Violence of Language

In a publication named “People’s Almanac” I came across two polls. They asked “what is your greatest fear?” The 1st poll listed public speaking as number one and the 2nd listed public speaking as number two. Fear, anger and confusion are the normal natural reaction to violence. Of all the fears listed in these polls public speaking appears to be the most benign, so how can we explain this enormous amount of fear attached to it. We perceive ourselves being violated. I think back to my early experiences in this role and remember being terrified. Terrified of all those eyes watching me. That’s all. I was being judged by my performance. Judged as to my worth as a human being. Whether you judge a person positively or negatively doesn’t matter. Our level of fear of being judged is dependant on the perceived power over us of those judging us. If it is our employer it can be very frightening. If it is someone we don’t know and will probably never meet again it may just be a little irritating.

The threat behind being judged is, our understanding that if enough people judge us as having less value than others we may be marginalized in that society. Being marginalized is to be diminished in societies eyes. We can even lose our own sense of self worth. Ghandi taught that “poverty is the worst form of violence.” To be marginailized is to be pushed into poverty.The poor live 24/7 under the influence of the violence of poverty. They live 24/7 under the influence of fear, anger and confusion. This can lead to a condition therapists define as mental illness, the inablity to understand their environment nor make functional decisions regarding that environment. This gives fodder to those with wealth and power to justify the poor in society.  They will argue the poor are unable to be like them because the poor  are less human This is the motivation to marginalize others. Even the laws are here to protect the rich and powerful from the poor not caring that these laws often hurt the poor.

All violence is related, violence breeds violence and violence tends to escolate. The violence of language can perpetuate physical violence and visa versa. There are places in America you can incur physical violence by staring at someone and most places staring at someone can create great discomfort. Why? Because the receiver of the stare perceives they are being judged. Judging others is an act of violence. If you question this try staring at someone you respect and feel the anxiety it causes you. It is disresectful to that person. Disrespect is a word used to avoid recognizing this as real violence. We say someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed, My boss is hard to work for, the government is unfair to us. These terms are  used so we don’t recognize these as acts of violence. It encourages unfair laws, unfair and innacurate perceptions of reality. We disassociate ourselves from those that don’t seem to fit the norm for fear of being marginalized ourselves which leads to the inane practice of keeping up with the Joneses. Advertisements live off this insanity.