NY Times: When Is Speech Violence?

The New York Times has a new article that argues politically incorrect speech is an act of violence because it causes chronic stress which can shorten your life span:

“Your body also contains little packets of genetic material that sit on the ends of your chromosomes. They’re called telomeres. Each time your cells divide, their telomeres get a little shorter, and when they become too short, you die. This is normal aging. But guess what else shrinks your telomeres? Chronic stress.

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. But which types? …

The scientific findings I described above provide empirical guidance for which kinds of controversial speech should and shouldn’t be acceptable on campus and in civil society. In short, the answer depends on whether the speech is abusive or merely offensive.” …

That’s why it’s reasonable, scientifically speaking, not to allow a provocateur and hatemonger like Milo Yiannopoulos to speak at your school. He is part of something noxious, a campaign of abuse. There is nothing to be gained from debating him, for debate is not what he is offering. …”

Why should the coddled majority feel threatened though?

The intellectual climate on college campuses and in the corporate workplace affirms their values. They aren’t the ones who are physically attacked by Antifa gangs for expressing an opinion. They aren’t the ones who suffer from employment discrimination or public accommodations discrimination for their beliefs. There are no social and economic penalties for engaging in politically correct speech.

We’re the ones who are suffering from “long stretches of simmering stress.” If you subscribe to our worldview, then you have a front row seat to the demise of our race and civilization. The topic is on our minds every single day of our lives. Those of us who choose to be activists and publicly sound the alarm about our impending doom routinely suffer from all kinds of verbal abuse.

By their own reasoning, the Left is shortening our telomeres because the stress that they have imposed on the White community is an act of violence. Are we justified in violently retaliating?