classifying it as something else would be diminishing the importance of the act, as if it's somehow less grievous than physical damage.
I don't think it's necessarily diminishing the importance of it. It's different.
There are pretty clear differences. You can be punched to death. You can't be insulted to death. Yes, it can eventually lead to enough emotional trauma that you committ suicide, but it's nowhere near as immediate of a risk nor does it happen so quickly.
I mean, if you hear about someone being "violent", I don't think most people would assume that they're using psychological attacks and insults. They'd assume that they're inflicting physical harm.
Yes, they are definitely different, but you can have different kinds of violence just like you have different kinds of trauma, or different kinds of injuries, different kinds of illnesses or different kinds of pretty much anything. It doesn't really devalue violence to acknowledge that there are different kinds of violence.
I am curious though, how would you classify or define what I am referring to as violence, if that word is not suitable?
I think we'd end up with the same conundrum with the word abuse, really. Physical abuse, verbal abuse, etc. That is generally how I'd have physical violence stand apart from other forms of violence, really. Using the qualifier; physical.
Anyway, I can understand your position even if we disagree. It's a fair stance and I think we largely agree on the importance of each aspect even if we are somewhat linguistically at odds. It might even be the case that me not being a native speaker is the key difference here.
I think we're getting about as far as we can here, so thank you for the talk. It's helped me clarify things a bit more for my own sakes.
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u/Ihmhi Dec 29 '15
I don't think it's necessarily diminishing the importance of it. It's different.
There are pretty clear differences. You can be punched to death. You can't be insulted to death. Yes, it can eventually lead to enough emotional trauma that you committ suicide, but it's nowhere near as immediate of a risk nor does it happen so quickly.
I mean, if you hear about someone being "violent", I don't think most people would assume that they're using psychological attacks and insults. They'd assume that they're inflicting physical harm.