Are Words Violence?

[Listen to an audio version of this blog here.]

This is a timely and important question. I’ve thought about words as violence ever since reading article version of The Coddling of the American Mind a few years ago. Since then I’ve dug deeper into, books, and op-eds, and linguistic theory. There seems to be no satisfying conclusion to this problem, because it’s a problem of words. And language is inherently contextual. It is less solid and more liquid. It is beautiful, but taking any word out of context immediately removes some of its meaning. When I first thought about the question, “are words violence?” my reaction was no. The definition of violence is: “behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something.” Another, less commonly used definition is “strength of emotion or an unpleasant or destructive natural force.”

So maybe, if we collectively define violence as only physical, words can never be violent. But, if we understand that violence isn’t always physical, that humans can cause harm to each other in many other ways, then it seems reasonable to contend that speech can be violence. Context is important, as is intention, although the former is easier to understand than the later. Nobody knows anyone else’s intention especially when it comes to language. So, the best conclusion I’ve come to is this: if violence is defined as intentionally…