I believe that communication can be violent, but I guess that depends on one’s definition of “violent.” I see “violent” as causing harm to another being and I can think of many examples how communication can be used for that. Also this is assuming “communication” means verbal communication, because I also see punching someone as a form of communication, or sending one message to another.

That all being said, I think when we receive communication that we perceive as violent, we often have a reaction to try to stop people from saying those things, thus the increase in censorship. I don’t think that works well. What I like about NVC is not about stopping someone from communicating in a violent way, but choosing to respond in a nonviolent way. Similar to MLK’s beliefs on nonviolent resistance. In the end, I believe the goal is to change the way people communicate, but not violently stopping someone from being violent.

I agree. If I'm not mistaken the name comes from Ahimsa [1]. So, Communication for Non-Violence and Compassion might be more accurate.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahimsa

I believe there was a movement to change the name to compassionate communication, maybe even led by Rosenberg himself, but I don’t think it has had as much traction as NVC.

The premise is naive speech may inadvertently force negative and clouding emotion in the recipient, and is aimed at critical scenarios, where misinterpretation of speech causes the recipient's body chemistry to activate, and then the conv goes off a cliff and things get even worse. If you don't believe that is happening, the techniques for identifying where it is happening and how to simply avoid them seems kind of pointless.

There may be some reason preventing your use of the word 'violent' for verbal ways to cause negative physical reactions and mental trauma. You may want to ask yourself why you are downplaying the core principle here and, I'm guessing, the agency of the speaker in it..

Can speech cause harm?

Absolutely. Social threat triggers the exact same pain response wiring in the brain as physical violence.

Hurt feelings are not violence. By that logic, the existence of gay people is violence against religious fundamentalists.

No, they're not violence. They are a possible consequence of it.

Violence, as per my dictionary, requires intentional action (but is not necessarily physical). The existence of gay people is not intentional, and therefore is not an act of violence against religious fundamentalists.

So a parent who relentlessly verbally bullies their child every day is what, just exchanging ideas?

I would say they are a terrible parent, they are a bully, and an awful human being.

But not violent.

Just the same as I wouldn't say pirating a movie was theft, but by saying that I'm not saying I think it's OK - these are just different concepts.

I understand, but completely disagree. I think the idea that physical harm is real but psychological harm doesn't exist is just wrong.

Who said psychological harm doesn't exist? It just isn't a form of violence, that's all.

It is important not to conflate the two concepts, because violence is widely criminalized and psychological harm is highly subjective. The immediate implication of bundling these completely disparate concepts is that somebody will have to arbitrate which verbal expressions constitute violent crime. This is not conjecture, activist groups have already regulated speech in several countries on the premise that words are violence.

The whole idea of "X is not being taken seriously but Y is, so I will start calling X Y instead, and anyone who corrects me tries to downplay X" is insane to me.

I said no such thing, and in fact was careful to disclaim such an idea. Perhaps not careful enough.

I meant to say it's not violent by my understanding of the term, not that it can't cause real harm. It absolutely can.