Is “ Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me” correct?

[LondonJohn]

They don't.

It's not a crime to call someone a ****** anyway. What are the police going to do?

The bar staff believe that free speech trumps your offence.

What's your next move?

I live in England. Where it's a racially-aggravated public order offence to verbally abuse someone in that manner. I virtually guarantee that the bar staff would willingly contact the police in such circumstances if requested. The very least they'll also do is order the abuser out of the bar, and get him ejected (either by their own security staff or by the police) if he refuses. And if, for some bizarre reason, the bar staff do neither of those things, I'll whip out my mobile and call the police myself. It's one of the things they (the police) are there for. And if the police don't respond in a timely manner, I'll be making sure there's disciplinary action.

You asked me what **I** would do, and that's precisely what I would do.

I don't know where you live, and whether or not racially-aggravated verbal abuse is a criminal offence in your jurisdiction. If - as you suggest - it's not, then may I recommend you start lobbying to get the law changed accordingly?

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

No context has been removed.

Why did you make the effort to remove it then?

You might have been thinking of certain specific utterances when you spoke of banning them just in case, but you didn't specify them, and my point tis that creating an authoritative list of such hazardous utterances (or the complementary list of allowable ones, which might be considerably shorter in your preferred world) amounts to a power struggle that your own interests cannot be confident of winning.

No i never did any such thing. You were the one who seemed to be claiming that all and every utterance was A-OK with you because even though some of it is harmful you can't tell how harmful.

So you created an authorative list that includes EVERYTHING. So justify it.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

I live in England. Where it's a racially-aggravated public order offence to verbally abuse someone in that manner. I virtually guarantee that the bar staff would willingly contact the police in such circumstances if requested. The very least they'll also do is order the abuser out of the bar, and get him ejected (either by their own security staff or by the police) if he refuses. And if, for some bizarre reason, the bar staff do neither of those things, I'll whip out my mobile and call the police myself. It's one of the things they (the police) are there for. And if the police don't respond in a timely manner, I'll be making sure there's disciplinary action.

You asked me what **I** would do, and that's precisely what I would do.

I don't know where you live, and whether or not racially-aggravated verbal abuse is a criminal offence in your jurisdiction. If - as you suggest - it's not, then may I recommend you start lobbying to get the law changed accordingly?

I live in England too for the record. My point is that while hate speech legislations and systems of enforcement remain patchy at best you can't expect 'the system' to do the work for you. Moreso in places where 'free speech' is God.

If you don't have recourse to a system that defends you from 'words' then what are you going to do?

 

[Myriad]

Why did you make the effort to remove it then?

No i never did any such thing. You were the one who seemed to be claiming that all and every utterance was A-OK with you because even though some of it is harmful you can't tell how harmful.

So you created an authorative list that includes EVERYTHING. So justify it.

None of that makes any sense or accurately relates anything I said.

You said, precisely:

Seems like in fact the opposite might be true... we can't predict how much damage would be done by words and therefore we shouldn't allow them.

Please explain what context constrains which words your suggestion that "we shouldn't allow them" refers to, if it doesn't apply to all words.

 

[Myriad]

If you don't have recourse to a system that defends you from 'words' then what are you going to do?

What are you going to do? Ultimately, if you can't control yourself, the time.

Same as if you live in places where 'not stealing' is god and you're unfortunate enough not to have recourse to a system that gives you other people's stuff that you would rather have yourself, and you can't live with the unfairness.

 

[LondonJohn]

It's not the name calling; it's the messaging. One person calling you a name is no big deal. What if it's lots of people said it and the particular words are intended to go after your vulnerabilities or insecurities? Hear it enough, from the right people and now you're doing some damage.

And this opens up a very important subject which legislators and litigators in many jurisdictions (including E&W) are currently - and fairly frantically - trying to figure out.

After all, when the effect on a victim is of the "death by a thousand cuts" variety, who can the state reasonably bring to justice? Social media has, for pretty much the first time ever in human history, allowed for bullying and insult towards private individuals to go viral incredibly quickly. If Person A were to post on twitter something like "Mary Smith is a frigid bitch who just leads guys on", this on its own would be highly unlikely to constitute a potential criminal offence. But if, within 24 hours, thousands of others - including a significant proportion of the victim's own community - had either retweeted that post or quote-tweeted it with additions such as "Haha that's so funny! Wouldn't want to be her right now lol"..... suddenly the effect of that one initial tweet has become super-magnified, super-quickly.

And it would not be at all unreasonable to suppose that the victim, in this scenario, might now feel ostracised and humiliated to such an extent that the effect might now take on the mantle of serious psychological harm (not to mention a more extreme effect of inducing suicidal thoughts).

In a fair society, we always seek (or should seek) to protect private individuals from this level of potential harm. We normally do so by regulating and/or legislating the behaviour of those who are inflicting that level of harm, usually within the remit of the criminal justice system.

But how on earth do (or even can) we do this in instances such as the one I described as an example? Much as politicians would want to defer to the old "it's entirely the responsibility of the social media companies themselves, as publishers, to police their own users' content" argument, that's simply unworkable. There are no computer algorithms that can automate the search for this sort of thing. It can't even (currently, at least) be approached through artificial intelligence means. And it should be clear to everyone that it's not possible for human eyes to perform constant proactive policing activity. Even if/when a victim reports posts to the site administrators, this can never be good enough - because a) once the post is reported, much of the damage has already been done in any case, and/or b) the time between report and remedial action will almost always be too slow to prevent significant additional damage from having been done (unless each SM operator were to employ literally tens of thousands more people globally).

So it's a real dilemma at the moment. Firstly, how do we take reasonable steps to minimise (we'll never eliminate) the number and severity of these sorts of SM "pile ons"? And secondly, who can we reasonably call to account if and when incidents of this nature take place? At the moment, it's proving hard to answer either question effectively.

 

[smartcooky]

In the UK, financial loss has to be demonstrated for slander, but for libel (i.e. published defamation) mere damage to reputation is sufficient.

But insults or “vulgar abuse” are not actionable in any case.

However, the use of hate speech and/or racial slurs is actionable under the law in England and Wales.

Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994
Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006
Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008

"Expressions of hatred toward someone on account of that person's colour, race, disability, nationality (including citizenship), ethnic or national origin, religion, gender identity, or sexual orientation is forbidden. Any communication which is threatening or abusive, and is intended to harass, alarm, or distress someone is forbidden. The penalties for hate speech include fines, imprisonment, or both."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_in_the_United_Kingdom

 

[Shalamar]

In another thread there is a discussion following the murder* of a customer at a restaurant who it is claimed was using racist insults at the employee. The employee apparently punched the customer who fell down and hit their head and died from that injury. (*using murder colloquially as any form of unlawful killing.)

Several people have used the argument that is summed up in “Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me” and hold that the physical action of speech should be treated differently to other physical actions such as a punch, and they carry it on to a conclusion that you can only use a physical action such as punch in retaliation for being punched/hit and so on. That at no time can someone retaliate with a punch to someone’s speech.

For those that believe there is truth in “Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me”:

Why do you think - as one example - some children try to kill themselves and some do manage to kill themselves after being subjected to “names will never hurt me” aka bullying?

Why should an action like speech be treated as a special kind of action?

Are there any circumstances where speech can be “retorted” (morally if not legally) with a punch?

Not interested in making this personal - so the “Oh you are fine if a Nazi is hit but not if you are hit for being a commie!” and other non-productive discussions about each other so please lets keep this to being an interesting discussion!

"Sticks and Stone may break my bones, but words leave scars that may never heal."

 

[bluesjnr]

Exactly. Failing that, someone should have simply punched Big Ed in his face a few times when he was in the middle of abusing someone. Why wait?

ETA: And again, every time he does it.

It's devastatingly simple, but this..... every time.

 

[bluesjnr]

Clearly words can do harm and in some cases moreso than being punched in the face. That seems pretty indisputable. ...polite snip...

Tell you what, I'll turn up every morning for a week and call you a dirty ******* child ******* ****.

Then I'll turn up and every day for a week and give you my best right hook, right in 'yer puss.

After the two week experiment we can come back and review the rest of your post.

 

[dirtywick]

I don't know if it's correct. Try not to let negative people bring you down is generally good advice.

 

[cullennz]

Cops get abuse hurled at them regularly.

Does this mean they should be allowed to beat citizens up for it?

Or is it different because they get payed to take it?

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

None of that makes any sense or accurately relates anything I said.

You said, precisely:

Please explain what context constrains which words your suggestion that "we shouldn't allow them" refers to, if it doesn't apply to all words.

How about you justify your actual claim first before asking me to justify what i said MIGHT be the case under your hypothetical?

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Tell you what, I'll turn up every morning for a week and call you a dirty ******* child ******* ****.

Then I'll turn up and every day for a week and give you my best right hook, right in 'yer puss.

After the two week experiment we can come back and review the rest of your post.

Is this supposed to be a counter to what I said? Or did it just make you feel warm and fuzzy inside?

 

[Thermal]

"Sticks and Stone may break my bones, but words leave scars that may never heal."

Nope. Watch:

Shalamar, you suck. Piss poor excuse for a human being. Total waste of space. **** you.

Doesn't scar, does it? *You*, personally, have to give them power and weight to hurt you. If you value the speaker in a way that is somewhat out of your control (parent, SO), they don't even need the words to scar. In terms of the OP question, the power is up to you, not the sounds in the air.

 

[Checkmite]

Cops get abuse hurled at them regularly.

Does this mean they should be allowed to beat citizens up for it?

Or is it different because they get payed to take it?

This is not the best retort, considering that cops do sometimes retaliate for real or perceived abuse that is "hurled at them" and very often aren't punished for doing so.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Yeah I was going to chip in on your first paragraph but I think you made the point for me. While a single insult isn't going to kill someone you have no idea whether your insult is going to be the straw that broke the camels back just as you have no idea whether your punch is going to result in a shiner or the person dropping dead on the spot.

This daft old saying just comes from a time when people didn't really appreciate the ideas of psychological abuse and harm.

Yeah. I tend to think that verbal abuse shouldn't be met with violence. But then I tend to think that nothing should be met with violence, although of course I recognise that "wouldn't it be nice if everybody was nice?" is a completely useless philosophy which is completely divorced from the real world.

But I also think it's wrong to look at it in terms of "hey! Sure he insulted you, but it's the first time he's ever done so". That's only looking at it from one perspective. If you get the same insult every single day it's going to wear you down, and perhaps one day you'll have had enough and you'll lash out back. Perhaps that particular lashing out will be seen as disproportionate, but that's because it's disproportionate to that one instance, rather than to a sustained campaign.

See, for example, women being told to smile, or black people being asked if it's okay to touch their hair. These kinds of things are often framed as one-offs. And for the perpetrators they may well be. But if that's your everyday lived experience, then it's not a one-off for you, even if it's a different person doing it every time.

That's exactly why the idea of having consideration WRT what you say exists - because lots of little things can add up to one big thing, and even if your action is more or less innocuous by itself it can be a contributing factor to something much more serious. And you don't know what anybody else is going through, so start from the position of not being a dick.

 

[p0lka]

In another thread there is a discussion following the murder* of a customer at a restaurant who it is claimed was using racist insults at the employee. The employee apparently punched the customer who fell down and hit their head and died from that injury. (*using murder colloquially as any form of unlawful killing.)

Several people have used the argument that is summed up in “Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me” and hold that the physical action of speech should be treated differently to other physical actions such as a punch, and they carry it on to a conclusion that you can only use a physical action such as punch in retaliation for being punched/hit and so on. That at no time can someone retaliate with a punch to someone’s speech.

For those that believe there is truth in “Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me”:

Why do you think - as one example - some children try to kill themselves and some do manage to kill themselves after being subjected to “names will never hurt me” aka bullying?
Why should an action like speech be treated as a special kind of action?

Are there any circumstances where speech can be “retorted” (morally if not legally) with a punch?

Not interested in making this personal - so the “Oh you are fine if a Nazi is hit but not if you are hit for being a commie!” and other non-productive discussions about each other so please lets keep this to being an interesting discussion!

Re the highlighted.
The saying is supposed to get kids to not care about name calling, because name calling happens.

Your example demonstrates that not every kid is absorbing the saying.

I blame the parents.

 

[dirtywick]

Re the highlighted.
The saying is supposed to get kids to not care about name calling, because name calling happens.

Your example demonstrates that not every kid is absorbing the saying.

I blame the parents.

I think it's a bit foolish to blame the parents that a little nursery rhyme song saying isn't being absorbed. I mean, depression, right? Just be happier. Problem solved.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

We're told that saying trans woman are biologically male is "literal violence" against them.

Although, of course, we can measure that. We can look at suicide rates amongst trans people compared to the rest of the population, and we can look at the studies that examine the psychological factors that negatively impact the mental health of trans people and how the biggest one is lack of recognition of their gender and how dramatically acceptance lowers the suicide rate.

"Literal violence" is obviously deliberately emotive for effect, but it's exactly what has been discussed - it's not a neutral act, it is instead something that causes real harm. And the response is the same as has been discussed "my desire to not be considerate with my language is more important to me than the harm that it causes".

We probably shouldn't go too deep into this, because there's already a thread for trans issues and a) we don't want this one to be split or closed, and b) we don't want the crusaders to drag this one off-topic so they can discuss without that thread's moderation.