It's true that this distinction is often lost now, where we recognise that words can hurt.
As someone who was rarely touched in a good or bad way in my home, yet ended up thoroughly traumatised and damaged by childhood trauma, I'm the first one to point out how insidious non-violent abuse can be, difficult to prove, and often impossible to escape.
But yes, it would still be useful and helpful to draw distinctions between hands-on, physical violence against persons, and other types. In fact it is commonplace to label vandalism and property damage as violence; sure you may take a sledgehammer and violently attack a statue in the town square, and that's plenty symbolic, but it's not assault and battery.
As someone who was rarely touched in a good or bad way in my home, yet ended up thoroughly traumatised and damaged by childhood trauma, I'm the first one to point out how insidious non-violent abuse can be, difficult to prove, and often impossible to escape.
But yes, it would still be useful and helpful to draw distinctions between hands-on, physical violence against persons, and other types. In fact it is commonplace to label vandalism and property damage as violence; sure you may take a sledgehammer and violently attack a statue in the town square, and that's plenty symbolic, but it's not assault and battery.