Shouting Our Fire

902 Words4 Pages
The Misuse of the “Shouting ‘Fire!’” Analogy Alan M. Dershowitz, in his essay “Shouting Fire,” seems to be trying to accomplish a few things. In general, it is an essay about using analogies falsely to prove a point. It is also a study of the way expressions and figures of speech get distorted and frequently misused over time. He uses a famous, often-used example to focus in on a specific argument in order to make a general argument regarding the manipulative usage of misleading and inaccurate analogies in order to “prove” points. The author specifically focuses on the history of a judicial analogy coined by American Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. The analogy is that some supposed acts of free speech are not protected by the First Amendment because they are simply harmful and panic-causing like screaming the word “Fire!” in a crowded theater. The author begins picking this analogy apart first by showing its irrelevance in the initial free-speech case it was coined during. Holmes compared a man handing out non-violent anti-draft pamphlets during World War I to the equivalent of shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater. This analogy was used in Holmes’ statement to justify the sentencing of this man to prison for issuing a pamphlet. Dershowitz argues that Holmes’ famous line about shouting out fire in a theatre was a tactic of rhetoric that works to clinch an argument to a non-careful listener. It sounds like it proves the point, but in reality is based on false logic and is irrelevant to the argument at hand. In reality, shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater is less about free speech or speech at all, but the word when yelled is more like an alarm that goes off in the ears of bystanders, a stimulus. Whereas the defendant of the case wrote a long, thought-provoking argument, yelling “Fire!” is more like a jolt to immediate action and panic. A pamphlet is something
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