Here Comes Treble: The Power Of The Pen
...Wikipedia suggests that “With the advent of e-mail and the general decline in letter writing, poison pen letters have become something of a rarity.” Unfortunately, this is not true. Brazen ill-wishers find it easier than ever to send hate-mail, oozing inflammatory and vitriolic comments and curses, to anyone they choose and with the click of an electronic mouse on the ‘send’ button, copy it to hundreds of addresses in their Contacts list.
Unfortunately, some people read such mails, written to friends and family, and immediately believe the content, just because it appears on a computer screen...
Isabel Bradley highlights the damage that malevolent people can do with the aid of modern technology,
“A poison pen letter is a letter or note containing unpleasant, abusive or malicious statements or accusations about the recipient or a third party. It is usually sent anonymously. Poison pen letters are usually composed and sent to upset the recipient.” This extract is from Wikipedia. All other definitions found on Google defined poison-pen letters similarly.
Receipt of a poison pen letter confirms the words, “The pen is mightier than the sword”, which first appeared in the 1839 play by Edward Bulwer-Lytton. A written expression of hatred and anger is initially just as shocking as a physical attack, but can remain embedded in the psyche of the recipient like a poisoned thorn, re-playing itself repeatedly, festering and causing misery and sometimes physical illness.
The damage done by words is well-documented through the ages. Before writing became a skill accessible to the masses, Euripides said, “The tongue is mightier than the blade.” He died in 406 BC. About 2000 years later, around 1600, Shakespeare wrote into his play, Hamlet, “… many wearing rapiers are afraid of goose quills.” By 1621, Robert Burton referred to writing instruments with a more recognizable terminology: “… it is clear how much more cruel the pen may be than the sword.” In 1796, Thomas Jefferson wrote to Thomas Paine, “Go on doing with your pen what in other times was done with the sword.”
The equivalent today, perhaps, would be: ‘a click of a computer-mouse conquers thousands!’ According to the article, “What does the Future Hold?” posted to “Here Comes Treble” recently, people will not even know how to hold a pen in a generation or two, computers are taking over from pens.
Wikipedia suggests that “With the advent of e-mail and the general decline in letter writing, poison pen letters have become something of a rarity.” Unfortunately, this is not true. Brazen ill-wishers find it easier than ever to send hate-mail, oozing inflammatory and vitriolic comments and curses, to anyone they choose and with the click of an electronic mouse on the ‘send’ button, copy it to hundreds of addresses in their Contacts list.
Unfortunately, some people read such mails, written to friends and family, and immediately believe the content, just because it appears on a computer screen. Instead of contacting the victim to discover the truth behind the falsehoods and abusive statements, they sever all communication with them. Thus, the poisoned computer message spreads its evil like a virus, not only reaping anger, fear and upset in the recipient, but compounding it with accusations and lost friendships.
Knowing this, the sender feels a sense of joy at the target’s misfortune, an emotion the German language refers to as “Schadenfreude”.
Such e-mails are often written as a result of ‘malicious envy’. This is an evil emotion which ‘focuses on the removal or destruction of the envied object or quality’ belonging to another person. In the case of a poison-e-mail, this focus would be on the destruction of the recipient’s reputation among his friends and family. Perhaps the victim unwittingly caused the author to feel inferior in one way or another, which aroused the author’s hatred. The attack is inevitably a nasty shock to the recipient, and often to those who receive copies.
After the first revulsion of reading a poison e-mail, the best possible response is none at all, other than completely blocking all communication from the source. There is no point in arguing each point in a reply, of proving the author wrong, or vilifying them in return, that would give them greater satisfaction.
Only if the message contains an actual or implied threat, should one approach the police or the authorities.
Receipt of a poison email inevitably causes distress. The first and biggest step in recovering one’s emotional equilibrium after such an attack is the realization that neither the author of such a mail, nor those who believed its content, was ever the true friend they were believed to be.
Until next time… ‘here comes Treble!’
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By Isabel Bradley
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poison_pen_letter
http://www.trivia-library.com/b/origins-of-sayings-the-pen-is-mightier-than-the-sword.htm
http://www.openwriting.com/archives/2010/09/what_does_the_f.php#more
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-poison-pen-letters.htm
The Psychology of Jealousy & Envy by Peter Salovey.
