 One way to conceive of violence is as the use of physical force causing or likely to cause injury (Rawls 1999, 321). However, non-violent acts or even legal acts may indirectly yet foreseeably cause more harm to others than do direct acts of physical force. A legal strike by ambulance workers or a roadblock on an important highway may well have more severe consequences than minor acts of vandalism (Raz 1979, 267). Psychological violence can also cause injury to others. Philosophers typically reject the childhood chant that “sticks and bones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me,” recognizing that harm and injury do not come solely from the use of physical force. For one thing, words can incite physical violence. Words can also hurt even without the threat of physical injury, such as verbal insult and harassment, which can undermine the recipient’s sense of equal standing, self-worth, and safety. The implication for civil disobedience is that the requirement of non-violence prohibits the use of tactics likely to inflict psychological violence on one’s opponents. Aggressive confrontations designed to denigrate and humiliate (distinct from attempts to elicit shame through displays of unearned suffering and appeals to conscience) are incompatible with the civility and non-violence of civil disobedience.