What is Fear Speech? An Account in Terms of Emotional Fittingness and Manipulation

Tomáš Koblížek
Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences

The notion of fear speech is increasingly invoked to describe forms of communication that portray social groups - such as Jews, Muslims, migrants, or LGBT+ persons - as threats to society (Buyse 2014). Although empirical research suggests that fear speech spreads more effectively online than hate speech (Saha et al. 2021; Saha et al. 2023) and may play a significant role in processes of radicalisation (Klein 2021; Greipl et al. 2024), it has received little attention within theoretical debates. This talk, drawing on speech act theory, will develop an account of fear speech as a distinctive illocutionary phenomenon and will address three questions: How does fear speech differ from legitimate warning? How does it relate to hate speech? Must fear speech elicit fear in order to succeed as a speech act?

The talk will advance three claims. First, fear speech is best conceived as a warning about a group x that manipulates the conditions under which fear of x is fitting. More specifically, it manipulatively portrays a group x as a threat, such that fear of x appears to be an appropriate response.

Second, fear speech cannot be distinguished from hate speech by reference to any particular vocabulary. Contrary to suggestions in the existing literature (Buyse 2014; Saha et al. 2023), derogatory terms and slurs are neither necessary nor sufficient for fear speech. Fear speech is better understood as an illocutionary act that can be realised through a variety of linguistic forms, including apparently neutral descriptions, selective statistical reporting, or ostensibly factual argumentation.

Third, I argue that the success of fear speech does not depend on the actual production of fear. Rather, fear speech succeeds when its audience comes to regard fear towards the targeted group as warranted or fitting. This account explains why paradigmatic instances of fear speech often aim less at generating fear itself than at licensing hostility, exclusion, or aggression by presenting such responses as justified by the alleged threat posed by the target group.

Bibliography

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