“The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.” – Teach Different with Unknown Author

Transcript

Steve Fouts (00:00)

Welcome everybody to the Teach Different podcast. We’re actually doing this on a Sunday and I’m back here with my brother, Dan, who founded Teach Different with me. And we have an exciting conversation to have about a topic that’s on a lot of people’s minds, and it really has been for almost a decade, if not more, which is social media, misinformation and the challenges that everybody is experiencing right now in our society to make sense out of all this information flow that we’re getting and the way that we’re being exposed, especially young people, to violence on their phone and a lot of what you could argue are negative influences that you have one side that’s always talking about, hey, we should give people the freedom to express themselves and you shouldn’t be censoring any of this stuff. But you also have the other side that’s acknowledging that there are problems here. And if we don’t address them in some way, if we don’t regulate or we can’t always rely on parents to restrict these types of things. We have kids that are growing up and they’re being exposed to things that are not helpful. It’s just acknowledged. But there’s a debate here and the debate gets into freedom. And where does our freedom end with creating harm in someone else? And how do we balance those two things? So anyway, there’s our topic. We’re going to start doing every quote with a topic and the drill of the Teach Different Method. We’re going to bring out a quote. We’re going to do the claim counterclaim and essential question. We’re going to model that together and you know, away we go. Quick update on Teach Different. We are continuing to do our state work in Illinois. We’re training teachers. We almost have 50 teachers who are going to be done with our certificate program by later this spring. So we’re just really excited about it. We also have a homeschool course that’s now live and we’re just excited to like get the ball rolling and keep our momentum going and just make an impact with this conversation technique that you’re about to learn if this is the first time you’ve been here. Dan, anything to add? We’ve been doing so many of these, anything to add before I…

 

Dan Fouts (02:40)

No, it’s a good topic because as a high school teacher myself, I have a lot of students who come to me deeply concerned about what they’re seeing on their phones and it’s causing visceral anger in them and a discontent. And so they are walking into my class not in the best space to learn. And it’s a very difficult situation because we want them to be calm, measured, and in control because that way their nervous system is regulated and they can be a good learner. But when they have anxiety from what they’re seeing on their phones and social media, it’s like another barrier we have to cross as teachers before we even get them to learn our content, get them to ignore their phone first. So this is a five-star alarm in instruction right now.

 

Steve Fouts (03:44)

And what’s crazy is that it’s one of many alarms, right? There is so much going on right now. And you could say a lot of it is being driven by the phone and this exposure, but there’s real, there’s a war going on. There’s a lot of things that are affecting these kids. And we’re going to tackle this issue with this quote. Here it is. And this is, it’s a widely cited maxim.

 

Dan Fouts (04:06)

So let’s get the quote.

 

Steve Fouts (04:13)

We don’t know who originally said it. If anybody can find out the original author of this, let us know and we’ll give them attribution. We just couldn’t find anyone. Here it goes. The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins. The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins. Dan, what is it saying?

 

Dan Fouts (04:47)

Some interesting imagery and metaphor. I purposely didn’t read and look at this in depth before this to see what I could come up with on this spur of the moment. Read it one more time.

 

Steve Fouts (05:00)

Yeah, I will. It’s it. This is a really good one to get a claim from. The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.

 

Dan Fouts (05:14)

So the right to speak my mind, I’m just putting it in a different language. The right to speak my mind ends if by speaking my mind, I’m causing physical hurt or violence to another person. So I can speak up to a point is what I’m hearing it saying.

 

Steve Fouts (05:19)

Good, we got a topic. Yeah, and this is all about the physical, right? The right to swing my fist, that’s physical. And hitting someone, that’s physical. That harm, I think you captured it. Like you can do whatever you want, but if you’re gonna hurt someone, you don’t have a right to do everything you want. If you’re gonna hurt someone, you gotta check that.

 

Dan Fouts (06:04)

And I, it’s interesting, you took it literally. Because we set this up talking about social media, I’m actually taking it more figuratively. When you speak in certain ways, you have to speak up to a point. If your speech then becomes dangerous and harmful and causes really bad things to happen, well then that’s when it has to stop. So there’s a limit.

 

Steve Fouts (06:16)

Go with it.

 

Dan Fouts (06:33)

So both physically and free speech wise.

 

Steve Fouts (06:37)

And I’m with you and the free speech I feel like I can. I want to get to that in a second and I want to like at least clarify this specific one and I think that physical harm is what it’s focusing on. That’s my claim. You know, you can do what you want physically, but if you hurt someone physically It’s not a right of you to be able to do that and you’ve got to think of the harm that you’re causing someone else. So get more figurative. There’s limits.

 

Dan Fouts (07:16)

There’s limits. There’s limits to expression. You know, it’s funny. You went literal, I went more figurative, but that actually demonstrates what happens in these conversations. Your students will behave the same way. You’ll have some go in this direction, others go in this direction, and you kind of have to just dance with it. So pursuing the social media part.

 

Steve Fouts (07:31)

Yeah.

 

Dan Fouts (07:47)

You know, you can speak up to a point, but if by doing so you are putting other people in harm, then that’s where it ends. That’s where your free expression rights must be restricted and limited.

 

Steve Fouts (08:05)

That’s what this would, yeah, that’s the translation of this to social media. I agree. And then the way you put it, you use the word harm, you generalized harm. We took it out of the physical. went into, cause there is mental harm, which is what most people I think are talking about when they talk about social media. They would make the argument that you made, which is, you know, if you’re 14 years old and you’ve got a phone, and you can just flip through your phone and have an algorithm bring up somebody getting beaten up or some violence that’s occurring on your phone. Are you free to be able to watch that? Is that a right of yours to watch that? At what point is the line drawn where it’s so inappropriate that you shouldn’t be allowed to do that? The harm that it’s doing to you is worse than the freedom that is being afforded to you by looking at it. And it’s like we’re trying to protect people. Right?

 

Dan Fouts (09:20)

Yeah, and you referenced your own hurt to yourself. And I’m thinking more when you speak on social media, it’s easy in an asynchronous environment to say things where you don’t have to confront the person that you’re challenging. And when you do that and the person’s not there, you know, there’s a limit to that. There’s a barrier. If you cross it, you’re hurting them.

 

Steve Fouts (09:49)

when you’re being provocative. Okay? Okay.

 

Dan Fouts (09:50)

you’re being too provocative towards them. And so that’s where the nose begins, where, you know, if you cross a line, you gotta stop.

 

Steve Fouts (10:00)

Okay, so cyber bullying is what it sounds like you’re talking about from the perspective of someone who’s being provocative and they, you know, they’re doing it. They think they’re free to do that, but they’re doing it and they’re actually hurting someone else. That translated into this quote. This quote would argue that you shouldn’t have a right to express yourself in certain ways. If it creates that harm.

 

Dan Fouts (10:02)

Yeah, there you go. Yes. Exactly. And it’s so easy to do on your phone when you communicate in that way.

 

Steve Fouts (10:38)

And listen to this perspective. Do corporations that own these social media platforms, do they have a right to put this infection in our consciousness and, you know, sell phones at the Apple store, completely legal, and have an app that’s available off the store that has a social media account, completely legal. And then in comes the garbage. You know, do social media companies have the right to make these apps? And, you know, it’s the same question, I think.

 

Dan Fouts(11:13)

Are you saying, you know, where does, who has the responsibility? The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins. So that is interesting. Swinging my fist, you’re making an analogy with social media companies offering these apps, these technology companies offering these phones. In a sense, they’re putting it out there.

 

Steve Fouts (11:52)

We could have a law tomorrow that says, no more social media apps that show any form of violence to a child under 18. If you get caught doing that, you’re going to be fined. You could potentially just have your rights rescinded to even have the app in the app store.

 

Dan Fouts (12:21)

Yeah, it makes me… I think back to Mark Zuckerberg when he testified in front of Congress about some of the things on social media that he was being challenged as the CEO, that he allowed certain things through his algorithm that was harming young girls. And he had to confront people in the audience whose children had been harmed. So that’s exactly, I think what you’re on here. He had put himself out there and people were being hurt. And so is he responsible for that?

 

Steve Fouts (13:00)

Yes, some had committed suicide, I think, like really bad. And, you know, we’re talking about social media. That’s kind of the mechanism, right? And we’ve referred to violence. There’s also misinformation. So not necessarily violence, but outright lies and conspiracies, whatever you want to call them, designed to provoke and mislead people deliberately. I think you could argue that there’s a harm there. It isn’t maybe as overt and clear, but I think that that could be brought into this argument to fit a quote like the right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins. The right to put up lies and try to get people to believe them, to believe them ends where it’s obviously not telling the truth. And if you’re leading people down a deliberate lie and deception, you’re creating harm.

 

Dan Fouts (14:19)

And news organizations recently have been sued and have lost millions and millions of dollars for lies that they know that were told that they propagated and that hurt companies. So when you hurt companies because of the lies you’re propagating on your news, you pay. And that’s a good example of this too.

 

Steve Fouts (14:26)

The Fox News. That’s a, I’m glad you brought that up because they had to prove that Fox News knew that they were lying. Cause it’s easy to like to put some things up and you know, have plausible deniability say, well, this is what we think. And we’re not telling, you know, we’re entertaining where this or that.

 

Dan Fouts (15:03)

They never approved it though. They came to an agreement right before the trial started. So there was no trial. And there’s other lawsuits pending. It happens with liberal news sources as well. Defamation, say what you want. But if you do it in a way that takes down the reputation and character of a public official, that is not protected speech. So liable, slander.

 

Steve Fouts (15:08)

Fox News thought they were gonna lose. Yeah, you’re right. You’re right. But that was.

 

Dan Fouts (15:33)

clear and present danger speech. All of this shows the limits and feeds into this quote really well. Should we try to counterclaim the error?

 

Steve Fouts (15:34)

Yeah. Yeah, I was gonna say fire in a movie theater the old Like you can’t do that ⁓ So let’s try the counterclaim like I got one in mind I’ll read the quote again, but let’s let’s push against this and the important thing that we’re doing for everybody Who’s listening for the first time? This is a very volatile topic in society. We’re talking about a quote so we’re being rational and even about something fair that is another way to look at this quote. And we’re gonna explore that right now. So I’m gonna read it again and we’re gonna come up with a counterclaim, at least one. The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.

 

Dan Fouts (16:30)

The right to swing, I like to use the language, the right to swing my fist ends when I knock someone out.

 

Steve Fouts (16:42)

Yeah, it’s like, I think that’s kind of where I was going. My right is determined as to whether I hit my target. If I can get away with it… I mean, might makes right.

 

Dan Fouts (16:59)

Sometimes hurting and violence is justified depending on the situation.

 

Steve Fouts (17:04)

There you go. That’s good.

 

Dan Fouts (17:07)

When, you know. Well, okay, here’s an essential question for our audience out there. These questions pop up organically. Here’s one that came to mind. When is violence justified? That’s what’s going in my head right now. Because we just talked about how you have to stop before something gets violent. Now we’re pursuing the idea that sometimes physical harm is justified.

 

Steve Fouts (17:10)

I think another counter. Yeah. OK.

 

Dan Fouts(17:36)

So there is the tension that leads to the question, when is violence justified?

 

Steve Fouts (17:42)

And I’m going to give another essential question very similar to that. When is censorship justified? And it’s like two sides of the same coin. It’s asking the same question, but that could have been raised with the claim as well. Is censorship ever justified? So violence, we both went to kind of a bully. I went to a bully is, the counterclaim to this.

 

Dan Fouts (18:16)

Well, self-defense, you’re defending your family, you’re defending a friend. There are situations where you have to take an aggressive physical approach to solve a problem. You think of war. We’re in a war right now. There’s different rules of engagement in a war.

 

Steve Fouts (18:20)

Okay. Right?

 

Dan Fouts (18:39)

There are exceptions here. It’d be interesting to see what exceptions the kids could come up with.

 

Steve Fouts (18:45)

Yeah. I mean, think about this. Someone who’s been bullied for six straight months at school. They just decide to punch the bully in the nose.

 

Dan Fouts (19:01)

Yeah, people can understand why.

 

Steve Fouts (19:02)

Do they not have a right to do that? It’s situational, right? Go back to social media and misinformation and the whole corporate rights and the freedom that individuals have to express themselves, the freedom that corporations supposedly have, because corporations are treated as individuals. the right to my freedom. Why are there any limits to my freedom? justified. I should be free to do whatever I want, especially if I’m not like physically hurting anyone. If I’m having a bad day and I want to put some lies out on social media or you know maybe I want to watch some violence so that I can see what I don’t want to be a part of and consider myself lucky because I don’t have to do that.

 

Dan Fouts (20:11)

Yeah, I can promote negative speech. I can promote violent speech. It’s not my responsibility. It’s the responsibility of the listener to do whatever they want about it. Don’t put it on me. Don’t limit. Yeah, don’t try to say that I need to restrain myself. Deal with it.

 

Steve Fouts (20:37)

Ignore me. Delete your app. Don’t listen to me. Or keep scrolling, I should say.

 

Dan Fouts (20:45)

See, and that would introduce an interesting side conversation in class about, do you delete apps that are really, really bad? Have you ever unfriended someone? Have you ever ghosted someone because of how they’ve spoken to you?

 

Steve Fouts (21:06)

I just thought of something, you know how algorithms work. The more you watch something, the more the app knows what you like. If you’re making the choice to watch these videos, you’re partly responsible for them coming up on your phone. If you flip through and you know, the app thinks that you are not into that and you don’t want that. You’re not going to see much. It’s going to give you what you like. So maybe we need to step back and say with social media and misinformation and the technology age. We need parents to step in. We need people in these kids’ lives to help them make better choices and stop trying to blame the negative influences and take away people’s freedom. Just help people make better choices.

 

Dan Fouts (22:04)

Well, I was just gonna say, this is an ethics problem. People have to self-regulate. If you’re always projecting blame on other people, you’re not gonna take responsibility for your own actions. Ethics, virtues, just basic baseline good character is a way to address something like this.

 

Steve Fouts (22:10)

Right. Yeah. And the way to build that is to have people in your life, you know, like, ⁓ of course, if you take that logic and I’m going to flip to the claim in a moment, if you take that logic, you could see someone argue. Yeah. I yelled fire in a movie theater and everybody in the movie theater should have made their own choice as to whether or not it was serious and whether or not they wanted to be chaotic and rush out of there. That wasn’t me. That seems not right. I know, but I’m bringing it up because.

 

Dan Fouts (23:04)

Right, right. It’s absurd. It’s a breakdown of ethics. I teach philosophy. I have an ethics unit. It’s so important to learn directly the ways of thinking about being a good person because a lot of the responsibility starts there. So look at what’s happened, audience. Steve and I are talking about this quote. All of a sudden, we’re now into ethics. We’re into an area that you could talk to the kids about what is right and what is wrong. Where does self responsibility begin and where do other people’s responsibility begin?

 

Steve Fouts (23:49)

There you go. That’s an essential question right there. Where does responsibility lie? And that’s where I think you would get conservatives and liberals to disagree almost on the face. Conservatives at least used to tend toward individual responsibility, whereas liberals are more talking about. There’s a responsibility of society to protect us from certain things. That’s why you can’t drink until you’re 21. That’s why there’s…

 

Dan Fouts (24:19)

Yeah, that’s clouded now, but yeah.

 

Steve Fouts (24:22)

But that’s where it’s on the political spectrum there.

 

Dan Fouts (24:24)

Yeah.

 

Steve Fouts (24:30)

Anything else? Like this was good. We came up with some questions. I think we did, we were fair about this. And I mean, what do we do now? Do we actually ask each other what our opinion is? I would need a context to give my opinion about something. Like if tomorrow there were a law that said that you can’t put certain types of videos

 

Dan Fouts (24:50)

Right.

 

Steve Fouts (25:00)

On social media apps, I would read it and see what they got to say, but that’s a tough one, you know, to stomach, to limit that.

 

Dan Fouts (25:16)

The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.

 

Steve Fouts (25:21)

I wonder who said it.

 

Dan Fouts (25:23)

Yeah.

 

Steve Fouts (25:24)

Thank you everybody for being here for the Teach Different podcast. We’re coming back soon. Actually on Wednesday, I’ve got my community organizers and leaders with me from Chicago. And I hope you enjoyed this. We’re going to take on another topic. It’s going to have to do with the Iran war, but I don’t know what angle we’re going to take on it, but we’re going to find a quote that’s going to allow us to talk about a very divisive situation. And that’s what the Teach Different method does. Hope you enjoyed it. Anything to add.

 

Dan Fouts (26:00)

And I hope you see that, that because we’re talking about a quote, we ground it in a very neutral fashion and we can talk about a volatile issue, but do it in a reasoned, civil, thoughtful, inquisitive way. And that’s what we need right now. This is what we need. So please come back and listen and put these into action in your own communities.

 

Steve Fouts (26:14)

which is exactly what society needs. Everybody needs this. Take care everybody.

 

Dan Fouts (26:30)

All right, take care.