Violence dominates our headlines. With the specters of international terrorism and domestic atrocities haunting our horizon, it may be that the future of the human race depends upon our ability to channel our violent impulses and find solutions based on cooperation rather than aggression.
When we tackle, wrestle and grapple with the problem of violence, we are bound to be struck by a crucial idea. If our view of reality is shaped and defined by the words and phrases we use, then violence is locked deep in our thoughts, frozen in the clichés and expressions of everyday life. “I’ll be hanged!” we are likely to exclaim as this insight hits us with a vengeance. “It’s like using a double-edged sword to cut off our nose to spite our face.”
Let’s take a stab at the issue of violence in our everyday parlance with a crash course on the words we use to describe disagreements. First, we rack our brains assembling an arsenal of arguments. Then we attempt to demolish the opposition’s points with a barrage of criticism, attack their positions by nailing them dead to rights, let them have it with both barrels and shoot down their contentions. We break their concentration by puncturing their assumptions and cut them down to size by hammering away at their weaknesses. We torpedo their efforts with barbed criticism and, when push comes to shove, assault their integrity with character assassination. If all else fails, we try to twist their arms, kill them with kindness and then stab them in the back.
Now we can begin to understand the full impact of the expression “to have a violent disagreement.”
The world of business is fraught with cutthroat competition, a rough and tumble school of hard knocks and a dog-eat-dog world of backbiting, backstabbing and hatchet jobs. Some companies spearhead a trend of price gouging. Other firms beat the competition to the punch and gain a stranglehold on the market by fighting tooth and nail to slash prices in knock- down-drag–out, no-holds-barred price wars. Still other companies gain clout by putting the squeeze on their competitors with shakeups, raids and hostile takeovers. Then the other side gets up in arms and screams bloody murder about such a low blow.
One would hope that sports would provide an escape from life’s daily grind. But once again we find mayhem and havoc embedded in the adversarial expressions of matters athletic. In fact, we can’t get within striking distance of a big game without running or bumping into some ticket scalper who’s out to rip us off and get away with murder.
Once inside the stadium or arena, we witness two teams trying to battle, beat, blow away, clobber, crush, dominate, maul, pulverize, rout, slaughter, steamroll, thrash, throttle, wallop, whip, wipe out, beat the pants off, make mincemeat out of, stick it to and wreak havoc ontheir opponent’s battle plans, which include suicide squeezes, grand slams, blitzes, shotgun offenses, aerial bombs, punishing ground attacks and slam dunks. Naturally both sides hope that they won’t choke in sudden death overtime.
Fleeing the battlefields of athletics at breakneck speed, we seek release from our violent language by taking in some entertainment. We look to kill some time at a dynamite show that’s supposed to be a smash hit blockbuster and a slapstick riot that we’ll get a kick and a bang out of. But the whole shootin’ match turns out to be a bomb and a dud, rather than a blast and a bash.
If language is truly a window to the world and if the words and expressions we use truly affect the way we think, can we ever really stamp out violence?
Please send your questions and comments about language to richard.lederer@utsandiego.com www.verbivore.com