Jacob Bronowski once said, “The wish to hurt, the momentary intoxication with pain, is the loophole through, which the pervert climbs into the minds of ordinary men” (qtd. in “Bronowski.”). He elaborates that wanting someone to feel agony is immoral. Society frowns upon obliterating another person’s reputation for self-benefit. Most people characterize hurt as physical soreness, but to completely understand how the word has evolved it helps to look at the etymology and the diverse definitions that exist in economics, sports, and psychology.
Throughout the centuries, transformations have occurred making Diving deeper into the etymology of a word makes it easier to see the transformations that occurred throughout the centuries. Hurt was derived from the Old French word hurte, meaning to knock or strike two things together that causes damage (Harper). Ralph Waldo Emerson, a prominent author in the 19th century wrote in his essay, Circles, “You admire this tower of granite, weathering the hurts of so many ages. Yet a little waving hand built this huge wall, and that which builds is better than that which is built” (Emerson). He elaborates on how most people appreciate an ancient, weathered construction, but don’t give enough credit to the builder who worked hard to fabricate a masterpiece. Although this particular
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in “Tynan”). Quoted by Kenneth Tynan in 1897, this quote means the worst feeling in the world is when a best friend is secretly working with your enemy to damage you without knowing it. When this happens most victims have trouble believing people again. Hurt can be categorized into different definitions depending on the context used. Although, the original meaning of knocking objects together is rarely used today, the evolution of the word has helped describe meanings for economics, sports, and
Pains hurt Jeannette Walls. It hurts her physically and mentally. Especially when those pains are caused not just by physical harassment caused or those of sexual abuses she experienced or acknowledged happening to her and her family but also the dysfunctionality of her family. The way Jeannette processed and respond to all the misfortunes and abuses of life hints us a rather insightful view of how perceptions and knowledge shape certain prejudices and judgments upon another person 's circumstance.
In Diane Ackerman’s essay “Pain,” she ponders about the subjectivity in experiencing pain, how to define pain, and its role in human life. She begins by emphasizing that an individual’s ability to endure pain may depend more on culture and atmosphere than on the actual magnitude of the pain. Given that at times humans can forego pain for a spell because of their atmosphere, Ackerman elucidates the importance of surroundings in how one experiences pain by exemplifying her claim through a phenomenon in football players. Ackerman continues her discussion on the disparities in the reception of pain by asserting expectations delineate the painfulness of events. Strengthening her claim that tradition affects pain, Ackerman considers how cultures
To cause feelings of pain or injuries this can be done by punching, kicking, biting,
While taking an English Composition course, my class discussed several ideas behind the American Dream and what influenced its fruition. One day, my professor hands us a stapled copy of Self Reliance, a piece written by Ralph Waldo Emerson, and I shout out “he’s a Transcendentalist!” because that’s all I knew of him (something I remembered from high school). As the year went on we were told to write a research paper with a variety of topics. Since I was very interested in knowing a little more about him, I took on the task to learn more about Ralph Waldo Emerson. As I went through article after article, book after book, I became very enlightened, yet very confused. I learned how his whole life was a tragedy- from one family member to the next, they all kept passing away. His story moved me and taught me that anyone can become great after going through darkness if he has a sense of perseverance. Emerson kept on working, no matter the crisis at hand, and pushed his way to becoming one of the most talked about writers of all time. Yet, I was stunned to find that many people don’t enjoy his work and criticize his beliefs that he preached, as he was a minister for quite some time of his life. Some say that his writings should stop being read in classrooms because they are not understandable. My goal in this paper is to recognize whether Ralph Waldo Emerson is considered to be the first great American thinker or not.
Pain not only involves the physical reaction to damaged tissue, but also involves an emotional and cognitive response by the person experiencing the pain (Backer, 1994). A person's prior experience will influence how pain is managed. Pain is a signal that something is not
his profession as a pastor in search for vital truth and hope. But his father
The physical pain is only one aspect of the impact it has on these victims. The trauma also causes emotional
Pain can be emotional or physical, but the obvious part about it is that it is caused by being hurt by someone or something. The mental wall that everyone builds after being emotionally abused makes many people believe nothing will ever hurt them. They are extraordinarily wrong. Even when someone believes one hundred percent that the wall is indestructible, they should never have
The changing world has brought us a lot of convenience and yet it also brought a lot of ways to hurt and inflict pain to other
Society feeds schadenfreude of physical pain by letting it reside throughout comedy. Almost every comedic movie, show, song, sketch or any other form of entertainment is cluttered with people being hurt. Harry Greener’s clown show in The Day of the Locust is completely centered around his pain. “‘When he stands up, the audience, which failed to laugh at his joke, laughs at his limp, so he continues lame for the rest of the act,’” (West, The Day 78). The entire comedy genre thrives off of schadenfreude. Perhaps this is because the audience knows that the subject is not truly hurt, so it becomes funny to see people such as Curly, Moe, and Larry beat each other. Perhaps it is because people use laughter as a shield against pain. When people see pain they laugh to make it seem that it did not actually hurt. It is a product of empathy for him who was hurt. Laughter serves to camouflage embarrassment which is included in empathy. The ways in which characters receive injuries are usually embarrassing, and the audience feels the embarrassment causing them to laugh.
The concept of harm is a complex one, The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines the term as “hurt, damage, cause harm to” (Allen,1990,P.539). In a physical sense harm can be defined and characterised by damage caused from a war or a natural phenomenon that inflicts considerable damage upon an individual, community or nation. The notion of harm has characterised humanity since the dawn of its existence, ranging from famine and disease to war and conflict. From a Sociological perspective Harm and more specifically Well-Being are concepts that have extremely far reaching definitions, that range between the relationships between ourselves and
Hurt is the type song someone listens to when they have the kind of day that makes them feel alone. Everything you thought you knew was wrong, people stab you in the back, and everything you used to believe in has vanished. You’re left with nothing at the end of the day, feeling depressed and miserable, that is what Hurt is about. Hurt makes you realize you’re not the only one in the world that suffers these pains because everyone goes through them. It then leaves the listeners feeling as if they are not alone anymore; they can start to relate to the loneliness and misery that the song
“Some people hurt for revenge or just because they feel like doing it but its all bad either way. The most commonly seen kind of hurt is for broken relationships. People put in days trying to think of ways to get back at her ex witch is not only just a bad thing to do but is also bad for your body as well. If you spend all of your time trying to get back at someone then thats the way that you’re mind will start to think and people will not want to be around you” these are all things said in the
Why do we use the phrase “hurt feelings”? When someone is cruel to us do we actually feel pain, or is it just metaphor? In a journal by Eisenberger, (2012) she states, “That similarity has held up in later research. Physical pain and social pain are processed in some of the same regions of the brain. Physical pain has two aspects: the sensory experience of pain and the emotional component, in which your brain decides how negative or distressing the pain is. It is the latter that is shared with social pain, although some research has suggested that severe social rejection, like being dumped, can also be processed in the part of your brain that handles the sensory component of pain. So it would seem that there is a connection between physical pain, and emotional pain.
We have all heard the phrase “sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me” on the playground or school bus ride home. The phrase was normally thrown out to bullies during a fight in the schoolyard, pushes in the hall, food thrown in the cafeteria, or during the endless teasing and taunting on bus rides to/from school.