"Speech Is Violence"?

"Setting aside the fact that no one will ever be able to agree on what’s 'abusive' versus what's 'merely offensive,' the articles Barrett links to are mostly about chronic stress—the stress elicited by, for example, spending one’s childhood in an impoverished environment of serious neglect and violence. Growing up in a dangerous neighborhood with a poor single mother who has to work so much she doesn’t have time to nurture you is not the same as being a college student at a campus where Yiannopoulos is coming to speak, and where you are free to ignore him or to protest his presence there. One situation involves a level of chronic stress that is inflicted on you against your will and which really could harm you in the long run; the other doesn't. Nowhere does Barrett fully explain how the presence on campus of a speaker like Yiannopoulos for a couple of hours is going to lead to students being afflicted with the sort of serious, chronic stress correlated with health difficulties. It's simply disingenuous to compare the two types of situations—in a way, it's an insult both to people who do deal with chronic stress and to student activists."

Jesse Singal at New York appeals to "Stop Telling Students Free Speech Is Traumatizing Them."