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I like those insights. The danger with labeling words as violence though is that it leads many to the conclusion that words should be policed in the way physic

I like those insights. The danger with labeling words as violence though is that it leads many to the conclusion that words should be policed in the way physical violence is. A critical difference between words and physical violence is that words can cause harm to a listener based on the listener's interpretation and reaction to those words. If a fist hits my jaw I can't control whether it breaks it. But I have control over how I interpret people's words, and the effect they have on me. A person's words can hurt others even when that is not the speaker's intent, and indeed, sometimes there is no way to express a certain idea that won't hurt certain people. But that should never be pretense to treat words like physical violence in the way we police the latter. (I'm not meaning to suggest that you were advocating for that. Just that it's a risk of not clearly distinguishing between words and physical violence.)

SolaceQuantum 8y ago
While I agree that violence in context of language is different from physical violence in that the harm can result from an interpretation of the listener's part, I also suggest that certain forms of language are equivalent to physical violence in that there is no non-harmful way to express something. For an extreme example, I do not know of a non-harmful rhetoric to advocate the genocide of an oppressed group.
nrclark 8y ago
Agreed - conversational violence and physical violence are two very different things. If I heard somebody say 'violence', I definitely wouldn't jump to conversational violence in my head. But as far as descriptive nouns go, it's not a terrible one. Just as long as everybody understands the context. Your note about being able to control interpretations is interesting - I haven't had great success with that myself. Like if some rando came up to me and shouted bad stuff in my face, my day would be pretty ruined. I could try to rationalize it away later, but I definitely wouldn't be unhurt in the moment. And probably the memory would affect me whether I wanted that or not. Sticks-and-stones might be one of those "in theory, theory and practice are the same" kinds of situations.

SolaceQuantum 8y ago

While I agree that violence in context of language is different from physical violence in that the harm can result from an interpretation of the listener's part, I also suggest that certain forms of language are equivalent to physical violence in that there is no non-harmful way to express something. For an extreme example, I do not know of a non-harmful rhetoric to advocate the genocide of an oppressed group.

nrclark 8y ago

Agreed - conversational violence and physical violence are two very different things. If I heard somebody say 'violence', I definitely wouldn't jump to conversational violence in my head. But as far as descriptive nouns go, it's not a terrible one. Just as long as everybody understands the context. Your note about being able to control interpretations is interesting - I haven't had great success with that myself. Like if some rando came up to me and shouted bad stuff in my face, my day would be pretty ruined. I could try to rationalize it away later, but I definitely wouldn't be unhurt in the moment. And probably the memory would affect me whether I wanted that or not. Sticks-and-stones might be one of those "in theory, theory and practice are the same" kinds of situations.