Did you ever notice that certain words really pack a punch? There are some words or phrases that, when I hear them, can make me feel physically weak. I don't just mean "curse words," which I have been known to utter, sometimes in front of my kids. I share this because I don't want to appear to be a moralizing, goody-two-shoes rabbi. Despite my penchant for swearing at other drivers, I do find some words--that are indeed unprintable here -- to be simply unspeakable. Racial and ethnic slurs fall into this category.
There are also things said aloud, and it isn't so much the words themselves that hurt or offend, but the tone of voice in which they are spoken, or the body language that accompanies them. Often the words that hurt us are most painful because we care deeply about the speaker. A spouse who spits out a hateful accusation like a morsel of rotten food, unable to be choked down in an argument, can destroy a marriage with words. A sibling's withering "you're so stupid" or reflexive "I hate you" can alter a child's sense of self. The carelessly blurted insult of friend, the coworker's sarcastic response in a meeting, the joke told at another's expense: These words and comments only half-remembered and half-intentional can cause the irrevocable damage to relationships.
What must we do with these words? If we attempt to excise them from our speech, harnessing the societal forces of political correctness and our own personal determination to cause no harm to those around us, these words will continue to exist in the recesses of our brains. Swallowed words are still palpable; they echo silently in our memories, even as silence robs them of provoking a more visceral reaction. Perhaps our only recourse is to remain aware of their potential to harm. We can blunt the power of our words, but we cannot dispossess them from our lives.
1 comment:
Here's my semipoetic issue: there is still nearly unique linguistic value in these words (the words that goody-two-shoes rabbis only say in the company of very close friends, or other clergy, usually Catholic priests in my experience). Language as a potential sphere for expression incorporates in certain words very concise summations of emotion and energy. I wonder if their excision would not impoverish language and limit more-intelligent expression. On the one hand, it seems like you are most concerned with careless use of language; the calculated dropping of a word-bomb is precisely effective and may be an excellent use of language. Perhaps it's about having people put the word down, take a step back and cool off, and see if there aren't better, "more mature" ways to express what's really underneath it. But that, my dear rabbi, would require little less than the repair of the wor(l)d, one person at a time.
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