Violence of Language

Jesus of Nazerath lived at the height of the Roman Empire. They used marginalization just as we and for the same reasons. Jesus is said to have told a multitude of the poor and wretched not to judge others lest you be judged. He was telling them not to judge others in society or you perpetuate the violence that had put them where they were. As you judge others you perpitrate and perpetuate real violence. Even those that help the poor may be guilty of the same violence if you use it to soothe your conscience. A massive research project ordered by the U.S. to determine the mental health of the nation came up with a significant finding. I watched as this committee gave their report to congress. They said that 99% of the population suffered from mental illness to one degree or another. This is a stupifying finding. Anyone in our society can become a victim of being marginalized and are all impacted by fear.

Don’t think I am anti-American. There is greatness in the nation that has and hopefully will continue to evolve into a better world. Recognizing the process of violence will diminish our violent natures. Violence is neither good nor bad. We must define violence by impact and not intent. Some religous organizations have used very aggresive means to spread what they believed to be the truth. They found themselves being disliked and even hated. Their intent was to save mankind , but the impact was destructive. We do this all the time, we have many “do gooders” that cause worse problems than they started with. Do not judge others worth as a human being. We must judge the behavior of what people may do to protect ourselves from real danger, not from what we have been trained to believe. As a young student I remember a common form of punishment, especially in elementary school. When the teacher had an unruly class they would pick out one of the offenders to humiliate, {marginalize}, which would traumatize the rest of the class making them mind better. The whole class is violated by this and eventually learn it is best to conform and those with the strongest character often become that marginalized victim. Of course this doesn’t begin in school. Much of our parenting is directed by our fear of being marginalized by others if we don’t seem to meet the norm.