It’s really semantics. Some dictionaries say there has to be physical force to constitute violence, most legal definitions involve for e or THREAT of force. There are other definitions and opinions. To the person that thinks some folks don’t know violence because they haven’t been punched in the face…. That’s a rather high and mighty way of thinking for someone who has experienced so little of the horrors that men can inflict on men, even without raising a hand against the other, which make being punched in the face the sort of things children and people who want to be buddies afterwards do to feel macho. You can be locked away in a dark, tiny shit hole all alone for months in a stress position without anyone ever once using “physical violence.” Using your loved ones as leverage, simply using sounds or smells etc. almost people can be broken down like babies. Starvation isn’t “violence” technically nor really is poison. There is a long list of things…
.. “words are violence” is short hand so that people who lack the brain cells or the empathy to understand how deeply and profoundly you can torment a human being, even drive them to their death with nothing but sounds- can hopefully relate to the concept.
This is one of those things that would take 900 posts to explain because it’s so fundamental that to go further than “words can hurt too” wouid pretty much require starting over with kindergarten and instilling the knowledge and experience most people manage to pick up somewhere between 5-30 years of life.
I'm just gonna say it ..
If you find guest's comment more offensive than the post, odds are you either use words as violence but need to pretend it's okay or you're the victim of previous described person.
Thank you Karlboll, and for those who missed it even though Karlboll set it up so nicely- if you found my words offensive… hurtful…. Then you do have some understanding of the power of words. I doubt (and hope) my words didn’t drive anyone to deep or lasting emotional suffering, but there were nicer ways to say that. That’s the point isn’t it? People will tell others and themselves “it’s no big deal” and sometimes that’s true, but often times because they want to look or feel “tough.” Psychologically these little jabs and pains tend to chip at us even if they don’t “break us,” and an apathy is a coping mechanism. To go numb or disconnect is something we do when we have internalized pain and our minds can’t handle it. The brain tends to basically tune out minor chronic pain so we don’t actively perceive it accuracy after awhile. That pain becomes “normal” and we don’t really notice it. We notice it if it is cured and we feel better, and we notice it if it gets severe or that numbness..
.. lapses. If you keep adding little pains though, eventually it becomes unbearable. A paper cut hurts but is manageable or can be ignored. Thousands of paper cuts tend to have a different effect, even become fatal.
So being “numb” or disconnected and coping with things like snide comments or impotent rebellion are not “being tough” so much as they are being a person who can’t bear the mental burden of suffering otherwise. We can discontent from physical pain by disconnecting from the body, but pain in the mind requires either discipline of the mind or disconnection from one’s own mind. The former is a difficult task few of any humans ever master and the later is basically a state of delusion, totally insanity, or “autopilot.”
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This is one of those things that would take 900 posts to explain because it’s so fundamental that to go further than “words can hurt too” wouid pretty much require starting over with kindergarten and instilling the knowledge and experience most people manage to pick up somewhere between 5-30 years of life.
If you find guest's comment more offensive than the post, odds are you either use words as violence but need to pretend it's okay or you're the victim of previous described person.
So being “numb” or disconnected and coping with things like snide comments or impotent rebellion are not “being tough” so much as they are being a person who can’t bear the mental burden of suffering otherwise. We can discontent from physical pain by disconnecting from the body, but pain in the mind requires either discipline of the mind or disconnection from one’s own mind. The former is a difficult task few of any humans ever master and the later is basically a state of delusion, totally insanity, or “autopilot.”