Do Words Hurt?

reply to post by LesMisanthrope

It was another members statement, not an analogy, that I said was evidence that your disassociated idea about words was not true.
You countered the evidence of harm from words/speech/sound with a terribly unrelated analogy about physical violence, you asked them if a punch by a tattooed puncher would hurt the one who was punched !? Word.
Why would it be any different than a punch from someone without a tattoo.

One should not be careless with speech( words).
To me it was important that the idea you were transmitting , one that harsh words don't hurt the hearer, is both socially destructive and ignorant.
I know a vain person( whom I love ) who uses his knowledge of words to build himself up and put down others. I have asked him to really look at the harm he is doing by feeding his ego at the price of causing harm with his words.
Peace.

reply to post by Itisnowagain

Is it the word 'condescending' that you saw as a 'personal' attack?

It's the thought of wasting my time arguing with fallacious remarks that offended me. I do take offence to fallacies. I do take offence to dishonesty. I honestly take no offense to what you call me as a person, because each time you resort to fallacy to prove your point, which I see quite often, it says more about you than what your words say about me.

You learned through your observation of my words that I am condescending, but was it my words that compelled you to point out this opinion? Can you even remember the words I wrote that hurt you? Was it the words in that order that hurt you? or was it your general attitude towards people who are condescending that compelled you to point that out?

Your attitude, your morals, your choice to read my words, your choice to believe them, your assumptions about me as a person, your choice to react negatively towards them, your choice to put finger to key and type your response—all choices under your power. Or will you say my words overpowered you? I wouldn't mind that compliment at all.

You ask 'Do words hurt?' and have spent a lot of energy telling everyone that words do not hurt. I have given you something to consider - if you walk up to certain people and say certain words, you will get hurt. Put your theory into practice and report back.

If I was to get punched in the face, would you say it was the words that hurt me, and not the fist? Was it the words that impelled the fist to my face? What was it the words that convinced them to punch me in the face?

If words hurt, as you seem to be arguing, how come words don't hurt all the time? This is something I'd like to hear your opinion on.

reply to post by BDBinc

Why would it be any different than a punch from someone without a tattoo.

Exactly, why would anyone yelling a word into your ear be different than simply yelling an incoherent unintelligible sound into your ear?

My fist analogy and your yelling analogy is exactly the same.

reply to post by LesMisanthrope


As I recommended you should have read more about it.

There are cases were assault is charged. Do you understand that there are people who are on probation and in anger management due to being verbally abusive with the people they live with.

What about divorces for the same reason? What about the ones where children are involved?

What about the effect upon a small child being exposed to this kind of behavior.

Do you not consider issues related to psychological pain?

You see this is what people can experience when being insulted.

Are you suggesting that a child exposed to verbally abusive parents is not painful.

Are you suggesting that the only way to define pain is as physical?

And you know I am going to yet again bring up the issue of how the elderly can respond to such behavior

In this case bad words can cause death do you disagree?

Friend with respect to Vanity you should avoid projecting

Neural mechanisms

Recent research in neuroscience suggests that physical pain and psychological pain may share some underlying neurological mechanisms.[21][22][23] Brain regions that were consistently found to be implicated in both types of pain are the anterior cingulate cortex and prefrontal cortex (some subregions more than others), and may extend to other regions as well. Brain regions that were also found to be involved in psychological pain include the insular cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, thalamus, parahippocampal gyrus, basal ganglia, and cerebellum. Some advocate that, because similar brain regions are involved in both physical pain and psychological pain, we should see pain as a continuum that ranges from purely physical to purely psychological.[24] Moreover, many sources mention the fact that we use methaphors of physical pain to refer to psychological pain experiences.[7][12][25]

Source


Any thoughts?

reply to post by LesMisanthrope

The example ( from another commentator it was not from me as you keep saying incorrectly) was one example by a member of how speech/words CAN harm physically harm. A scream, even if incoherent to you, is still a word( and can be written as a word) and is still speech.
Your analogy fell short and shows your confusion about the topic you wrote about as you just asked us if a tattooed person punching you would hurt you?!!!
And I point out again, as you do not listen, the weak punching analogy you gave us had nothing to do with speech/voice/words.

reply to post by LesMisanthrope

You still think words magically sit independent on their own without a speaker, you cannot understand the whole.
The fact speech is not separate from sound the voice or the speaker going to the ears of the hearer .
As in the topic of words you cannot eliminate from words either consciousness and cognition the hearer and the speaker of speech .

reply to post by LesMisanthrope
Bravo!

So eloquently written too. I really enjoyed it.

There is a saying, forget where I heard or saw them, 'For your words to upset me, means that I have respect for you'.

Point of the story, unless you have a deep respect for the person, their words don't mean a thing. Look at yourself and determine if they do?

Best read in awhile MiS!

As a tattooed punch would hurt physically so too can harmful and unkind words cause mental suffering.
Everyone who has experienced bullies (and people with inferiority complexes) know this and so also know that with all the speech we utter that it is our responsibility not to harm others with our words.
The unsavoury disassociated thinking demonstrated here makes it clear some people just don't understand that they can hurt others with their words and by believing this untruth want to shift responsibility.
I am sorry that you feel disassociated and think your words cannot hurt/harm/wound others.

It is not the responsibility of a speaker to consider the feelings of their listeners so as not to hurt them. It is the responsibility of the listener to be able to recieve words in such a manner that they are not hurt by them. This is all a matter of self-belief and self confidence; if you truly believe words can't hurt you, they can't hurt you. People have absolute freedom to say what they want, although sometimes there are consequences to what they say. You have to learn to deal with this fact... and if you can't deal with this fact you are a weak minded fool.

Originally posted by Wang Tang
It is not the responsibility of a speaker to consider the feelings of their listeners so as not to hurt them. It is the responsibility of the listener to be able to recieve words in such a manner that they are not hurt by them. This is all a matter of self-belief and self confidence; if you truly believe words can't hurt you, they can't hurt you. People have absolute freedom to say what they want, although sometimes there are consequences to what they say. You have to learn to deal with this fact... and if you can't deal with this fact you are a weak minded fool.

In a perfect world, your words would make perfect sense. Unfortunately, we do not live in a perfect world.

In the case LM mentioned, where a person committed suicide due to "cyber bullying", mental illness was involved. Mental illness is an impairment in the normal cognitive functions of the brain. It's easy for you to say, "Well you need to control yourself." because you [ostensibly] do not suffer from a mental illness. It is not easy for someone whose brain, literally, cannot be controlled to "be in control".

You seem to want to glaze over the understanding that not all human minds work as your own. Yes, we all "should be" responsible for our emotional input and output. Unfortunately, this is not a possibility for millions of people.

reply to post by ottobot


If as you say you are someone that cannot control their brain, then I would argue they are a weak minded fool. We have no obligation to force mentally ill people to integrate into our society of normally functioning human beings. They don't belong in a society with normal people. I am not saying we should completely separate mentally ill people from our society, but our interactions with them should be controlled and limited.

Am I too extreme on this issue? It may seem so. I also live very close to Newtown, CT where the shootings took place last December. Our government has responded to this shooting with a massive campaign on gun control laws, but I see the real issue as the interaction between normally functioning human beings and mentally ill human beings. I believe this is an example of "a weak minded fool" who would take offense to words that were not meant to offend him. I use "weak minded fool" as a derogatory term to label all people whose brains don't function normally, and perhaps this is what is bothering you. I admit it is pretty condescending of me to label myself as a superior human being to someone like Adam Lanza who could not handle the stresses of life and broke down and killed 26 people at an elementary school, but again who would not consider themselves superior to Adam Lanza?

Maybe I am a cold-hearted logical thinker who has not yet experienced raising children so I cannot empathize with the struggle of raising a child who is mentally unstable. However, from a societal point of view and not a parental point of view, if a child is unstable, they should not be living a "normal" life, because the concerns of all parents in a society override the concern of one parent whose child is unstable.

Originally posted by LesMisanthrope
reply to post by Brutebever

 

Find one example in the history of language of a word or phrase causing harm. There isn't one. Every time it is the one who hears the words doing damage to themselves.

Obvious garbage...

There are - even words! that cannot be uttered on ATS...apart from the laws that govern thier use/non-use in greater society...
What you are suggesting in the next sentence quoted, is that vilified groups throughout history only really had themselves to blame...that's gotta be a joke?!

Å99

reply to post by ottobot


I enjoyed your well thought out response, I did not forget about it but being a busy person it took me a while to finally get through all of your links.

The focal point of this debate is: what exactly is pain? We have both described pain slightly differently, I described it as "C-Fibers in our body that vibrate in order to alert our brain that our body is in danger," and you described it as "an emotional response to nerve irritation."

The big difference in our definitions of pain are that I assume that pain is primarily a physical phenomenom, while you say it is primarily an emotional experience.

Personally I do not like the concept of emotional pain. I think we are lumping together multiple feelings like sadness, anger, and regret, and calling it emotional pain just to simplify things. I still do not see sufficient scientific evidence that points to the existence of emotional pain...

My question for you is: what exactly is emotional pain? I have defined physical pain as "C-Fibers in our body..." and you have defined pain as an "emotional response." I don't think this definition is sufficient. What kind of emotional response is it? How do you scientifically define this emotional response? If we were to scientifically define a commonly accepted feeling like anger, it would be something like: an irritated state where heart rate, blood pressure, and adrenaline levels are all raised.

Originally posted by Itisnowagain
reply to post by LesMisanthrope

 

Is it the word 'condescending' that you saw as a 'personal' attack?
You ask 'Do words hurt?' and have spent a lot of energy telling everyone that words do not hurt. I have given you something to consider - if you walk up to certain people and say certain words, you will get hurt. Put your theory into practice and report back.

edit on 10-5-2013 by Itisnowagain because: (no reason given)

I walked up to certain man and told him to punch me in the face.
Certain man punched me in the face.
My face hurt.
From my experience, it seems it was not my words that punched me in the face, but his fist,

Originally posted by Wang Tang

Originally posted by Itisnowagain
reply to post by LesMisanthrope

 

Is it the word 'condescending' that you saw as a 'personal' attack?
You ask 'Do words hurt?' and have spent a lot of energy telling everyone that words do not hurt. I have given you something to consider - if you walk up to certain people and say certain words, you will get hurt. Put your theory into practice and report back.

edit on 10-5-2013 by Itisnowagain because: (no reason given)

I walked up to certain man and told him to punch me in the face.
Certain man punched me in the face.
My face hurt.
From my experience, it seems it was not my words that punched me in the face, but his fist,

Without the words as catalyst...do you think 'certain man' would have punched you in the face?

Å99

Obvious garbage...

There are - even words! that cannot be uttered on ATS...apart from the laws that govern thier use/non-use in greater society...
What you are suggesting in the next sentence quoted, is that vilified groups throughout history only really had themselves to blame...that's gotta be a joke?!

Å99

Nigger.

If you are white and call a black man this it is offensive, so you shouldn't do it. Why is it offensive? Because it will bring up memories of their great great grandparents who came over in slave ships and endured long miserable lives as slaves. Yet black people call each other 'n-word's all the time.

It's not the words that hurt, it's how the listener processes the words.

Originally posted by akushla99

Without the words as catalyst...do you think 'certain man' would have punched you in the face?

Å99

Without his mother he would not have been born so then he would not have been there to punch me.

So it was his mother that punched me in the face.

We can trace the influences that led to certain man punching me all you want, but the simple fact remains that his fist making physical contact with my face is what caused pain in my face.

Originally posted by Wang Tang

Obvious garbage...

There are - even words! that cannot be uttered on ATS...apart from the laws that govern thier use/non-use in greater society...
What you are suggesting in the next sentence quoted, is that vilified groups throughout history only really had themselves to blame...that's gotta be a joke?!

Å99

Nigger.

If you are white and call a black man this is offensive, so you shouldn't do it. Why is it offensive? Because it will bring up memories of their great great grandparents who came over in slave ships and endured long miserable lives as slaves. Yet black people call each other 'n-word's all the time.

It's not the words that hurt, it's how the listener processes the words.

So..you are of the opinion that 'offense' is somehow (in reverse) brought about exclusively by the listener?
I knoe what's being said...

Å99

Originally posted by Wang Tang

Originally posted by akushla99

Without the words as catalyst...do you think 'certain man' would have punched you in the face?

Å99

Without his mother he would not have been born so then he would not have been there to punch me.

So it was his mother that punched me in the face.

We can trace the influences that led to certain man punching me all you want, but the simple fact remains that his fist making physical contact with my face is what caused pain in my face.

Ya..you can spin this into the ridiculous if you like...

My question remains, since we are talking about living humans, who were birthed...so, take others for idiots...

Å99

Yes, you can choose to take offense at an insult, or you can choose not to. You can choose to be hurt by words, or you can choose not to.

If you are not aware of this power to interpret comments however you want to, you are a weak minded fool, and you probably take offense to any comment that has a hint of insult in it.