Words can be as sharp as a knife and used that way on people to inflict pain.
Poet and copywriter Cole Schafer (see photo) noticed and has written about it.
“As we adopt new words into our cultural vernacular, we must remember to respect their incredible power,” he communicates. “Some words possess greater negative implications than others, and these words can manipulate the human psyche like witchcraft.”
He’s correct. We know it though which is why we choose to communicate them.
The danger he sees in such words has led him to come up with a vivid label.
“I will refer to these words as nuclear words,” Schafer says.
When he uses that label, in the context in which he’s communicating, he’s not talking about biology. He’s alluding to words being used as a damaging, destructive force in regards to emotions, psychology and their work.
“Nuclear words are like nuclear warheads. They're the Death Star,” Schafer contends. “They're the trump card. They're the kill switch. They function like a choke on cognition. They can't be argued or retorted.”
He doesn’t like or see value in how using such language affects our better selves.
“Nuclear words destroy empathy,” Schafer pointedly says. “This is the danger in them.”
He argues that using words that are insulting labels have “made effort unfashionable” in seeking understanding and communicating in a way that is more knowledgeable.
“God forbid we try,” Schafer laments.
While the focus in his piece is about work, creativity and “art,” the same goes for how we communicate within our relationships: romantic, family, friends, work and business — as well as in our interactions in society.
We emotionally resort to loading up and dropping nuclear words on each other, and protect our ego and how we see our character by rationalizing the communication behavior to ourselves.
Self control is not easy. Communicating criticism is however. It’s a challenging habit to control, lessen or replace with better choices. We fail too often.
We can commit to improvement, decrease the frequency of using words with destructive nuclear power and correct them more often when we give in to them.
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