alt Hacker NewsWords do mean something - which is exactly why “violence” already has recognised psychological and coercive forms in law and medicine. Pretending otherwise isn’t defending meaning, it’s narrowing it for comfort. People who’ve lived under regimes of fear understand that harm doesn’t need batons to leave marks. But sure, if the only kind of wound you acknowledge is one that bleeds, then the rest of us must be imagining things.
Most people just means physical violence when they say violence, if you use the word differently you will trick many people into thinking you say something you don't.