In this essay, the author reflects on the public reactions to the killing of Charlie Kirk—not to comment on the man himself, but on the broader implications for democratic discourse. Zhok examines the disturbing readiness, especially among some on the left, to justify violence against those with offensive views. He argues that suppressing speech—even speech we find abhorrent—ultimately serves the interests of those in power. For the powerless, he insists, the freedom to argue, dissent, and persuade is the only real tool available. Undermining dialectical freedom, even in the name of justice, is a self-defeating act.
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by Andrea Zhok
The “Charlie Kirk” case is worth reflecting on not so much because of the individual himself—personally, not being American, I have little interest in him—but because of what the reactions to his death have revealed.
As has been widely discussed in recent days, a significant number of people with a “progressive” or “leftist” pedigree expressed satisfaction, understanding, or justification for the murder. The underlying logic was more or less: “He was a horrible person with horrible views, so the world is a better place without him.”
Now, I’m not interested here in debating whether or how horrible the person really was, or whether he might have been the victim of slander and misunderstanding. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that he truly was the awful person some claim he was.
The real issue is this: when someone holds awful views, is it RIGHT to silence them through violence? Note that “silencing through violence” doesn’t necessarily mean murder. It could be imprisonment, threats, blackmail, or other forms of coercion.
There are two layers of argument here. The first we could call “Kantian”: it holds that using violence against an opinion, however repugnant, is intrinsically wrong. Because if we generalize that kind of behavior—since every meaningful opinion is intolerable to someone—we’d quickly find ourselves in a state of all-against-all conflict, of universal oppression. In the end, the very space for opinions and reasoning would vanish, leaving only the law of the jungle. In fact, every opinion that’s not a bland dishwater statement is bound to irritate someone. Anyone with some experience on social media—an excellent training ground in this sense—knows that the capacity for misunderstanding and outright hatred is astonishing, even toward the most well-reasoned viewpoints.
The only way to avoid hatred or contempt from anyone is to stay silent and (maybe) post cat pictures.
But this kind of argument is often seen as too abstract by many, on both the right and the left.
These people follow the logic up to a point, then shift into a kind of “utilitarian” reasoning, telling themselves something like: “Fine, nice idea, but that generalized scenario is just hypothetical, while silencing this (supposedly) bad person is an immediate improvement to the world.”
This mindset often comes with a certain irritation toward what they see as the “abstract morality” of those who suggest we act in terms of “virtue,” or generally right dispositions. We’re talking about people who don’t believe there is any “universal judge” of human actions—divine or human—and who therefore think pragmatically: “If it has to be done, it has to be done.” If an act of violence gets rid of something they see as harmful to themselves or their beliefs, then so be it.
What I want to highlight here is the depressing stupidity of those who feed this line of thinking while claiming their guiding ideal is the “defense of the weak,” the “protection of the oppressed,” the “safeguarding of the powerless,” or something similar. Since this ideal has often been promoted—or at least waved around—by the left, I believe the reflection is especially relevant for those with that background, though it applies to anyone who believes they’re acting on behalf of the downtrodden.
Why do I call it “depressing stupidity”? Simple. Because once we move to a utilitarian level—that is, analyzing the practical consequences of our actions—we immediately see that the space for opinions, for argument, for dialectic, for freedom of speech, is THE ONLY LEVER AVAILABLE TO THOSE WITHOUT POWER. Those in power don’t need to persuade or justify—they can compel. Keeping the space for debate as alive as possible is, quite plainly, in the best interest of the powerless. Every time someone without power resorts to violence against an opinion—even the most obscene one—they are shooting themselves in the foot.
History is full of useful idiots manipulated by power to achieve precisely that: a withdrawal from the dialectical arena in the name of the “righteous opinion.” Whether that “righteous opinion” concerns gender-inclusive pronouns or the Holocaust, abortion or race, veganism or climate change, proletarian revolution or social Darwinism—it doesn’t matter. Every restriction of the space for debate, every limitation of free speech, is always, unfailingly, a form of support for those who already hold power—even if the speech being restricted seems to support the status quo.
Here, method is everything; content is nothing.
The terrorism of the 1970s in Italy was a prime example of how “protectors of the oppressed” managed to shoot themselves in the foot. Believing that silencing one of the “voices of the masters” through violence would weaken the establishment was one of the most foolish and counterproductive “revolutionary” strategies ever. A Nobel Prize in self-sabotage. To their partial credit, many of them were being manipulated from the inside by intelligence agencies—that is, by the very power they thought they were fighting.
But of course, this doesn’t only apply when anti-debate violence comes “from below,” when self-styled people’s avengers are the ones silencing unwelcome voices. It also applies when power pretends to side with the powerless by silencing those it presents as “threats to sound opinion.” When, a decade ago, websites labeled as “far-right” were being shut down, the left cheered. And it’s precisely that precedent that now allows those in power to shut down sites (presented as) “far-left,” or “pro-Palestine,” or “antifa”—just as they did a few years back with pages labeled “anti-vax,” and so on.
This is a straightforward point, and I wouldn’t have taken up this much space to make it if I hadn’t, in recent days, encountered some of the most absurd arguments trying to justify “a well-placed rifle shot” because it took out someone with views deemed evil.
On this issue, a very simple, very direct, very clear line can be drawn: anyone working to reduce the space for open debate—whether in the name of political correctness or narrow-minded censorship, whether in the name of inclusivity or of the one true god, respect for minorities or love of country—is, in every case, working for the established power and against those who don’t have it.
