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Words have meaning. Care denial is a serious problem that causes much harm and requires a solution, but to call it violent is to make the word meaningless.

salawat 2y ago
It is not. The care denial, coupled with financial siphoning to pad a risk pool is a form of inflicted harm. I do not qualify unreasonable financial shenanigans as exempt from being considered violent. I in fact find it aggravates above traditional violence because it is systematized, and automated, thus amplifying the scope and reach of the harm caused. To constrain violence to physicality is to ignore and minimize the myriad creative ways we've concocted as a society to inflict harm. Maybe to you it seems to dilute meaning, but to me that's more of an indication of a dependence on the narrowed definition on your part, than a problem with the increased scope per se.
- haswell 2y ago
  I suspect we feel the same way about the actual harms of care denial, i.e. they’re unacceptable, immoral/unethical, cause unnecessary suffering and death, are tragic and horrific, and reforms are required. But we disagree about the use of language. Many people reduce complexities to the most extreme word they can think of. It’s very popular these days to call many things “violent”. The issue is that this kind of reductionism makes people stop taking the word seriously, and by proxy the people using it. In my opinion, this ultimately hurts the underlying message. > To constrain violence to physicality is to ignore and minimize the myriad creative ways we've concocted as a society to inflict harm This is fallacious and untrue. There is no reason to believe that using precise/accurate (and no less expressive) language is synonymous with ignoring harms. To reiterate the point above, overloading language is far more likely to cause this problem because at some point people have no idea what the word means to the person using it. I consider myself “woke” by the original definition and spirit of the word. But you’d get 10 different answers about what that actually means these days. The looser these definitions become, the less able we are to communicate effectively and this is one of the many ingredients driving increased polarization and the feeling that we exist in separate realities.

salawat 2y ago

It is not. The care denial, coupled with financial siphoning to pad a risk pool is a form of inflicted harm. I do not qualify unreasonable financial shenanigans as exempt from being considered violent. I in fact find it aggravates above traditional violence because it is systematized, and automated, thus amplifying the scope and reach of the harm caused. To constrain violence to physicality is to ignore and minimize the myriad creative ways we've concocted as a society to inflict harm. Maybe to you it seems to dilute meaning, but to me that's more of an indication of a dependence on the narrowed definition on your part, than a problem with the increased scope per se.

haswell 2y ago
I suspect we feel the same way about the actual harms of care denial, i.e. they’re unacceptable, immoral/unethical, cause unnecessary suffering and death, are tragic and horrific, and reforms are required. But we disagree about the use of language. Many people reduce complexities to the most extreme word they can think of. It’s very popular these days to call many things “violent”. The issue is that this kind of reductionism makes people stop taking the word seriously, and by proxy the people using it. In my opinion, this ultimately hurts the underlying message. > To constrain violence to physicality is to ignore and minimize the myriad creative ways we've concocted as a society to inflict harm This is fallacious and untrue. There is no reason to believe that using precise/accurate (and no less expressive) language is synonymous with ignoring harms. To reiterate the point above, overloading language is far more likely to cause this problem because at some point people have no idea what the word means to the person using it. I consider myself “woke” by the original definition and spirit of the word. But you’d get 10 different answers about what that actually means these days. The looser these definitions become, the less able we are to communicate effectively and this is one of the many ingredients driving increased polarization and the feeling that we exist in separate realities.