Words have an effect, but you can choose how to react to them. You cannot be harmed by them unless you choose to allow yourself to feel that way. Your internal mental state is under your control.
If someone hits me with a bat with sufficient force, I have no control over whether my bones break or not. If someone says a mean thing, or something that could theoretically be interpreted as mean if you completely ignore their intent and context, I 100% have control over how I feel about that.
You do, that's great, sincerely, I mostly agree with you, but I feel it lacks a bit of nuance. Adults should have control over how they interpret reality, but not everyone does, and some people want to use perceived offense (Oppression Olympics) as a means for some sort of change, even if it's just padding their wallet.
Some folks are immature, some folks have PTSD or some other condition and/or problem which makes it harder for them to have the discipline you have. Can we acknowledge both that words are interpreted by the listener, and that the listener might not be able to handle them?
I try to not be affected by things, why should I respect someone who's trying to insult me, and if I don't respect them why should I care at all about what they are saying? It boils down to self preservation ultimately I think. Ostracism might not be the death sentence it used to be, but it still can be seriously deleterious.
For the vast majority of words on this list, they would not be used to try to insult anyone. You would have to deliberately misinterpret them to find an insult. Why would anyone do that?
They wouldn't, and they don't. The insult is purely imagined by people who write these lists.
> If someone hits me with a bat with sufficient force, I have no control over whether my bones break or not.
If we follow your argument, you do have control over whether you let the pain affect you. Pain is just a mental state after all. And who cares about broken bones if you could just will the pain away?
I obviously think this is a bit silly and could be used to justify just about anything.
> And who cares about broken bones if you could just will the pain away?
Even if you could ignore the pain, you wouldn't physically be able to move your arm well if the bone is broken, which would be an inconvenience for most people that they would care quite a bit about.
Listen, I don't agree with the "words will never hurt me" thing but trying to argue that by denying the utility difference of a broken arm is a lost cause for them.
Someone who's decided that the mental and physical pains and debilitations are wholly separate, especially here, will probably want cited studies and actual scientific evidence that the psychological community no longer believes that. Until that is presented no amount of semantics is gonna work.
> Words have an effect, but you can choose how to react to them. You cannot be harmed by them unless you choose to allow yourself to feel that way. Your internal mental state is under your control.
Up to a point. You can't control your genes or your upbringing completely, merely suppress it.
Otherwise we wouldn't have trigger words. For sure you have one, too.
> Otherwise we wouldn't have trigger words. For sure you have one, too.
Sure, everyone has some. I probably have some too - I don't keep track of them, but I know mocking some of the things that I hold dear will definitely unsettle me.
That said, one of the core part of growing up, of becoming an adult, is learning not to get triggered, and in the rare cases you still are, learning to calm yourself down. It's a prerequisite for participating in and contributing to a healthy society.
Nobody could possibly keep track of the list of trigger words for everyone they could come into contact with. The list itself would cover so many phrases across so many topics as to prevent communication. Even if we could keep track of all of this (scary thought: for the first time in history, this may become possible, thanks to computers), erring on the side of avoiding any and all trigger words would be a security vulnerability, easily abused by people trying to gain power over others (arguably, the very list we're discussing is an example of this).
The point is, we can make some concessions for words or phrases that are intended to harm or known to negatively affect a lot of people - which is what cultures have been doing throughout the recorded history. Beyond those few concessions, it's up to individual to handle their own triggers, in a way that doesn't disturb everyone else's ability to communicate effectively.
>You cannot be harmed by them unless you choose to allow yourself to feel that way. Your internal mental state is under your control.
This is incorrect, and flies in the face of the current literature in psychology and neuroscience. A cursory glance at some very rational people who are quick to anger and how we cry after losing a loved one should rid you of this notion.
> A cursory glance at some very rational people who are quick to anger and how we cry after losing a loved one should rid you of this notion.
In neither case are the words the cause of distress, but rather some event, belief or threat that's communicated or implied through those words. The way humans communicate, individual words are only loosely correlated with the message they're employed to carry.
If someone hits me with a bat with sufficient force, I have no control over whether my bones break or not. If someone says a mean thing, or something that could theoretically be interpreted as mean if you completely ignore their intent and context, I 100% have control over how I feel about that.