Do Words Hurt?

reply to post by Kashai


If someone yells in my ear those words physically hurt my eardrum. Just wanted to throw that out there even if its not the point the op was after. Specific questions get specific answers

reply to post by TheomExperience


I am on medication for blood pressure and there is a very distinct difference between my blood pressure when someone is shouting insults at me and when there is not. I am certain that anyone out their with the same condition could confirm this.


Cleary LM is either ignorant to this issue or perhaps insensitive to it.

reply to post by Kashai


I do not know what hes looking for so i gave examples of both direct physical and indirect physical hurt along with emotional hurt that leads to indirect physical hurt. Ok so the yelling in the ear was a little simple but it answers the open ended question for all those that have working ear drums. If someone is deaf then that's something that can be discussed

reply to post by TheomExperience


My impression is that if one insults another person on a regular basis, throughout there lives one may not be able to clinically prove today that it was a factor in there deaths.

But that would depend upon how they died.

Being insulted causes harm in the long run.

reply to post by LesMisanthrope

Please explain how words hurt. Maybe you can aid in my thought.

You believe words have no meaning or power. My repeating what I've already said isn't going to help - nothing left to say

How about this - you're against censorship? Would censorship exist if words had no power to influence - or harm? Is there intent without language - can we have language without intent?

Still no opinion on hate speech? That might be your key to the whole thing right there - your own opinion

I think you just like throwing things against the wall to see what sticks - that's what I think :-)

No harm in that I guess - until we get to this part of the conversation. How silly do you want this to get?

Seriously LM if a person is insulted, dies of a heart attack. Is it possible they would have lived another day and even several more years had they not been insulted??

reply to post by Kashai


Immaterialists like to try and discredit the speaker in order to avoid the ideas at hand. I understand why you'd resort to that though; a lot of people are fooled by those kind of fallacies. Perhaps it will work, and you can leave with your vanities intact.

So how do words cause harm again?

reply to post by Spiramirabilis

How about this - you're against censorship? Would censorship exist if words had no power to influence - or harm? Is there intent without language - can we have language without intent?

Can you explain to me how "intent" reaches from one human to another and causes harm? I need to understand this if I'm able to go any further.

It seems very silly on my end as well.

reply to post by TheomExperience

If someone yells in my ear those words physically hurt my eardrum. Just wanted to throw that out there even if its not the point the op was after. Specific questions get specific answers

If someone was to punch you with the word "Love" tattooed on their fingers, the word "love" would physically hurt your face.

Originally posted by LesMisanthrope
reply to post by TheomExperience

 

If someone yells in my ear those words physically hurt my eardrum. Just wanted to throw that out there even if its not the point the op was after. Specific questions get specific answers

If someone was to punch you with the word "Love" tattooed on their fingers, the word "love" would physically hurt your face.

Only if they punched me in the face lol.

reply to post by LesMisanthrope

Can you explain to me how "intent" reaches from one human to another and causes harm? I need to understand this if I'm able to go any further.

Seriously?

It seems very silly on my end as well.

Does it? Then why keep stalling?

If you can't respect the discussion - why should I?

So, how do you feel about hate speech?

I'm out of here for tonight. Let's see where we are tomorrow

Night LesMis

:-)

Despite the great conversation, there's no point beating a dead mule.

I conclude that words are not supernatural and they do not hurt. Only our vanities do. An insult is an attack on our very identity (the memory we have of ourself), and if we believe the words to be more than symbols of the simple thoughts of another (superstitiously), we somehow respond emotionally. Does this not seem fair?

Now depression and suicide is a heavy issue—we've all been depressed and have family and friends who have committed suicide (maybe we even dabbled with it ourselves)—but there has to be some instances where they could be avoided.

This is why I started the thread:

I heard about a recent suicide that was attributed to "online bullying". If we think about that thought for a minute, we know that someone tragically took their own life due to events that occurred on the internet, which is at base level words and images on a screen. That's not to downplay the tragedy of the whole thing, as the internet chatter likely overflowed to physical interaction, and we can understand how difficult it is to struggle with our own thoughts in those situations, but could that suicide have been avoided or if this person had known that words are always under the power of the one who possesses them? that uttered words do not hurt? that language says more about the one who expresses it than the one who it directed at? (Maybe I should have asked these questions instead.)

Then I listened to some Chomsky lecture while I did some mindless work:



And then I started writing.

Here it ends where it began.

Thanks for reading.

reply to post by Spiramirabilis

So, how do you feel about hate speech?

I dislike hate speech very much. Only an idiot would speak such words. I wouldn't pay them a moments consideration.

Thank you for the thread (insert the fat lady singing here). I am glad you have gathered enough data to draw your conclusions. New thread time?

Thanks your thread was like a joke and we were all waiting for the punch line and then BLAM it was the end.

You ignored every presented proof of words power to wound/harm.
Score one for the online bullys eh?
And I am sorry but you are wrong yet again, online bully's don't physically bully to make a soul miserable and suffer enough to suicide they misuse their voice(words) and harm.
Thats the choice with your voice you can harm or uplift .
Goodday.

Originally posted by LesMisanthrope
reply to post by TheomExperience

 

When someone told you a way in which words can physically harm.

If someone yells in my ear those words physically hurt my eardrum. Just wanted to throw that out there even if its not the point the op was after. Specific questions get specific answers

You responded with this...
If someone was to punch you with the word "Love" tattooed on their fingers, the word "love" would physically hurt your face.

What?!!
It is not the tattooed word that is doing the punching - its the fist .
Oh dear !

Originally posted by LesMisanthrope


This is why I started the thread:

I heard about a recent suicide that was attributed to "online bullying". If we think about that thought for a minute, we know that someone tragically took their own life due to events that occurred on the internet, which is at base level words and images on a screen. That's not to downplay the tragedy of the whole thing, as the internet chatter likely overflowed to physical interaction, and we can understand how difficult it is to struggle with our own thoughts in those situations, but could that suicide have been avoided or if this person had known that words are always under the power of the one who possesses them? that uttered words do not hurt? that language says more about the one who expresses it than the one who it directed at? (Maybe I should have asked these questions instead.)

While I understood your point before reading this and while, as always, I respect your opinion and chosen manner of expression, if you had written this at the outset of the topic I am fairly convinced that you would have encountered a more productive and mutually engaging discussion in response to your posts. And it sounds like if you're honest with yourself (and please forgive me if I'm wrong) you realized that, too.

I agree completely that it is within the purview of the receiving individual to ascribe or detract power and influence from the words directed at them, and that it is not the words, but the internal response to the perceived intent behind the words which triggers emotional unease or more to the point of your topic, pain.

However, I still contend that this logic can be applied to virtually anything. Does the death of a loved one hurt? No. Their death didn't do anything to hurt you. Your conscious (or unconscious) desire for them to remain in your life is what causes you sorrow. And that desire stems from a bond you either consciously or unconsciously forged yourself through the importance and strength of feelings that you ascribed to that individual while you interacted with them in life. The intensity of emotion and level of importance you ascribed them in your life - wittingly or unwittingly - is directly proportional to the sorrow you now feel in response to their permanent absence.

Would we be better off if we acknowledged this and limited the importance of or emotional intensity associated with family and friends? Would we be better off if we sought to limit the pain such losses cause us? I think an argument can be made that we would be if that is your opinion. But an argument can also be made that these functions and processes are inherent to our nature and that at a certain point, if you follow this effort to its logical extreme, you cease to be an emotional entity who experiences feelings subjectively and reactively, instead allowing hem to emerge or conjuring them purely at your own whim.

Whether that is a positive thing or a negative thing is up to you, of course.

As to the specific case of a suicide induced by one's own response to the perceived intent of or illusory thread posed by words, I feel we need to keep in mind that mental illness is precisely that: illness of the mind. It isn't always tenable or possible to expect someone suffering from mental illness to perceive reality objectively, let alone to objectively control their own emotions or be cognizant of the internal processes impacting those emotions.

Peace.

reply to post by BDBinc

Thanks your thread was like a joke and we were all waiting for the punch line and then BLAM it was the end.

You ignored every presented proof of words power to wound/harm.
Score one for the online bullys eh?
And I am sorry but you are wrong yet again, online bully's don't physically bully to make a soul miserable and suffer enough to suicide they misuse their voice(words) and harm.
Thats the choice with your voice you can harm or uplift .
Goodday.

Which "proof" are you talking about? Your arguments are largely incoherent, and in my mind, made to look silly by your week attempt to get a rise out of me. Your conclusions are fallacious and make no sense.

Here, let me analyse this argument:

And I am sorry but you are wrong yet again, online bully's don't physically bully to make a soul miserable and suffer enough to suicide they misuse their voice(words) and harm.

The argument is that I am wrong (again), yet you don't say why I'm wrong, you merely state that you don't agree with what I'm saying and offer your own opinion, which is basically a parroting of the opposition. You haven't addressed any of my arguments.

What?!!
It is not the tattooed word that is doing the punching - its the fist .
Oh dear !

Obviously that is the point I'm making, but I'm glad you figured something out on your own....It is not the yelled word doing the damage, it's the voice.

And then you use this emoticon:



Yes, it's laughable.

reply to post by AceWombat04

Does the death of a loved one hurt? No.

Are you sure about that? Of course it hurts. The death of someone is concrete and very real. A relationship disappears when someone dies. I know you're trying to make a point, but this is a different logic.

If someone tells you a loved one has died, would you blame the words used for how you feel about that death? Is it the words heard, telling you that a loved one has died that does the damage, or is the actual death of that loved one, and the thought about the death of that loved one, that hurts?

And yes, I could've done an infinite amount of things differently with the thread, but I didn't.

Good points.

Originally posted by LesMisanthrope
reply to post by AceWombat04

 

Does the death of a loved one hurt? No.

Are you sure about that? Of course it hurts. The death of someone is concrete and very real. A relationship disappears when someone dies. I know you're trying to make a point, but this is a different logic.

I disagree. The same logic can be applied in my opinion.

The death itself doesn't hurt you. Knowledge of it does. If you are unaware of the death, does it harm you?

If someone tells you a loved one has died, would you blame the words used for how you feel about that death? Is it the words heard, telling you that a loved one has died that does the damage, or is the actual death of that loved one, and the thought about the death of that loved one, that hurts?

Ah, but while my answer to the first question would be, "no," at the end of your second question you are combining two things into a single entity. 1) "The actual death of that loved one," and 2) "the thought about the death of that loved one." In a manner analogous to the way in which people instinctively and unwittingly associate words with the pain their own thoughts in response to them bring about.

The death itself and our emotional response to it are two different things, in a manner analogous to the way you are asserting words and our emotional responses to them are. It is possible for someone to die and for us to feel no sorrow. It is not possible for someone we love and ascribe emotional weight to to die and for us to feel nothing (assuming no other contravening psychological dynamics which would prevent this or intentional preparation on our part to avoid it by design.) Just as it is possible for someone to say words and for them to have no emotional impact upon us, but when we assign them emotional relevancy we experience an emotional response to them.

If the basis of your argument is that when someone says something that we can attribute injury to - often within milliseconds and unwittingly - we should instead be cognizant of the mind's primacy in our response to those words and not allow them to harm us no matter how saddening or unsettling the knowledge of the individual's feelings toward us (from whence their words originated) might ordinarily be, then by that logic, should we not also seek to lessen the emotional impact of the deaths of loved ones on the basis that the death itself is not the source of our pain, but rather our emotional reaction to that death, proportional to the emotional importance with which we perceive the individual no longer present in our life?

Both are external events which cause suffering only because of how we internally respond to them. Both are not automatically guaranteed to trigger emotional responses and both can be affected by some degree of cognizance and volition on our part.

If your argument is that somehow this particular external stimuli triggers an internal response too powerful to defuse or ameliorate, I would counter that for some people words might fall into that category as well, as everyone's subjective parameters, level of internal cognizance, and thresholds differ. If your argument is that this event is more direct than words, I would ask, "why, and how?"

Again, until conscious thought and comprehension of what has happened enters into your mind, it has zero impact on you, even if it has happened. And once it does, the level of emotional response is entirely predicated either on how much the person meant to you personally (a subjective criterion analogous to how much someone's words mean to you) or how much you have worked to limit your response to such an event as you advocate in the case of words... or both.

So again, I feel the logic does apply and that the scenario of the death of a loved one, at least in principle if not in magnitude, is applicable.

If you disagree, I respect your opinion.

Peace.