NSFW. Old shriveled, limp dick, pasty cracker

[HereSince1628]

177. "Words do not actually have the power to leap across the internet and harm"

I think that view depends upon a narrow bounding of the system of interest and parsing of the utility of words.

I see the truth in your statement in a limited sense, but I wonder if taking a reductionist view is as useful as an integrationist approach that takes a wider perspective.

It's fairly clear that words are used on the internet just as they are elsewhere. And those uses include applications in the propagation and maintenance of bigotry and chauvinism.

Of course we laugh when our side's chauvinism promotes our group's superiority in attempts at hilarious broadsides against iconic political opponents or policies. It's all supposed to raucous fun within our group.

But it's also clear that overwhelmingly groups that have had the need to struggle for equal dignity, groups that populate the Left, have had to fight against stigmatizing words intended to educate others to attitudes and behaviors that produce discrimination

It's also true that readers vary in sensitivities just as do people in society. Depending upon factors that could be both innate or acquired it's possible that people can vary in perception, scarring past experience, or otherwise be made raw and more sensitive to words. Consequently the impact of words depend not only on their authors, but also on readers. In such circumstance, pejoratives intended to besmirch open targets (members of out-group(s)) can cause unintended and unexpected collateral damage.

In an integrationist's consideration communication takes place along axes that pass through and engage a richer complexity than that provided by the simplicity of reductionism.

With respect to the current discussion across DU, the heaping of insults onto sensitive (perhaps traumatized) people as faint hearts, goats, etc. seems if nothing else evidence that words are used on this site on the internet to harm through shame and humiliation.