I really don’t think it’s that simple. The violence we’re talking about might be most easily defined as a particularly extreme form of coercion, one which cause

I really don’t think it’s that simple. The violence we’re talking about might be most easily defined as a particularly extreme form of coercion, one which causes deep trauma and/or physical harm. Doesn’t this capture the nature of a lot of violence? Isn’t it also evident that this wouldn’t always require physical contact by the aggressor, or even a single, tangible aggressor at all? I’d argue, for example, that whether or not hitler personally pulled the trigger on holocaust victims, he absolutely did violence against them. The level of indirection doesn’t preclude this.