If most verbal abusers don really mean any harm, aren so-called verbal victims just neurotics who make mountains out of molehills?”
No. The abusers’ intentions are irrelevant. When chemical companies dump toxic waste into a water system, their goal isn’t to poison people; they do it because it’s convenient and cheap. We do our best to make them stop it all the same, and the poisoning is just as dangerous as if it were deliberate. The same thing is true for verbal abusers; whatever their motives, they have no right to harm others with their language. The pain they cause is real, and its effects are dangerous and nontrivial.
