How to Combat Harmful Speech: The Use of Rephrasing as Counterspeech

Abstract

It is widely accepted that bigoted and prejudiced speech has no place in democratic communication. But how can it be fought? One response resorts to negative counterspeech, in which the resistant hearer typically denies what was said by the bigot; e.g., denying a harmful negative stereotype, like ‘women are submissive’. Lately, however, this type of negative strategy has been treated with some pessimism by philosophers who point out that denying stereotypes tends to reinforce their salience and to amplify their cognitive influence. This can cause refutations to backfire as counterspeech. It has also been argued, more broadly, that it is unfair to demand resistance duties from typical victims of bigotry, since their speech is often silenced and/or stumble upon hermeneutical gaps. My goal here is to question the pessimistic view of negative counterspeech by arguing that it is still an adequate choice in combating bigoted speech, provided the reply either changes the QUD (i.e., question under discussion) — which represents the goals of the conversation — or the terms of the conversation. I propose that rephrasings, which are negative replies in nature, are good alternatives to in situ denials. I also hold that rephrasings used in the State’s communication are less likely to be silenced, and this helps to avoid problems related to deontic concerns. Finally, I analyze a practical case of use of rephrasing in state counterspeech.