The sword doesn’t kneel before the pen. They both instead engage in a power struggle.

There’s an old saying I’ve been mulling over given the current state of affairs:

“The pen is mightier than the sword.” It suggests that the written word is more effective than the use of force or violence in achieving social or political change.

 But is it?

 Sure, the written word wields power, but it comes with its limitations. As much as I’d love it if wagging my pen at someone meant that they’d know to proceed with caution or else, it isn’t always so...unless, of course, they fear I might stab them with it.

 A strongly worded letter doesn’t have the same domineering, fear-inducing and life-threatening effect as a sword does. And that’s the point. To think that we can simply rely on words to implement change and right wrongs, is ignoring the fact that we live among predators and prey alike. While it’s not reasonable to reduce modern humans to their animalistic instincts, it does feel like we live in a dog-eat-dog world, where daily news depicts a rather dystopian reality. Like when violence is initiated with calculated intentions to control, humiliate, terrorize, tyrannize, or annihilate…is this to be considered an instinctive tendency to act as to preserve one’s own existence? And what defines whether a response to such violence is justified self-defense or retaliation? Are verbal, emotional, psychological, and financial abuse just as violent as physical abuse?  What about abuse of power, arguably the common denominator in all forms of violence? And what of words penned with prejudice and deceit? Do they not wound just because they don’t make one bleed? Short questions with long answers.

 Some say that the tendency to be violent is a neural and cognitive dysfunction.

Others attribute such behavior to traumatic early childhood development.

Some believe people are a naturally peaceful species corrupted by society.

Others see people as a naturally violent species civilized by society.

A few feel that violence is an evolutionary, psychological, and societal constituent.

What a tragically flawed life we live. And how unfortunate that we cannot stab violence to death without ourselves being violent.

Amidst the chaos, however, it’s clear beyond a shadow of a doubt, that violence is regressive, and words are progressive.  And if language is the barometer by which we measure our evolution as a society, then our pathological use of violence is a testament to our sociocultural stagnation. To consider ourselves civilized when we still choose to spill blood over ink in view of socio-political change is nothing but a fallacy.

What good is a written law if we fail to uphold it.

What good is an unwritten rule of life if we ignore it.

What good is an agreement if we break it.

What good is our word if we cannot keep it.

What good is our sword if we are enslaved to it.

In the end, it’s not that the pen is mightier than the sword, or the sword mightier than the pen, but that one’s will…is mightier than both.