8 ms·

Violence is unacceptable. Period. It is sad that there are cultures where that's different.

mschuster91 6y ago
So is the violence of the police and of other government agencies (think sheriffs enforcing eviction orders) acceptable? When is legitimate use of force crossing the line to abuse? When are people allowed to defend themselves? It's funny to see how in many Western governments the (legitimate!) protest of the people in Hongkong is cheered upon, but BLM, Yellow Vests other domestic protests are discarded... Saying "violence is unacceptable" is something one can only say as a member of the privileged majority. For minorities, for marginalized people, for poor people though... the lines are way more blurry than blanket black-and-white statements. And for the record: I'm not a friend of pointless militant acts but I will not dare to judge over anyone not as privileged as I am to come to a different opinion.
- Waterfall 6y ago
  Why did you make up that BLM, yellow vests and whatever random domestic protest you made up isn't supported and only HK is?
- wildmanx 6y ago
  Alright, you are now arguing that in response to violence, counter violence may be acceptable and therefore my post must be coming from a position of privilege. My statement was about the original act of violence. It would benefit everybody to focus on that one, instead of immediately screaming "but I have to be allowed to punch back!!!1" P.S.: You have no idea about my gender, skin color, sexual orientation or social class. Please don't just assume things.
smcl 6y ago
On some level I agree ... but I can't in all honesty get behind this statement 100%. For example I enjoyed seeing the videos of Richard Spencer (the "dapper" white nationalist) and Billy Steele (guy shouting on the tube about how black people are "less than him") getting punched in the face. Don't know if this makes me an asshole or a human.
- narag 6y ago
  On some level I agree ... but I can't in all honesty get behind this statement 100%. I assume the GP was just abbreviating a more complex phrase that it's easy to guess, isn't it?
- chrisbennet 6y ago
  "Sometimes karma carries a lead pipe"
learnstats2 6y ago
Violence is regulated (in essentially all of the world) - that's very different from unacceptable. The state, perhaps through the police or military, can exercise violence often without consequence. You can legally be violent in self-defence, to varying extents.
- contingencies 6y ago
  The state defined by its monopoly on violence. Period.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    No, the state has a monopoly on initiating violence. All citizens have the right to violence if it’s in self defense. Some states will even let you carry firearms around in case you need to apply violence in self defense.
    - contingencies 6y ago
      That's nitpicking. It is clear that failed states are those with nontrivial scale violence perpetually initiated by non-state actors. The strength of the state equates to its capacity to limit the scale of others' violence. US gun laws, globally speaking, are a statistical anomaly, and if you started using guns against others with any scale or frequency the government would surely intervene. None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. - Goethe
      - ashtonkem 6y ago
        It’s not nitpicking. Almost all states recognize the legitimate use of violence for self defense, even if the specific methods permitted vary on a state by state basis. Thus if your definition of a failed state is one in which the government doesn’t have sole right to violence, then you end up with the rather absurd position that all states are failed.
        6y ago
autisticcurio 6y ago
Violence is efficient though, otherwise why was Saddam Hussein deposed? If Country's cant settle their differences with politics, what else do you have left? At least our leaders show us what is acceptable behaviours in their books but it also demonstrates their hypocrisy when ordinary members of the public meter out their own violence, although I do acknowledge some violence is just plain mindless eg drug and alcohol fuelled.
- ulucs 6y ago
  Looking at Iraq now, does anyone think that was the right choice?
  - shadowprofile77 6y ago
    Difficult to say. The Iraq War and the occupation disaster afterwards were both inept catastrophes in so many ways for both the Iraqis and for the U.S population that had to piss away those trillions of dollars. But on the other hand, even the somewhat unstable modern Iraq is better off than it was under the rule of an extraordinarily violent, extremely brutal regime like Saddam's. He wasn't just some soft-touch authoritarian in the style of Turkey's president, for example. Hussein was more like a miniature Stalin (one of his personal heroes) in his sheer ruthlessness towards his own people. Just a couple examples: what his government did to the marsh Arabs of the Euphrates and the Halabja chemical attack along with other atrocities against the kurds in the north of the country. None of this is in any way a defense of the monstrous collateral damage of the U.S occupation or of the U.S government's reasons for that war, but now that it's happened, the country is better off than it was under Saddam himself.
- munificent 6y ago
  > otherwise why was Saddam Hussein deposed? To transfer several trillion dollars of US wealth into the military and oil industries?
iovrthoughtthis 6y ago
This is naive. Violence is the last resort. If the stakes are high enough and you’ve tried everything else, violence is the only remaining option. Sometimes actions don't need to be acceptable, they just need to be impactful.
- erikig 6y ago
  Violence and War is “the continuation of politics by other means.” - Carl von Clausewitz
  - narag 6y ago
    Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. - Asimov
    - spiritplumber 6y ago
      But one cannot be competent all the time. Sometimes it's better to punch someone in the nose Monday to avoid a shootout on Friday.
- BurningFrog 6y ago
  This is shorter expressed as "The ends justify the means".
  - CarbyAu 6y ago
    Not always, but sometimes they do. When it comes to clear cut cases of survival, do whatever you have to do. The problem is when the scenarios are not nearly so clear cut - even if they may seem to be to the people in the scenario at the time.
- wildmanx 6y ago
  My post was a response to "even the slightest acceptance of violence usage against capitalists". So please take your straw man somewhere else.
op03 6y ago
Asterix and Obelix got it just right though.
- CarbyAu 6y ago
  Ah, Obelix! The original One Punch Man.
wonderlg 6y ago
I love Bill Burr’s take on this. I can’t find the clip, but the resolution was that after receiving a punch, maybe you’ll reconsider “ehh maybe i was being a bit of a dick back there.” I never punched anyone, but people who ruin your life as described by the commenter deserve it, maybe they’ll become better people.
- dane-pgp 6y ago
  > after receiving a punch ... maybe they’ll become better people. That seems like the logic of a supervillain or sociopath. "When they did something bad, it's because they're a bad person that I'm allowed to hurt, but when I'm violent it's because I'm making the world a better place." There may be times when that works, or it's the least bad option, but my instinct tells me that the sort of person that most deserves a punch is also the sort of person who is most likely to respond to that violence by doubling down and hurting more people (their victims often being those who can't defend themselves).
  - wonderlg 6y ago
    Generally I’d say that this could work on people that don't expect violence, like the racists who go around the city harassing immigrants. Why are they making other people’s lives miserable? It’s not fair and the law doesn’t protect you. This won’t change their opinion, but it might very well stop them from acting out again. IMHO. I have no psychology background.
  - stordoff 6y ago
    I punched a bully in the stomach at school (after many months of the school doing nothing to address it), and after that he completely left me alone. It was a small school, so I'm fairly sure he didn't move on to anyone else either. A few years later, we even became friends, our younger siblings (5 years younger in each case) become friends (without knowing about the incident in question), and since starting his own company has done paid work for our family (which we wouldn't have allowed had there still be any animosity). I've no doubt violence begets violence in most cases, but it can also improve the situation for both sides in others.
Gibbon1 6y ago
> Violence is unacceptable. Period. The powers that be use the state to inflect violence on people that don't have rights and power and no one thinks that's illegitimate.

So is the violence of the police and of other government agencies (think sheriffs enforcing eviction orders) acceptable? When is legitimate use of force crossing the line to abuse? When are people allowed to defend themselves? It's funny to see how in many Western governments the (legitimate!) protest of the people in Hongkong is cheered upon, but BLM, Yellow Vests other domestic protests are discarded... Saying "violence is unacceptable" is something one can only say as a member of the privileged majority. For minorities, for marginalized people, for poor people though... the lines are way more blurry than blanket black-and-white statements. And for the record: I'm not a friend of pointless militant acts but I will not dare to judge over anyone not as privileged as I am to come to a different opinion.

Waterfall 6y ago
Why did you make up that BLM, yellow vests and whatever random domestic protest you made up isn't supported and only HK is?
wildmanx 6y ago
Alright, you are now arguing that in response to violence, counter violence may be acceptable and therefore my post must be coming from a position of privilege. My statement was about the original act of violence. It would benefit everybody to focus on that one, instead of immediately screaming "but I have to be allowed to punch back!!!1" P.S.: You have no idea about my gender, skin color, sexual orientation or social class. Please don't just assume things.

smcl 6y ago

On some level I agree ... but I can't in all honesty get behind this statement 100%. For example I enjoyed seeing the videos of Richard Spencer (the "dapper" white nationalist) and Billy Steele (guy shouting on the tube about how black people are "less than him") getting punched in the face. Don't know if this makes me an asshole or a human.

narag 6y ago
On some level I agree ... but I can't in all honesty get behind this statement 100%. I assume the GP was just abbreviating a more complex phrase that it's easy to guess, isn't it?
chrisbennet 6y ago
"Sometimes karma carries a lead pipe"

learnstats2 6y ago

Violence is regulated (in essentially all of the world) - that's very different from unacceptable. The state, perhaps through the police or military, can exercise violence often without consequence. You can legally be violent in self-defence, to varying extents.

contingencies 6y ago
The state defined by its monopoly on violence. Period.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  No, the state has a monopoly on initiating violence. All citizens have the right to violence if it’s in self defense. Some states will even let you carry firearms around in case you need to apply violence in self defense.
  - contingencies 6y ago
    That's nitpicking. It is clear that failed states are those with nontrivial scale violence perpetually initiated by non-state actors. The strength of the state equates to its capacity to limit the scale of others' violence. US gun laws, globally speaking, are a statistical anomaly, and if you started using guns against others with any scale or frequency the government would surely intervene. None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. - Goethe
    - ashtonkem 6y ago
      It’s not nitpicking. Almost all states recognize the legitimate use of violence for self defense, even if the specific methods permitted vary on a state by state basis. Thus if your definition of a failed state is one in which the government doesn’t have sole right to violence, then you end up with the rather absurd position that all states are failed.
      - 6y ago

autisticcurio 6y ago

Violence is efficient though, otherwise why was Saddam Hussein deposed? If Country's cant settle their differences with politics, what else do you have left? At least our leaders show us what is acceptable behaviours in their books but it also demonstrates their hypocrisy when ordinary members of the public meter out their own violence, although I do acknowledge some violence is just plain mindless eg drug and alcohol fuelled.

ulucs 6y ago
Looking at Iraq now, does anyone think that was the right choice?
- shadowprofile77 6y ago
  Difficult to say. The Iraq War and the occupation disaster afterwards were both inept catastrophes in so many ways for both the Iraqis and for the U.S population that had to piss away those trillions of dollars. But on the other hand, even the somewhat unstable modern Iraq is better off than it was under the rule of an extraordinarily violent, extremely brutal regime like Saddam's. He wasn't just some soft-touch authoritarian in the style of Turkey's president, for example. Hussein was more like a miniature Stalin (one of his personal heroes) in his sheer ruthlessness towards his own people. Just a couple examples: what his government did to the marsh Arabs of the Euphrates and the Halabja chemical attack along with other atrocities against the kurds in the north of the country. None of this is in any way a defense of the monstrous collateral damage of the U.S occupation or of the U.S government's reasons for that war, but now that it's happened, the country is better off than it was under Saddam himself.
munificent 6y ago
> otherwise why was Saddam Hussein deposed? To transfer several trillion dollars of US wealth into the military and oil industries?

iovrthoughtthis 6y ago

This is naive. Violence is the last resort. If the stakes are high enough and you’ve tried everything else, violence is the only remaining option. Sometimes actions don't need to be acceptable, they just need to be impactful.

erikig 6y ago
Violence and War is “the continuation of politics by other means.” - Carl von Clausewitz
- narag 6y ago
  Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. - Asimov
  - spiritplumber 6y ago
    But one cannot be competent all the time. Sometimes it's better to punch someone in the nose Monday to avoid a shootout on Friday.
BurningFrog 6y ago
This is shorter expressed as "The ends justify the means".
- CarbyAu 6y ago
  Not always, but sometimes they do. When it comes to clear cut cases of survival, do whatever you have to do. The problem is when the scenarios are not nearly so clear cut - even if they may seem to be to the people in the scenario at the time.
wildmanx 6y ago
My post was a response to "even the slightest acceptance of violence usage against capitalists". So please take your straw man somewhere else.

op03 6y ago

Asterix and Obelix got it just right though.

CarbyAu 6y ago
Ah, Obelix! The original One Punch Man.

wonderlg 6y ago

I love Bill Burr’s take on this. I can’t find the clip, but the resolution was that after receiving a punch, maybe you’ll reconsider “ehh maybe i was being a bit of a dick back there.” I never punched anyone, but people who ruin your life as described by the commenter deserve it, maybe they’ll become better people.

dane-pgp 6y ago
> after receiving a punch ... maybe they’ll become better people. That seems like the logic of a supervillain or sociopath. "When they did something bad, it's because they're a bad person that I'm allowed to hurt, but when I'm violent it's because I'm making the world a better place." There may be times when that works, or it's the least bad option, but my instinct tells me that the sort of person that most deserves a punch is also the sort of person who is most likely to respond to that violence by doubling down and hurting more people (their victims often being those who can't defend themselves).
- wonderlg 6y ago
  Generally I’d say that this could work on people that don't expect violence, like the racists who go around the city harassing immigrants. Why are they making other people’s lives miserable? It’s not fair and the law doesn’t protect you. This won’t change their opinion, but it might very well stop them from acting out again. IMHO. I have no psychology background.
- stordoff 6y ago
  I punched a bully in the stomach at school (after many months of the school doing nothing to address it), and after that he completely left me alone. It was a small school, so I'm fairly sure he didn't move on to anyone else either. A few years later, we even became friends, our younger siblings (5 years younger in each case) become friends (without knowing about the incident in question), and since starting his own company has done paid work for our family (which we wouldn't have allowed had there still be any animosity). I've no doubt violence begets violence in most cases, but it can also improve the situation for both sides in others.

Gibbon1 6y ago

> Violence is unacceptable. Period. The powers that be use the state to inflect violence on people that don't have rights and power and no one thinks that's illegitimate.