Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never harm me.
So goes one of the quintessential schoolyard retorts.
Kids can be brats at times, calling other kids names in order to get under their skin. The sticks and stones phrase has long given the aggrieved an opportunity to blunt these attacks.
Sure, it’s a mouthful. But that’s precisely the point. Its complexity gives the tormentor pause. And this lowers the temperature.
This pattern has repeated itself for years. But things are different now.
Not all words are created equal.
Some bring joy. Some bring sadness. And some are so inflammatory that they’re considered taboo.
Growing up, I knew what these off-limits words were. They were so scandalous that people referred to them by their first letter. The F-word. The S-word. The N-word.
I was not born with this knowledge, but I picked it up quickly.
For instance, when I was 7 years old, I asked my father about a word I’d read in Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. My father implored me not to use that word — which was negro. In the same breath, he warned me to never use its uglier, more inflammatory derivative.
Looking back now, it strikes me just how strange this all was. In order to teach me which word not to use, my father needed to use it.
But I learned my lessons well. I steered clear of bad words with a precision that would have made Mormons proud. By the time I got to high school, my best friend — who dropped the F-words and S-words into most sentences — even ribbed me for being so square.
Truth be told, it was easy to avoid these terms. There was a rich ecosystem of synonyms I could draw from to avoid swearing. And that’s precisely what I did.
But these days, it’s trickier to steer clear of the landmines.
Trigger warning.
It’s one of the terms that’s emerged in this newfangled era.
Trigger warnings guard against information that might upset us. They prepare us for the shock, horror or emotional distress ahead.
The premise of this phenomenon is sensible. We shouldn’t be blindsided when facing disturbing topics, particularly since many of us have experienced trauma in our lives already.
Words can in fact harm us, particularly if they reopen wounds that haven’t fully healed. Trigger warnings are our last line of defense against such catastrophe.
Yet, as our society gets more polarized, the number of terms deemed worthy of a trigger warning only seems to grow. Racial slurs and descriptors of physical assaults aren’t the only sources of consternation anymore. Now, phrases that upset our worldviews make the list as well.
Some of these terms do have ties to partisan politics. Global warming became climate change thanks to a focus group put together by conservatives, for instance.
Still, many phrases with a trigger warning label lack obvious political ties. It’s the associations we draw from these terms that so deeply aggrieve us.
This leaves us with a bevy of words that have turned radioactive. And this time, there are no simple substitutes for them.
We can take the long way and describe the words without using them — a real-life version of the game Taboo. But in an era of dwindling attention spans, these efforts are likely to fall short.
And so, with no clear path forward, we avoid these terms — and their associated topics — altogether. And by doing this, we invoke a sense of shadow censorship.
That should trigger its own warning.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
So reads the first amendment of the United States Constitution.
Scholars, justices, and activists have broken down those 45 words countless times. They’ve attempted to determine what rights people have to express themselves.
But these dry interpretations miss a key angle. Namely, the intent of those who put those 45 words on paper.
The First Amendment was part of the Bill of Rights — a set of personal freedoms afforded to all Americans. These rights were foundational, rebutting the censorship that was commonplace in the colonial era.
The founding fathers wanted us to use our voices without fear of silencing. In their view, words were not weapons. And opening one’s mouth shouldn’t be treated as an act of war.
While the courts have imposed limitations in a few situations, freedom of expression largely remains intact today. Yet, we now find ourselves restricting our own speech.
By making more and more terms taboo, we are limiting discourse. We are narrowing our perspective. And we are failing to address crucial societal concerns.
Sure, shadow censorship might make us feel more secure and less aggravated. But ignoring the uncomfortable topics around us won’t make them go away. The elephant in the room remains.
It’s time to end the shadow censorship. It’s time to stop treating words as weapons.
Yes, some select words are truly vulgar. And we absolutely should avoid those words whenever possible.
But, by and large, words are not the concern. It’s the actions associated with those words that pose the gravest danger.
This is a point that we seem to miss.
Let’s consider what is really spurring the trigger warnings. Do these difficult phrases trigger emotional distress? Or do they trigger us to acts of aggression?
Both effects are troubling. But words shouldn’t shoulder all the blame for these adverse outcomes. We need to take some responsibility as well.
We have the agency to face our trauma head-on and to help the scars heal. We have the ability to keep dialogue from erupting into violence.
Taking phrases out of circulation doesn’t absolve us of these duties. It only deludes us further.
So, let’s stop with the smoke and mirrors. Let’s rid ourselves of the shadow censorship. And let’s commit ourselves to have important discussions, even if they might be a bit uncomfortable.
This is our best path forward. Let’s not squander it.