there’s nothing “relatively less cruel” about being beat up or shoved around than with being given the silent treatment.
My best friend was once given the silent treatment in a context and manner so stressful that she could not eat solid food for several days and I had to make her smoothies. A physical beating with the same effect would have had to be really seriously injurious.
A friend of mine was once given a physical beating in a context and manner so stressful that it fractured his skull. The silent treatment with the same effect would have had to be extraordinary.
It’s not clear to me what follows from either of those comparisons, beyond the relatively obvious observation that different forms of harm have different types of symptoms.
It also depends on the context where the physical beating happens, not just the intensity.
For example imagine being beaten in front of your best friends, who are too afraid to intervene (maybe they realistically didn’t have a chance, but you feel that they should have done something) -- that would hurt beyond the pain of beating itself. For a guy, being beaten in front of the girl he has crush on, probably means losing status and reproductive chances. Also the context determines the probability that the same thing will happen again: being beaten in the school where you must go every day, is worse than being beaten in a dark street you can avoid next time.
A physical beating comes with psychological effects, too, though. It wouldn’t have to completely physically incapacitate someone to the point of not being able to eat; it would only have to have a sum of (physical + psychological) effect totaling to that level of bad.
My best friend was once given the silent treatment in a context and manner so stressful that she could not eat solid food for several days and I had to make her smoothies. A physical beating with the same effect would have had to be really seriously injurious.
Probably.
A friend of mine was once given a physical beating in a context and manner so stressful that it fractured his skull. The silent treatment with the same effect would have had to be extraordinary.
It’s not clear to me what follows from either of those comparisons, beyond the relatively obvious observation that different forms of harm have different types of symptoms.
It also depends on the context where the physical beating happens, not just the intensity.
For example imagine being beaten in front of your best friends, who are too afraid to intervene (maybe they realistically didn’t have a chance, but you feel that they should have done something) -- that would hurt beyond the pain of beating itself. For a guy, being beaten in front of the girl he has crush on, probably means losing status and reproductive chances. Also the context determines the probability that the same thing will happen again: being beaten in the school where you must go every day, is worse than being beaten in a dark street you can avoid next time.
A physical beating comes with psychological effects, too, though. It wouldn’t have to completely physically incapacitate someone to the point of not being able to eat; it would only have to have a sum of (physical + psychological) effect totaling to that level of bad.