"Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me."
The above quote was a common refrain in my youth as a means of socializing children to understand the difference between a
real threat and words. Children and those with impulse control issues are quick to [over] react to words. Indeed psychologists have noted that words can activate the same "hurt perceptions" in the brain as physical pain. As an aside, when gambling the loss of money has the same psychological effect. So one of the goals to becoming an adult was to train yourself to negate the power of words to your psyche. The idea being that though may have hurt
feelings by what someone may have said or wrote but they are not comparable to the effects of a physical injury. This was a part of growing up.
So one may have been called a punk mo-fo on the schoolyard. Instead of having a fight about it, you either to "go somewhere" or walked off knowing you have better things to do with your time. This response, particularly the latter one, was a high sign of
maturity. This socialization is and was particularly important for boys and men due to the males being more prone to physical violence. A society doesn't do well when men are set off to violence over words. Women, being generally weaker than men, also benefit greatly by such a rule since women's aggression is largely verbal.
I bring this up because I'm about 45 minutes into the Joe Rogan podcast with Twitter execs and I noticed that there was a repeated mention of moderating tweets based on how the target "feels". Their position is that if a person
felt threatened or
felt some psychological disress due to someone's tweet, that Twitter should ban/force remove, etc the "offending" tweet. Indeed Joe told the female attorney at Twitter that she was the "Mother".
Why do adults need "mothers" on websites? All these "safety" and "wellness" councils at various social media companies are a sign of the diapering of America. No longer are adults expected to be adults with the ability to moderate and control their own emotions. Instead, they are to act like children: Tell the teacher (authority figure) and get the "other kid" in trouble while the "offended" goes off to their clique, points fingers and snickers because they know full well they weren't threatened at all.
Of course this an outgrowth of the femininization of American society. Men and women generally respond differently to children who are upset. Women tend to want to
protect that child from
further or future harm whereas men tend to want to
teach the child to
defend against or
deter further and future harm. Though men are
less likely to do that with their daughters. Since "conservativism" is far more masculine than liberalism, it is not surprising that liberal run organizations act as internet mothers and "mothering" is the default position in their policies.
Fin.
