you cannot say it. End of story. Sit down, shut up, and do as you are told.

“Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” This old nursery rhyme has now been transformed into one which might read, “If you call me a name, I will pick up a stick and attempt to break your bones.”