What If These Words Didn't Exist?

“What an idiot.”
“You ignorant fool!”
“She’s a lazy good-for-nothing.”
“He’s an arrogant, stuck-up know-it-all.”

How many times have we heard, or said ourselves, phrases such as these?  Furthermore, there are many many many such phrases that we hear or say each and every day.  Most are much worse; more defamatory, more insulting, more degrading, or more foul-mouthed.

I wonder what our speech would be like if none of these words existed?  What if we didn’t have in our language words that insult, degrade, or abuse others?  What if we had no judgemental words?

What would we say?  How would we talk to one another?

If we had no words of judgement, what would our speech be comprised of?  Perhaps we would have to be more specific, and maybe more descriptive of what we observed.  Instead of jumping to judgemental conclusions, we might have to describe what we saw or heard. 

If we could not immediately respond with judgement, perhaps we could take a moment or two, reach inside, and discover what it is we feel about the situation.  We may become more in tune with our feelings and not confuse them with thoughts.  Then, we might find that instead of judging someone else, we might respond with how we are feeling which in turn may help us to discover the needs that previously we had not expressed.

Maybe then, just maybe, our speech and our conversations might stand a chance of being of mutual benefit.  Our conversations might become inspiring, encouraging, and even gratifying.

One of the outcomes of using judgemental speech is that we fall into the trap of separation.  We set up a distance between ourselves and others, which may end up as a barrier.
 
This is not something just to think about in terms of the conversations we have with our friends and family, or our neighbour and those we work with.  We could ask ourselves how we pass judgement upon those who we deem to be on an opposing side.  Unfortunately, politics and social causes tend to cast us into opposing camps.  And from those camps it is very easy to label those in another camp as ignorant, arrogant, or having other disparaging traits.

When that happens we are trapped.  We have created a trap and fallen into it.  In that trap, the accusations and the judgements just keep going round and round, escalating in intensity and animosity.  There seems to be no way out.

The only way out is to - stop!  Stop using judgemental words. 

Start observing what is going on.  Start identifying and expressing our feelings.  Start noting our needs.  Start hearing the feelings and needs of others.  Start empathising.  Start truly conversing.

Yes, I wonder what our conversations would be like if we didn’t have judgemental words in our language?