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Is literal physical force really the only kind of violence you can understand? Suppose you fly to Alaska to see the northern lights, in early winter. You make
by abeppu 3y ago
Is literal physical force really the only kind of violence you can understand?
Suppose you fly to Alaska to see the northern lights, in early winter. You make it to some remote town with low light pollution, and you have a reservation for your hotel -- but when you try to check in they turn you away. "We don't accept your kind here", someone sneers. You try the 8 other hotels in town and are denied service at all of them. The small airport you came into is closed. The night is cold, you become hypothermic, you fall asleep. You make it through the night but in the morning, the tiny airline that brought you in refuses to fly back out, but laugh at you and call you a slur. You're trapped in this remote frozen town. The restaurants won't serve you. The grocery store won't sell you anything. You're hungry and tired and cold and yo don't make it through the second night. A couple days later your body is briefly inspected by a medical examiner. "There's no indication of a physical trauma." Does the fact that no physical force was directed at your body really mean that no violence occurred?
During the Great Famine of 1876-78 in India, the British exported hundreds of thousands of tons of grain, and had dedicated a large amount of land to other cash crops (like tea). The British ran "relief" camps, where people were made to do hard agricultural labor to "earn" a meager amount of food assistance which was literally fewer calories than they would have burned doing that labor. When those people died, in substantial numbers, just because no blade or gun or blow was directed at their bodies, is it appropriate to say there was no violence? If the grain being exported was protected by claims of legal ownership, and thus also by a credible threat of hostile use of deadly force, if the land dedicated to tea production was similarly claimed, then is not the whole state apparatus of violence in protection of property effectively a weapon?
- alphanullmeric 3y agoIt’s not violence. You can use another word for it but someone denying you their service is not using any force on you. Yes, property is an arbitrary thing defended by violence, but we both believe in property. I’m just more consistent.
- abeppu 3y agoSuppose for the purposes of dialogue, I invent the word "fiolence" for coercive, non-consensual exercise of power against another, _other_ than the application of painful or destructive physical force towards a body. You can believe fiolence is not a subset of violence, and I can believe they are different manifestations of the same ability to oppress. Some examples of pure fiolence would include: blackmail, false allegations, many forms of theft and fraud. But in many cases, fiolence is either combined with force or the threat of physical violence to create new harms. Suppose prisoners A and B are both subject to the forces of physical confinement but B is held in prolonged solitary confinement, which the OHCHR recognizes as torture. Or, as at Guantanamo, B is kept in cell with painfully bright lights and loud music to create sleep deprivation. Or B is held close to growling dogs on a very short leash, but no explicit threat is made that the dog will be allowed to bite them. Or B is given insufficient food, or denied access to medical care. All of these are harms _beyond_ the application of force to physically confine, which A also experiences. Yes, absolutely, physical force or the threat of physical force can be justified and necessary to stop fiolence. And if you believe that the state should have any capacity to use arrest someone for wire fraud or smuggling or tax evasion, or that an armed sheriff's deputy can enforce an eviction order, or that a group of protesters can be arrested if they disruptively block a freeway or trespass onto an airport runway -- all of those are cases where force or the credible threat of force are used in response to something other than force. We live in a society of laws which limit much more than just the application of physical force to each other's bodies -- because actual freedom and justice require more than just not getting physically beaten.
- alphanullmeric 3y agoNo. Coercion implies force, I’m not using any force on you by deciding not to service you. Stop trying to change definitions. Blackmail where someone’s physical property is stolen and held ransom is force. False allegations to the police to induce an arrest is a threat of force. Theft of physical property or staying on someone else’s property is literal physical force. What force am I using on you or your things when I decide not to host you on my website? To address the prisoners, lights and sound are arguably force, the extent at which it’s acceptable is up for debate. Not giving you food or healthcare is not force. However, being forced to be exposed to lights and sound, and being stopped from getting food and healthcare yourself is absolutely force. And you don’t get to combine actual physical threats with things that are not force to pretend like they are force.