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Maybe Not Bones, But Hearts...And Worse: The Destructive Power of Simple Speech
Out of the blue, slap bang in the middle of a working day, anunexplained sensation inside your mouth breaks yourconcentration. You have deadlines to meet, and you reactmerely by immersing yourself with new determination in thetask in hand. At least until the next day, when the mild discomfort hasprogressed to a stabbing pain. Any wishful thinking that thefate of the whole world depends on your finishing your work isnow irrelevant. When you reach the dentist, he shakes hishead sympathetically and jabs a needle right into your gums. Wonderful thing, these anesthetics. The ache is gone evenbefore he lays a finger on that troublesome tooth! Now, let's imagine you were created with a kind of naturalanesthetic, that washed your mouth continuously so that younever got toothache. Good? Probably not. You'd never knowwhen a tooth needed attention, until it would be far too late. Horrified and sickened..Problem is, this isn't as far fetched as it may seem. You see,you get anesthetics for the body, and other anesthetics for themind.A former teacher, John Andrew Murray, wrote in Teachers inFocus magazine about hisexperiences with an English class at a private Americanschool. In order to spice his lessons, Murray was using the oldtelevision series, "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" each week toteach his students about plot development. After a few weeks, he decided to stop the show before the end and let thestudents write their own endings. The students liked the ideasso much that they wanted to read their work aloud in class. After about the third student, he put a stop to the readingaloud. What the teacher had heard horrified and sickened him. When he later discussed with them the very explicit imageryof violence he had found in their papers, Murray's studentswere quick to insist that media violence didn't affect thembecause the graphic scenes they saw on TV and films were"fake". Murray then asked them how they would feel if theysaw a dog on TV getting riddled with bullets. "How horrible!" they cried out in unison. Murray concludes that unlike the human carnage theyregularly witnessed on TV, his students had found animaldeaths appalling because they had seldom seen it. For thefirst time, they realized how desensitized they had become toviolence. Sad, isn't it? The truth is, with most human beings the desensitizationprocess goes even further. Much further. Sometimes, it'sgood. ( We eventually "get over" a loss, or forget a traumaticepisode.) More often, it's anything but good. Remarkable human talentTake the remarkable human talent for hurting others by whatwe say.At times, it's deliberate; we WANT to inflict verbalpain on our friends -whether we admit it or not. (Often, this isto compensate ourselves for imagined feelings of inferiority).At other times, we don't intend to offend, but do sononetheless. It's the art of anesthesia again. We've become desensitized. A seemingly innocuous example. A friend may have a spouse,child, or parent who's critically ill. We unwittingly reassure her: "Don't worry, everything will be fine." She's not comforted. Just the reverse. She knows everything won't be fine. For that matter, why tell a friend who bought herself a newdress last week, even if she asks for your opinion, that it looksterrible on her? (I'm assuming it's already too late for her to doanything about it; if she can, that might be different, providedyou tell her the right way!) I won't even talk here of purposeful innuendos, backhandedcompliments, slurs and insults. At all times, people who reallywant to spread love in the world should take extra care withtheir speech. Do you remember the schoolyard chant: "Sticks and stonesmay break my bones, but words can never hurt me! Utter tripe! OK, words may be rarely able to break bones, but they canbreak our hearts, our spirits, even our reputations. And yes, our ability to develop and maintain meaningfulrelationships. Azriel Winnett is creator of Hodu.com - Your Communication Skills Portal. This popular free website helps you improve your communication and relationship skills in your business or professional life, in the family unit and on the social scene. New articles added almost daily.
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