Brain Food for Pioneering Spirits: can a water molecule tell the difference between “do it” and “let’s do it” — and is a single sentence like “I had a dream” itself a form of violence? In Room #912 of the Deep Talk Club, under our overarching theme “Power and Violence,” Jürgen stakes out a bold claim: language isn’t just a weapon, it’s the weapon, because every one of us carries it with us at all times. Ria brings Emoto’s controversial water-crystal photography and a devastating, then redemptive, classroom story about a girl who’d been told she was “too stupid for math.” Sabine traces the line from “I love you all” lies to GDR jingles that never left her head. Listen in on the examples that came up and the perspectives that emerged in dialogue…
Note: This session was recorded live in German as part of the Deep Talk Club, so the video above is German-language audio only. What follows is an English translation of the conversation, lightly edited for readability — the back-and-forth between the moderator and participants is preserved, but the original timestamps and speaker names have been left out.
A very good morning to you. Today we’re continuing with “The Violence of Words,” and I’m really curious, because it’s about the extent to which language can also be a weapon. That’s the question we want to look at together today, and let’s see what aspects come to mind for you all. I’m very, very curious what comes together, in terms of impulses, if you think about it that way, what the first ideas are that come up, as well as maybe experiences you can share, all the way to quite concrete examples that can be opened up. And then, in exchange, let’s just see which direction all of that can go. And with “the violence of words,” we already have a bit of a “flavor,” in quotation marks, with the sub-headline, because we might, to what extent can language be a weapon, maybe tying back to the rooms before too. We’ve always opened up two sides, both a positive and a negative connotation, and even though the terms here include weapon for example etc., that can also be meant positively. So here too, thinking of both the positive and the negative connotation, so to speak, and approaching today’s room theme in both directions. Yes, and with that you’re very, very warmly invited, as every morning again today, to join, to shape a dialogue together, to reflect together, and to see which direction the room develops today. We have a recording running in the background the entire time, and whoever joins automatically agrees that the whole thing gets published too. And we have three small room rules, as a reminder: a profile photo in which you’re recognizable, first and last name, and at least one sentence in the bio, simply to ensure that these are seriously meant contributions and not Clubhouse trolls. And for fairness’s sake, that applies equally to everyone. Whoever can’t speak for whatever reason, wants to stay anonymous, or whatever, and doesn’t want to come on stage, can of course also use the chat to be in the exchange here, and then I can pick up on one thing or another too. Yes, and with that I’d like to mute myself first, to see who wants to open the round with me together this morning.
A very good morning, dear Sabine. We still can’t hear you. Maybe again, Nico, yes, out and back in. Let’s see if that works. Does it work now? Yes, wonderful. Now we can hear you.
Good morning. Well, that’s always a miracle of technology. But good morning to the round first. Yes, we’ve had violence, power. Those are such great words. And now comes the violence of words. That’s a bit contradictory at first. On one hand violence, where everyone first thinks, oh god, now I’m reaching for a weapon, and words, which are just a few words, where you don’t use your hands. But I fully agree with you, that’s of course a very two-sided thing, when you look at all this personality and development training. A lot happens there with words. There you try to get people excited. We always say, we have to express ourselves positively. We want the positive thoughts. And that happens largely through words. Whether I say them out loud or say them to myself. And the same on the other side, if we look at politics right now, what happens there? A lot happens through words that aren’t positive, that stir people up, unfortunately often in the other direction. Yes, that was my opening.
Yes, thank you so, so much, and absolutely right, especially in personal development, as you said, a lot is worked and acted upon with words too, and that’s why, what I find totally exciting, I mentioned it briefly yesterday, that we also had ChatGPT at work here, so to speak. And now I’d find it totally exciting too, this question we could pick up too, whether the violence of words, in quotation marks, is even the right word choice, or, I’d probably have phrased it more as the power of language or something. And so I’m really curious how you see that. So what’s the difference here, whether we speak of the violence of words or the power of words? Maybe we can look at that a bit conceptually again too. I find that totally exciting at this point too, and from these two perspectives, this approach, I find quite exciting too, that even if we might first feel the impulse, through the terms used here, on one hand violence, which very often might trigger a negative connotation as a first impulse for us, and also the weapon, which is included here as a symbol, so to speak, that we first have this negative connotation, when we look more closely and tie back to what we’ve discussed in recent days, picking up the positive connotation too, that you can indeed see it from this perspective too. And you gave a very nice example just now with personal development, where language is also used a lot, for example to bring about enthusiasm, to let emotions arise. That’s also an aspect, emotions, that this can be used accordingly here too. I’m curious about that. Maybe you have further thoughts you’d like to connect too. I’d also like to warmly invite more people to join, really, so that we can open up different perspectives and examples, and go in different directions in more detail, since this room is characterized by us being able to discover a wealth of facets through this diversity of perspectives, so to speak.
Sabine, would you like to connect again, and then we can gladly bring in Ria too.
Well, regarding the thing you said, the power of language or the violence of words, I have to think about that first, because at first glance I’d say, isn’t that both the same thing. We’ve often taken power and violence apart now and found that it’s not quite the same. But for me, at least, if it’s just thrown at me like that, we first get the same thing. But you also said that the whole thing is through ChatGPT, that it decided on this, so it seems like it’s not the same thing, but I think that would be a case for Jürgen, he’d certainly take that apart and prove to me that it’s definitely not the same thing.
Wonderful, thank you so, so much. Maybe Jürgen will join later too. Let’s see. So let’s see, Ria has raised her hand. What does Ria have to say about that?
A very good morning, dear Ria.
A very good morning to you too, a nice Saturday. And I’m sitting here in another room right now because I was looking for a book. Normally I’d come with pedagogical things. I have wonderful stories there too, about what words can and may do, and I always say, words can kill. But I found something completely different just now, it came to me immediately. And that’s a book, “The Message from Water” by Emoto. He unfortunately passed away. He’s from Japan, and he took wonderful pictures of water crystals with a very special technique, and took various water samples both in Japan and in other countries, and at some point he then played music and words to these water crystals too and recorded, in that moment, how the water crystal develops. And I found, on page 100, he recorded a water crystal with the words “do it,” and a water crystal with the words “let’s do it,” and it’s fascinating, this commanding “do it,” and also, let’s say, pointing the finger at the other and excluding yourself, produces no crystal, just something like a ring of light. The light is outside the center. The center is dark, and around it, the crystals have arranged themselves in a, well, kind of corona-like way. Solar corona. Is that the right word? Solar corona? Doesn’t matter. So you know what I mean. And with the sentence “let’s do it,” it looks like a snowflake with many different arms. And he also used various music, and it’s really strange, water really reacts massively to the most varied things, and the more beautiful and bigger the crystal is, the cleaner the water generally is, and the more energetically, positively charged the water is. And if you take water as nature, and make the connection to these words, then words are a force of nature. That was my contribution for now. A very good morning to you all.
Oh, how nice. And there we have this connection to nature again and so on, and the terms from the past few days. So words as a force of nature, I find that amazing. Great.
Would you like to connect there again, Sabine?
No, but I’d like to connect to Ria overall, because the teacher is on stage. Power of words, power of violence, especially with younger students, power of violence, power of words, power of language, very extreme. If I start with the smallest children and inject them with the wrong words, and we Germans are probably pretty good at that, because we tend to use negative connotations, that we break a lot there, instead of starting with the smallest ones with positive words. And I definitely don’t continue that, even if we can maybe pack it in a bit more later, whether it’s right or left. I don’t mean right or left politically now, but negative or positive. But especially with the smallest ones, we certainly do a lot wrong there.
Yes, thank you so, so much, and you just used the terms positive and negative words. What do we actually base that on? Question mark. So maybe we can look at that more closely too. What does that mean in this context, positive words or negative words? Ria has just chosen this approach here with the crystals, so maybe there’s also a distinction there, that this is somehow visible in the crystals too. Though I don’t know exactly, Ria, whether you’ve researched that or looked into it more closely. I know about these water crystals, but I also know that it’s, in part, very controversial, in quotation marks, along the lines of, it’s not really proven or whatever else. But I can’t classify that myself at the moment, since I haven’t researched it more deeply, I personally find it very, very fascinating, and maybe that as a hint, and maybe you’d like to connect there again, maybe you’ve looked into it.
Sabine, you wanted to connect again, and then I’d like to bring in Ria again too. All right, Ria, have you maybe looked into that? Would you like to say something more about these water crystals?
So I looked into that in connection with our tap water, and we really got this book after a lot of back and forth. It’s strange for me when books that actually cost 20, 30 euros are suddenly traded online for 100, 500, 1000 euros. There’s another book, or there are two other books, that I know of in this context. And you can’t get this book anymore either. The book I’m holding is from 2007. Emoto died a few years ago. I know it was controversial, because this book has a subtitle, “Sensational images of frozen water crystals.” And he actually started with, wait, let me tell you this exactly, with some kind of electro-spectrometer or something, I can’t quite find it now. And he was actually supposed to examine various water qualities in Japan, and of course he considered how you could do that. You can do that through chemical controls, but he had the idea, because a snowflake is nothing other than frozen water, and snowflakes are very different, each snowflake is unique, and if you put water into a frozen state and then photograph this water droplet, then clean water always presents itself like, well, how you’d imagine a diamond, or this wonderful hexagon with wonderfully chiseled corners and edges and flower patterns. It’s really beautiful, the images you get there. And if you have contaminated water and do the same thing, or water that’s also energetically contaminated, like near a nuclear power plant or similar things, then those are either lumps or blurry blobs. They’re really quite, quite strange things that pop up there, where you say, that has nothing to do with water anymore. That’s just a lump, and he really worked on this, or worked on it for many years. It probably hasn’t been further verified so far, or I don’t know whether it’s been further worked on. And well, what a person doesn’t know, or what the farmer doesn’t know, as they always say so nicely, he doesn’t understand. But I think there’s a nice alternative demonstration too, also from a Japanese scientist. He has a small experimental setup, it’s very simple physics, it goes through vibrations, meaning there’s a small ball on a tuning fork, and this tuning fork has a certain frequency. And then he takes another tuning fork that doesn’t have the same frequency, holds it nearby, strikes it, and nothing happens. And then he takes a tuning fork that has the same frequency as the tuning fork the little ball is resting or hanging on. And he doesn’t touch the second tuning fork. And he touches the first tuning fork, it starts to vibrate, and suddenly the ball moves. That means, the transfer of the same energy to another medium, without them touching, just through the air, is wonderful to see, and if you then consider that since Einstein energy is also waves, and waves are energy — I can’t quite imagine all of it well, I’m just trying to illustrate it — then words are also energy, and then they hit another tuning fork, and if it has the same frequency, then something moves. And if it doesn’t have the same frequency, nothing moves. And transferred to other natural phenomena like water, I can well imagine that, the more beautiful, the more wonderful and in harmony with nature the energy is, the more beautiful the water crystals become. And that’s actually pretty logical for me.
Yes, totally exciting. Above all though, that would mean that I don’t necessarily — we’ve now called it positive and negative words and can look at that again in a moment — let’s assume I’m on the frequency of positive words and send that out, but don’t hit the same frequency on the other side. Wouldn’t that mean it doesn’t arrive at all? So that would be a thesis I’d derive from this result. So I find that totally exciting. But we might deny that. We’d rather say, if I encounter others positively, in quotation marks, I’m also probably increasing the probability that I might get something positive back, while with negative, the negative is more likely to be produced. So I find that totally exciting and I’m curious.
Sabine, you wanted to connect here again, and then I’d like to bring in Jürgen too.
Yes, that fits well now too. Now we’re back at positive-negative. What I wanted to add is, of course that’s also a matter of beliefs, a matter of cultural upbringing. So we just saw again, when someone was abroad and stepped into an Asian family, there’s a completely different cultural background there. That means he also had a bit of trouble integrating properly there. Which certainly wasn’t only because of the family, but also because of himself, because he grew up completely differently. And that’s what I want to loop back to elementary school and the teachers and certainly also the parents and everyone who deals with small children. If you mean it positively there, then that’s certainly our view of positive. Though our is probably too broad again. Then it’s my view of positive, which certainly wasn’t always the way it is today either. Because you also learn, and you learn your whole life. And today I’d probably do a lot of things differently too.
Yes, wonderful. Thank you so, so much. Yes, then I’ll give Jürgen the opportunity to connect too.
A very good morning, dear Jürgen.
Good morning, dear Yasemin, and good morning everyone in the room. I’d like to briefly elaborate on two things, hopefully briefly enough. Namely, first, I’d like to build on various remarks from Sabine, and second, take the subtitle of today’s room as an occasion, once again, to attempt an answer. You asked, the violence of words, that’s a declarative sentence, but then asked, can language be a weapon? Dear Yasemin, I answer you, or everyone, for me, is language the weapon, period? And I justify that as follows. Based especially on the remarks of Ria and Sabine, we need to explain to ourselves what language can do. It can hurt, it can even kill, it can strengthen us in our behavior, it can trigger behavior. An image that comes to mind is this “We are the people,” which basically produced a new identity, and with it behaviors, for hundreds of thousands of people. That is — and I unfortunately have to disappoint you now, dear Sabine — that is a violence. And regarding the distinction of bad or good connotations of this terminology, I feel unable to distinguish. What is power other than violence, and is there even a difference there? For me there’s a difference, that violence, in contrast to power, has something more spontaneous about it. A very close relationship to time. We also talk about — I believe I already elaborated on this — an outburst of violence, and power, by nature, is basically always designed, by those who focus on power, for a longer period of time, and violence, mind you this is my interpretation, is, for me, more of an intuitively time-limited momentary situation, a manifestation of behavior. But as I said, that’s my personal opinion, and it’s certainly not scientifically backed. But I don’t have another distinction either. But let me get back to this question, or to my thesis, if you want to call it that, of why it delivers the justification for it being, for me, the weapon, period. We agree, through the positive and negative connotation, on how we can influence others. It’s the weapon, is decisive for me, because every one of us carries this weapon within us. So everyone who masters a language always has this weapon with them and always available, and can deploy it across the entire spectrum of its possible uses, both for good and for evil. And I allow myself the doubt that a large part of our species is clear about what it can do with this weapon. That’s one thing. I hope I’ve thereby delivered an approach to justify saying, this isn’t just any weapon. It’s the weapon, because every one of us carries it with us. And I’d like to throw in another focus too. If I’ve listened correctly — I was away for a while and couldn’t follow you — but it was actually always understood unidirectionally, language, from me to others. But what does language do to ourselves? The language I’m using with you right now, what does it do to me myself? And I only know this, but only to a rudimentary extent, and now I come to Sabine, that just learning your mother tongue influences us, regarding the connection of language to identity or nationality — though nationality is actually wrong, the Austrians also speak German, and the Swiss partly too — but identity is influenced by our language, and I’ve already told you that I grew up with two languages here, German and French. And I can definitely relate to that today. Just from the origin, that we’re a Germanic language and French is a Romance language. Regarding vocabulary and the meaning assigned to individual words, I still today have, in part, a problem, or a collision of misunderstanding, with French people, when I supposedly express a matter in my language, and thereby express a part of my identity. But the exact same term is loaded with a completely different meaning in the other identity. And that’s why, for me, in sum, language also makes something out of me. Namely, it’s an essential contribution to my value system, if you will, also to my worldview and to my identity, and that’s why, at the very end, that’s why it’s the weapon for me. Thank you so much for listening.
Yes wonderful, thank you so, so much, and here we possibly have various further connecting points we can choose. With this “what does language do to me,” I’d also like to pick up the aspect that we — and we already talked about this in one of the rooms — that when we don’t use language in interaction but maybe pick up thoughts at this point too, that we’re basically also constantly in dialogue with ourselves, and maybe to also consider that, so not just verbally in exchange with others for example, but also in dialogue with ourselves mentally, on a mental level. And a lot happens here too that we can take into account and draw on here. And we already picked up various aspects on that in various rooms too. So observing ourselves too, which formulations or which thoughts do I have regarding my own person, and what does that do to me, and that’s certainly very, very exciting at this point too, and with that I’d like to give Sabine and Ria the opportunity again to build bridges accordingly and connect to what’s been said.
Who wants to go first, Sabine or Ria?
Well, something just came to me, when Jürgen said violence is a one-time thing, violence is spontaneous, violence is like a small earthquake. Yes, and then I thought of domestic violence. Yes, domestic violence, someone hits, and through that he has power at home. The power is probably permanent, and the hitting happens again and again. We just had something really terrible here in our part of town, and that spontaneously came to mind. Yes, that was just my note on that. Thank you.
Ria, would you like to connect again too?
Yes, gladly. So I looked into what you said in the meantime. Yes, Emoto’s research is very controversial, and the books are also available again at the regular price. That means the waves have settled somewhere there, but he’s also no longer alive. I don’t know whether that’s continued in any form. But that doesn’t matter here right now. What I found very interesting is what Jürgen said, when it was about what words do to ourselves. And there you’re probably more versed than I am. I remember someone saying that most of the words we say to ourselves are relatively negative. And when we do that, we have a problem with our self-worth. And of course, due to the most varied things I’ve experienced, that I’ve lived through, I’ve also always had the feeling that I had to deal a lot with what I say to myself, and for some time now I’ve had, well, almost a ritual. Every morning, after I’ve done a bit of exercise, I tell myself that I’m very grateful for what’s happening around me, for the impulses, the thoughts and ideas, and then I tell myself, I’m grateful that I can say, I’m proud of myself, and I love myself the way I am, and since I’ve been doing that, that’s definitely two years now, I’ve still experienced bad things, or let’s say, challenges, but I’ve managed the challenges differently. I’ve always said, I’ll manage this, it’s no problem. That means, by carrying certain things, let’s say, or certain thoughts, impulses, for yourself that are good, you develop more strength. That’s a very personal story. I actually find that wonderful, because — yes, so with cancer twice and my husband passing away and problems and difficulties, hip to hip, several others would probably have buried their heads in the sand. And I’m standing here now and have ideas, have strength, have the feeling that a lot of new things are still coming my way. And I can still manage a lot and turn a lot around, and I can leave my traces in the sand of life, so to speak, that maybe someone can then step into. And that just makes me happy. I also get up somehow differently. Yes, just that from a very personal perspective now.
Yes, thank you so, so much.
Sabine, gladly.
Yes, I’d like to connect there, because in personal development there’s also this suggestion, autosuggestion, which is also a bit controversial, but goes exactly in this direction. And that also ties into what Yasemin said earlier, about talking to yourself, and it also resonates with what you just said, that I say something to myself every morning. It connects to the fact that if I stand in front of the mirror and say, I look good again today, that starts my day very differently than if I say, oh my, how do I look today. And I have a positive example there too, a friend of mine who also has cancer, and she was actually always very negative. Her husband was also always a bit stricter than her, and, and, and, and we sat together recently, played cards, and she said, when I drive over the bridge now, I already look forward to seeing greenery. And she made a completely different impression. She’s also in parallel psychological treatment and certainly picks up on that. I haven’t talked to her about it. But I also think we all do that far too little, that we simply say, hello, I’m good. I’m doing this, I’ll manage this, I want this. And that’s also what I meant earlier, what we should actually already give children. Because we often give them, you’re not doing this well, and then we’re back to red marks on grades and, and, and. So that’s actually done far too little with small children with us.
Yes, wonderful. Thank you so, so much. I’d like to set another impulse too, and then we can gladly see whether Jürgen wants to connect again too. Because we also talked about mother tongue and such, another thing occurred to me: there are also interesting findings on that in neuroscience. I shared that once in the newsletter, and I just looked up the link for you and shared it with you in the chat too, so you also have the possibility to read up on it yourselves. It’s about how the mother tongue also shapes the wiring in the brain, so to speak. And I’d just like to read you the opening, to make you curious to read further in that direction, even outside the room so to speak, which was published in this press release. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig have found evidence that the mother tongue we speak shapes the wiring in our brain and could thereby influence our thinking. Using magnetic resonance imaging, they looked deep into the brains of German and Arabic native speakers and discovered differences in the wiring of the language regions of the brain. And one of the essential statements made, quoted here, is: Arabic native speakers showed stronger connectivity between the left and right hemispheres than German native speakers. So that means, here too, not just language in the sense of what we picked up earlier, like positive and negative, but that even the composition of language, the language structure so to speak, regarding the forms, so the syntax and so on, also seems to have an effect on how certain brain regions are interconnected, or react to each other. And this level too is maybe quite interesting at this point, and could open up another aspect here for our exchange too. That’s what I wanted to bring in too.
Yes, and with that, Jürgen, if you’d like, would you like to connect somewhere again?
Yes, gladly, thank you very much, dear Yasemin. Water on my mill, what you just said. And I’ll radicalize — I’ll out myself as a radical here — I’ll go one step further and say, not just the mother tongue, because I’d rather relate that to the influence on our value attitudes and our worldview, on identity. I go so far as to say that language, in general, determines our thinking. And not that I now claim this, this is based on my own considerations. This is a very well-known thesis, going back to — I’m convinced of it, which is why I said, I’m outing myself — from my own experience. It says, if you very roughly divide us humans into two spheres, then one sphere is our thinking, and the other is the realm of our emotions. And emotions communicate themselves through reactions of the body and behavior. I can comment on emotions, explain why I’m angry now, but the emotion itself expresses itself through the body, meaning the body thinks along too, in quotation marks. But thinking, constructive, logical thinking in structures, that can only be communicated through language, I’ll say now, communicated basically. Only through communication can our thinking actually convey itself, and that’s why, for me — I come back to my first point — language is the — and it’s also, for me, the instrument we possess to get along with each other and express ourselves, to position ourselves, and, and, and. For me, language is the nonpareil, the ultimate. So now I’ve said it, and I stand by that. Thank you so much for listening.
I find that a really exciting point, especially if we now build the bridge again to yesterday’s room, the aesthetics of power — I believe that’s the room where, wasn’t that in that context, where we also picked up emojis again, or this visual language, which is more and more observable, has become stronger in communication too. And there the question arises for me now in this context, what does that mean then, if we build the bridge here again, if we say, logical thinking in logical structures and so on can only be passed on through language, only through communication. How does that possibly change then, when language, for example, increasingly takes on this visual component, all the way to a kind of, so to speak, abbreviation, through, for example, the use of emojis, to put it in extreme terms, where WhatsApp messages are sometimes communicated only through emojis. We can let that sink in a bit, and so I find it nice to build this bridge here too.
Yes Jürgen, if you’d like to connect directly to that, gladly.
Yes, gladly. And also in connection to yesterday’s room, because the term occurred to me too. For me, emojis are a form of expression of language. It’s not a special language, I’d have to check on that afterward, I don’t know, but it’s a form of expression that doesn’t run on the phonetic level, but it’s a form of expression of what I actually want to say. That’s what’s behind it too. And what we called yesterday, as a term, a rule of thumb, or abbreviation, conscious abbreviation, the term for that is heuristic. So we take a simplification, to make life easier for ourselves, to also save the brain energy, such simplifications are used to reduce our communication to a symbol, which is assumed to be correctly understood by everyone, in order, I’ll say again, to make life easier for ourselves, to make communication faster maybe, or — and I believe the essential reason, or an essential sign of that, is indeed also that we don’t have to think as long up there in the brain box, and therefore save energy. But that’s your area, dear Yasemin, maybe I’m wrong there too.
Yes, thank you so, so much. I’d connect directly and say, yes, on one hand that’s confirmation again, ultimately it’s a form of expression. We use this abbreviation to be faster in communication, in exchange, for certain aspects that appear relatively clear to us, in quotation marks, where we can also act via symbols etc., and it no longer requires a lengthy explanation, in quotation marks. Nevertheless, misunderstandings can occur here in communication too, but let’s leave that aside for now. That can also happen through language. And our brain, well, in any case that has something to do with simplification, because our brain wants to expend as little energy as possible, in quotation marks, and likes everything that has to do with routine, with habit and so on. So everything that simplification, so to speak, can draw on to simplify, to be able to act faster without expending too much energy. You basically hit the nail on the head with what you said. And in this context it’s totally helpful for us to draw on symbols or also linguistic aspects that appear so clear to us, that also give us orientation and guardrails within which we move. And of course these can, and do, differ from other cultures and in other languages and so on. But in the societal part we move in, so to speak, it’s very helpful for us and our brain to have such means available that we also gladly draw on at this point.
Sabine, Ria, would you maybe like to connect here too? Or bring in further aspects too? Quite a few things have come up in the meantime.
Ria, gladly. So many things are popping up right now, where I’ve already heard something, where I’ve read something, where I think about things myself too. And in this context I’ve been thinking the whole time, on one hand — and I find this incredibly important — language is not a static situation. Language and communication develop further every day. You can recognize that by how young people talk completely differently, that we sometimes don’t understand them at all, when they talk to each other in their youth slang. I noticed recently, or I myself still have things left over from my youth slang, that stuck. The students today look at me and say, what did you just say? What is that now? What’s that supposed to mean, and what do you want to express with that? On the other hand, if language, if communication is a changing phenomenon, then it always adapts again to new situations and restructures itself again and again. What I’ve noticed in the last two, three years is that language, communication, especially in the media, has become increasingly militant. And I really don’t like that at all, that I now really quite consciously turn off radio stations when the news comes on, because I can’t bear hearing the manner in which things are imposed on our ears that I don’t want to hear in this form, because I know it’s not good for me. On the other hand, that makes me aware of what power I have, and also with what violence, or with what awareness, I have to and may choose my own words, to accompany young people. Because we have an active and a passive vocabulary. The active vocabulary is, I believe, about 5 to 9,000 words. We can handle those well in everyday life. We know what they mean, and we know, or we can also use them well. And then there’s a whole lot of passive vocabulary. We barely use those, or don’t use them, because they don’t fit our tone. But we know exactly what’s meant by them. And if we relate that to the relationship, to the communication between adults and teenagers for example, then teenagers know very well what’s meant when we say, well, could you please do your homework now. And there’s so, so much in that. 75 percent of information is nonverbal. There we’re back at the emojis again. 75 percent of the information here, too, is nonverbal. Sometimes you don’t need anything at all anymore. Just that ping on the phone is enough. Oh, someone wrote to me. Oh, they sent me a little heart. Little heart. Does he love me now, or does he just mean it was a nice piece of information? And those are things you always have to think about, what it actually means. And in the context of the age group, the generation, you notice big differences, and I find that highly interesting and fascinating, and of course that also has something to do with the violence of words in certain age groups. That’s what popped up for me now, without structuring it more precisely. So there are so, so many — well, I’m German, but maybe the left and right hemispheres also react strongly with each other there.
Yes, wonderful. Thank you so, so much. And yes, I find it so nice too, because you said that a lot of different things popped up just now. And that’s also an indicator, so to speak, of how our brain functions. Because we now have different information, and looking at it on the meta level, we have this exchange here, our brain is basically in a kind of search mode and looks in the neural network, where can I connect, and picks up, so to speak, what was already stored before, and now picks it up again to establish connections. And that’s totally exciting, to observe that in yourself too, yes, to reflect a bit on these thinking processes as they happen too. And yes, then I’d like to pick up what you just said, Ria, and take it as an occasion, so to speak, maybe toward the end of the room, to bring in a few concrete examples that spontaneously come to mind for you regarding this sub-headline. And not phrased as a question anymore, to what extent can language be a weapon, but as, if we take it as a statement, that language is a weapon, thought both in the positive and the negative sense, that we maybe pick up a few examples here that spontaneously come to mind for you, from practice, from your own life, to illustrate with one or two examples what’s possible with language. Maybe you have nice examples.
Gladly, Jürgen.
Well, I already said this at the beginning, for me, what stuck as positive — and that’s exactly the missing link I actually wanted to point out again anyway — examples not of the negative connotation of violence, and also in connection with language, but showing the positive side. So, for me, what stuck was, I already said it, this “We are the people.” No, I won’t repeat what it triggered, everyone in this room probably knows what effect that had. And from my youth, a point that stuck with me. That was Martin Luther King with his statement “I had a dream.” That got hooked into my brain box as a mightiness that, and now comes the negative side, also led to violence. This one sentence, “I had a dream,” you have to imagine, moved millions and moved an entire nation regarding their thinking, their attitude, their behavior toward colored population, and follow-up actions and follow-up institutions resulted from it, which we can still trace daily even today, all the way to the MeToo debate and similar things. Those are, for me, the two positions, Yasemin, that have settled with me as the power of language that has a violence to it. Thank you.
Yes, wonderful. Thank you so, so much. And especially this example shows that it sometimes doesn’t necessarily require many words at all, so maybe to sensitize to that too. One sentence that moved so many people here. And there we’re also directly at aspects like metaphors, analogies etc. Storytelling was something we picked up again and again. Marc showed such nice examples, where he showed very concretely, through wording, how the focus also changes in the statement and in what my counterpart hears, when I present one and the same piece of information from different perspectives, so to speak, as storytelling, use storytelling, to open it up from different perspectives, so to speak. And I find that quite, quite exciting too. So the power, or the violence, in language, that doesn’t necessarily result from a lot being spoken, but also with very short, clear sentences, statements. That’s also picked up in marketing for example, with a rule of three or similar, for example. Very short, concise, straight to the point, so to speak, without beating around the bush, making a statement that maybe on one hand leaves room, to also make interpretations possible. That means everyone here also, with their individuality, then generates certain images as a recipient and connects to prior experiences, and at the same time again sets guardrails, in quotation marks. So a kind of middle ground at this point, that creates this balance between too open and too restricted. And I find that totally exciting at this point.
Sabine, Ria, would you like to connect here again? We’ve had various things light up again in this context.
On one hand I had to smile. So I know these terms, these words. But I also know the phrase “I love you all,” where we all knew it was a lie. That was also during the reunification period, when the head of the Ministry for State Security said these words in the People’s Chamber, where I thought, better keep your mouth shut. Then advertising popped up for me, quite a lot. Maybe most people don’t know it, but there was also advertising in the GDR back in the 70s, and I loved it, and I still know it today. “There’s more coming soon. Parkenberg bird feed, that sticks.” Those are things you never forget again. I even still have the images in my head for that. And on the other hand I have another wonderful little story that showed me what power and what violence I can exert with words. It’s about — some of you might even know it already — an eighth-grade girl in math. I had her in the first lesson and asked her how she felt about math, and she said, I can’t do math, I’m too stupid, I can’t think logically. And I said, where did you get that from? My last math teacher said that to me. And I was completely stunned in that moment, that a teacher can say something like that and that it gets past the school administration. And then I continued the math lesson and addressed the girl again, gave a logic problem to the whole group. She knew the problem immediately, the story with the water lilies and the pond that doubles every day and so on. She said, that’s clear, if the pond is half full on the ninth day, it’s full on the tenth day. Well, I said, you know what, you take a piece of paper now and write on it, I can do math, because I can think logically. And you stick this paper behind your mirror, or you bring it back tomorrow, doesn’t matter what you do, but please look at this note every day. And she brought it back the next day. We worked, we practiced, and she wasn’t bad. She had many gaps, but she wasn’t bad, and above all she wanted to work along. And at the end of the lesson I gave the class feedback and said, yes, it was quite good, everything’s fine, everything’s in order. A lot of things are clear. Now I know where we can pick things up. Now we keep working, and then we’ll learn, and you were great too, it was really fun with you, and you’re here to learn, and you can think logically, you’ll manage this — and she had put the paper on the table during the math lesson. And I said, it’s fine, you can do math, and then the girl said to me, Mrs. Neuter, if I look at your class, then I had Hartz-IV-level math class until now. And those words burned into me too. In the first moment I laughed, in the second moment I almost cried, because with words you can break so much. The girl passed her final exams, with courage to have gaps, of course she had to keep math as a subject in the state of Brandenburg, produced a weak grade there, but not a complete failure. With one weak grade you could still pass the final exams. She then studied at some point too, and I was super proud that I gave her a small step in that direction, that she starts moving again and says, math isn’t my thing, but I can do it. And that’s the violence of words that we have.
Yes wonderful, thank you so, so much, and with an eye on time I’d like to move into the closing round for today. In the order Sabine, Ria, Jürgen, what are the highlights you’d like to pick up again from the room and underline, and if you have something else you’d like to connect to first, then briefly connect to that first, so to speak, establish the connection again, and then gladly the closing word for today’s room.
Sabine.
Well, I can now agree with Jürgen. The words are, how did you put it, oh you can say it yourself again in a moment, I agree with you, the only form of violence are the words, I believe that’s how you put it. Your closing sentence I found amazing just now, but that’s exactly what I’m saying. Children should actually be raised differently in school from an early age, more positively, and not, you can’t do math, but you can do math. Exactly, I found that great. Yes, otherwise, a great room as always. Yes, keep it up. Have a nice Saturday, and enjoy your breakfast.
Wonderful, thank you so, so much.
Ria.
It was a wonderful room with so, so many facets. And the phrasing I found myself impressed me again a lot, the force of nature of words. It encouraged me to keep thinking about that, and also to choose my words even more consciously, both toward children and toward other adults. Because we’re just as much out there ourselves, and we wish for positive reinforcement, and we don’t wish for negative violence, not even with words. Thank you.
Fantastic. Thank you so, so much, Jürgen.
It remains for me only to thank you. And dear Sabine, I called it the nonpareil, the weapon, and the nonpareil. Thank you for your contributions. It strengthened me regarding the remarks as such, the comprehensibility and also the manner in which it was presented, strengthened me in a view, if I may take the liberty, in the view that this is the weapon we possess. That’s the nonpareil, because it concretizes our thinking. Thank you, and have a nice weekend, all of you.
Yes, wonderful. Thank you so, so much. And exactly tying into these two aspects, once more the force of nature of words, and words as the weapon, period, so to speak, picked up again. Connected with the example Ria brought in again, with the student who passed her final exams with “courage to have gaps,” I’d like to build this bridge here again too, as closing words from my side for today’s room, to say, yes, if we recognize that this is the case, as we’ve captured today as an insight for ourselves, to underline that from the room too, then we may also act with courage to have gaps at the same time. That means it moves forward step by step. Practice plays a really essential role in this context. That means, if we’re aware of what power that has, in quotation marks, then it makes sense to engage with it, to look at it here, and to also try it out through doing itself. Trying out in interaction, what happens if I use this or that, deploy it and so on, all the way to also in interaction with ourselves, to build the bridge here again regarding our own thoughts too, to also pay attention to how, for example, our mood changes when we internally formulate thoughts with certain language, what we say to ourselves and so on. And here it certainly makes sense again, on the meta level, to go into reflection, to observe, to keep connecting to new insights for ourselves again and again, to make certain changes, initiate them, or maybe to further “perfect” something we’ve discovered as working particularly well. And I think that’s something that can also be incredibly fun. And here too, to approach the matter with curiosity and a drive to discover, and not to have the feeling, oh, the others, and so-and-so can do it so well, and whatnot, but away from comparing, toward just going into your own exploration here, trying it out yourself, and working on this topic for yourself with courage to have gaps.
Yes, and with that I’m really looking forward to tomorrow, another room with you, and the digital campfire awaits us with me. That means we get to look forward again to unfiltered stories at the digital campfire on the overarching theme power and violence, part 1, and I’m really curious, with you, on one hand to bring in a few impulses from my own life and from practice, and then to get into exchange with you, to see where you’d like to connect, what we can then further develop together in the exchange etc. So in that sense you’re very, very warmly invited to join again tomorrow morning at 8 at the digital campfire. In this sense, I wish you a wonderful Saturday, and I’m looking forward to tomorrow. Ciao!
