Pecchia: Are Words Capable of Violence?

Monday, August 15, 2022

Are Words Capable of Violence?

Yes, words can be violent. Why people keep trying to deny this, like many have recently because of that awful stabbing, has always perplexed me. You don't even have to have an advanced degree to understand that words can have physical effects. 1/

Opinion | When Is Speech Violence? (Published 2017)

Brain science distinguishes verbal abusiveness from mere offensiveness.

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Why can someone make you cry - real, literal tears - with their words and never touching you if words can't have physical effects? 2/

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Why can words make your heart literally beat faster? Blood to flow differently in your veins? Can cause literal headaches? How can words do all of that if they have no literal-physical effects? 3/

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Words can't do any of these things.  A person may have an emotional response to hearing  certain words in some particular order, but then it isn't the words, all by themselves that are doing anything.

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This might be similar to an allergen.  The reaction is a hyperimmune response to something which isn't intrinsically harmful--most people can eat peanuts but some people are allergic.  The illness is the improper function of the immune system, not poisonous peanuts.

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Replying to @dpecchia
and@ijbailey

Okay, force feeding peanuts to someone you know is allergic would be violence.  First, force is required and that is violence in and of itself.  Second, there is literally no words you can say which will cause anaphylactic shock.

10:12 AM · Aug 15, 2022·Twitter Web App

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Replying to @dpecchia
and@ijbailey

People have no physical control over their immune system, but everyone can control their emotions to one extent or another.  If the proposal is to ban certain words, bans carry the threat of violence.  So, we are proposing actual violence in order to prevent figurative violence.

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