The person you respond to didn’t say that words are physical violence.
Do you believe the only form of violence is physical violence?
Yes. Violence, by definition, requires physical force. You are deliberately confusing “violence” with “harm.”
Can words cause emotional harm? Sure. But if Bob Nobody saying something offensive on a public street genuinely damages your self-perception, that harm is entirely self-inflicted. A functioning adult has the emotional regulation and agency to simply walk away. Redefining your own emotional fragility as “violence” is just a manipulative excuse.
Violence is characterized as the use of physical force by humans to cause harm to other living beings, such as pain, injury, disablement, death, damage and destruction. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines violence as "the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation";[1] it recognizes the need to include violence not resulting in injury or death.[2]
Yes. Violence, by definition, requires physical force
It’s possible to define it like that, but it’s definitely not universally the case and seems overly restrictive. Just one example from the WHO’s World report on violence and health:
Violence at work involves not only physical but also psychological behaviour. Many workers are subjected to bullying, sexual harassment, threats, intimidation and other forms of psychological violence.
The person you respond to didn’t say that words are physical violence.
Do you believe the only form of violence is physical violence?
Yes. Violence, by definition, requires physical force. You are deliberately confusing “violence” with “harm.”
Can words cause emotional harm? Sure. But if Bob Nobody saying something offensive on a public street genuinely damages your self-perception, that harm is entirely self-inflicted. A functioning adult has the emotional regulation and agency to simply walk away. Redefining your own emotional fragility as “violence” is just a manipulative excuse.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence
It’s possible to define it like that, but it’s definitely not universally the case and seems overly restrictive. Just one example from the WHO’s World report on violence and health: