Under Construction - MHWA Retreat

How powerful are words? Are people responsible if their words are used for insidious purposes?
Words can be pretty powerful, I'd reckon. Some people carefully word their sentences to be vague so others get to determine the meaning themselves, and others word their sentences very specifically so that it won't be misconstrued. As for the second, I would say yes, because it incites others to act on your words. Even if you're not outright telling them to act, it encourages it. For example, person A says "Asians are bad. They're slowly taking over the world." That second sentence could be interpreted in two main ways- they're eventually going to dominate (by power) the world, or they're eventually going to dominate (by population) the world. Regardless, once Person B, C, or D hear that, they're going to actively avoid Asian people, aren't they? Asians are scary. They're going to use their power or population to take over the world.

How would you define "good" communication? When people communicate with you, what communication style do you prefer?
"Good" communication is clear, and preferably concise. It effectively gets a chosen message across from point A to point B, and if it's "good," the meaning of the message should be roughly the same both at its conveyance and its receipt.
When people communicate with me, I definitely prefer it written down- that way I can read it through a couple times to fully understand what's going on, and if I don't understand it, the words are still there for me to analyze even after they've been conveyed. Also, written communication provides proof, especially if it's digital- screenshots are great when people begin to abuse their power of free speech, because you can capture the proof in the moment, and if the other person regrets what they said and decides to delete their messages, you've got the proof in the screenshot.

Can you think of any specific situations where you used words to fix a problem? What about a situation where your words caused more harm than good?
I feel like words are the main method of communication, regardless of situations. I had a problem this week where I couldn't figure out how to reply these questions- yet, once I string together words to form sentences, I've got an answer for these questions.
As for the second question, they weren't my words, necessarily, but I had someone once make some very insensitive remarks to me about my heritage/culture/race in a public forum, and the more I probed, the worse it got. I ended up not using my words and walking out on the conversation, because at that point, I think the actions spoke more than any words I would've been able to string together to combat the ignorance.


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