Verbal Violence

Violence, a term filled with ethical and political meaning, is a central concept for defining social relationships between people. Yet, what is abuse? What forms is it capable of taking? Could human life be, and should it be, devoid of violence? These are some of the tough questions that would be answered by a violent theory.

Verbal violence

Verbal violence, more commonly referred to as verbal assault, is a common form of violence that involves a relatively wide range of actions, including accusing, undermining, verbal threatening, ordering, trivializing, frequent forgetting, silencing, blaming, calling on, openly criticizing.

Verbal abuse, including physical violence and psychological violence, is consistent with other types of violence. For example, we see all three variants of violence in most bullying behaviors (and verbal violence seems to be the most important type of bullying violence-you can have no bullying without verbal threat).

Response to verbal violence

As with psychological abuse, the question is raised as to what kinds of responses with respect to verbal violence can be considered valid. Will a verbal threat provide someone with the leeway to react with physical violence? Here we see two very distinct camps: according to some, no act of verbal violence can excuse a physically violent response; instead, according to another camp, verbally violent actions can be as harmful, if not more harmful, than physically violent behavior.

In most crime scenes, questions of legal reaction to verbal abuse are of the utmost importance. Does that count as a mere verbal threat if a person threatens you with a weapon and does that authorize you to respond physically? If so, does some kind of physical response on your part legitimize the danger or not?

Verbal Violence and Upbringing

Although all types of violence are culturally and educationally related, verbal violence tends to be related to very particular sub-cultures, namely linguistic codes that are embraced in a group of speakers. It seems that verbal violence may be more quickly circumscribed and removed than other types of violence due to its specificity.

So, for example, if we are left questioning why certain individuals do and need to exercise physical violence and how we can prevent it from occurring, it seems that verbal violence can be managed more effectively by implementing distinct linguistic habits. At any rate, the countenance of verbal aggression passes by the practice of some sort of intimidation, even if only through regimentation in the use of linguistic expressions.

Verbal Violence and Liberation

Verbal violence, on the other hand, can often be seen as a means of empowerment for the most marginalized. In some instances, the art of humor can be embedded in some types of verbal abuse: from politically offensive jokes to plain mocking, humor can seem like a way to demonstrate violence against others. Humor is one of the most "democratic" and gentle instruments for social movements at the same time, since it needs no real wealth and arguably causes no physical harm and does not need to cause great psychological distress.

Perhaps more than any other form of violence, the exercise of verbal violence needs a constant check on the part of the speaker of the reactions to her words: humans almost always end up exercising violence against each other; it is only by educating ourselves to try and refrain from behaviors that our acquaintances find violent that we will live peacefully.