What Does it Take to Justify Violence?

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What would it take to bring you to violence? How does your tolerance compare in your opinion to others?

Since I've used the word "justify," I'm additionally interested in a moral/ethical element here. What would make one act of violence justified, and another not? how do you come to you conclusion on this?

For the purpose of this conversation, let's define violence as any physical confrontation (excluding things like sports). I'll make no note on the degree of injury or if the product is death because this may factor into people's moral/ethical views. I'm equally interested in if these things factor into justifications.

What would it take for you to get into a fight?
What would it take for you to kill?

When is fighting justified?
When is killing justified?

Acts of violence
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Type: Discussion • Score: 17 • Views: 14,016 • Replies: 125

[+3] - OmSigDAVID - 10/02/2010[quote="hawkeye10"]I find that violence is an act of the heart, not of the head, thus the intellect can only guess at the answers to your questions.[/quote]Our nuclear attacks on the...

@failures art,

I find that violence is an act of the heart, not of the head, thus the intellect can only guess at the answers to your questions.

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@failures art,

Survival.

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@failures art,

R u sure that u asked enuf questions to begin one thread ?????

David

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@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

I find that violence is an act of the heart, not of the head,
thus the intellect can only guess at the answers to your questions.

Our nuclear attacks on the Japs were:
"of the heart, not of the head" or were thay non-violent ?

David

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@failures art,

Quote:

What would it take to bring you to violence? How does your tolerance compare in your opinion to others?

The only time I've ever come close to violence against anyone else is when I felt that I needed to protect myself or someone else. I don't necessarily call that violence myself, although I guess it does fit your definition: 'any physical confrontation'.

I've never started a physical fight. I've never been in a physical fight at all, so I would say my tolerance is fairly high.
I don't feel the need to strike out or even back at people very often. Even as a child - I never really hit my brothers or sisters or even hit them back - I guess because the only siblings in my family who ever hit me were older and bigger than I was. But I didn't then turn around and hit those who were younger and smaller than me.

Quote:

What would it take for you to get into a fight?

I don't know - I can only speculate as I said, that it would have to be some situation where I needed to physically stop someone from hurting me or someone else.

Quote:

What would it take for you to kill?

I wouldn't purposefully try to kill anyone. Even if I was trying to stop them doing something to me or someone else, I think I would consciously try to stop them without mortally wounding them.

Quote:

When is fighting justified?
When is killing justified?

I don't know. These questions just seem too big and diffuse to be condensed into an answer that doesn't take into account many, many situational variables.

I think I have a very low tolerance for watching violence though. I can't watch it - even in a movie. I have to cover my eyes. I don't enjoy watching people get hurt.

1 Reply

@failures art,

failures art wrote:

What would it take to bring you to violence? How does your tolerance compare in your opinion to others?

Since I've used the word "justify," I'm additionally interested in a moral/ethical element here. What would make one act of violence justified, and another not? how do you come to you conclusion on this?

For the purpose of this conversation, let's define violence as any physical confrontation (excluding things like sports). I'll make no note on the degree of injury or if the product is death because this may factor into people's moral/ethical views. I'm equally interested in if these things factor into justifications.

What would it take for you to get into a fight?
What would it take for you to kill?

When is fighting justified?
When is killing justified?

Acts of violence
R
T

All injustice which includes all violence is justified, but what is just and peaceful justifies itself... It takes reason to justify violence... Emotion never justifies violence or its result...All humanity recoils from pain and injury, and it is that feeling that leads to the justification of that which is unjustified...

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@failures art,

failures art wrote:

What would it take for you to get into a fight?

don't know, i've only ever ben in one fight in my life, when i was about 20, i've always been able to talk my way out a situation until this one, the fight was pretty one sided, i took a punch to the head (god bless a hard head) asked the guy if he felt better, and i guess he decided that since i wasn't going to rise to the situation he and his buddies just drifted off

What would it take for you to kill?

possibly a life and death situation, i don't really have a huge problem with dying, but maybe to save someone else

When is fighting justified?

physical fighting? never, it's a useless endeavour, the realm of the knuck dragger in my opinion

When is killing justified?

same answer as what would it take to kill i guess

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@aidan,

aidan wrote:

These questions just seem too big and diffuse to be condensed into an answer that doesn't take into account many, many situational variables.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply aidan. If you would feel up to it, I believe these situational variables are what I'm looking to learn about others. They are the apples in the intellectual orchard so to speak.

As for killing, one setting that I didn't specifically outline but seems relevant is in a military/war type of situation. I don't think that all killing is confined to crime (not that you implied this).

A
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For those that answered that the only reason they would use violence is if pulled into a fight, once using violence, how do you know when to stop?

If you enter a fight to help someone who is being attacked, at what point (if at any in your opinion) do you go too far? If you see a person attacking someone in an alley, and you intervene with violence, is it the same whether you hit them once with your fist, break their arm, etc?

Where is the line?

A
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@failures art,

I'm reading this article about the Dalai Lama in the New Yorker right now, this quote (at the very end of all of this) made an impression on me:

To set it up, the Dalai Lama is absolutely against violence, even hunger strikes and nonviolent marches, in the belief that they lead to confrontation. So the violence from March 2008 (Tibetan monks in Lhasa marched to demand the release of Tibetans celebrating the Dalai Lama's Congressional Gold Medal; dozens were arrested; a demonstration to protest those arrests became violent, resulting in the worst riots since the 80's; almost 20 people died [both sides + Chinese civilians]; hundreds of Tibetans were arrested. The Dalai Lama called for calm and vowed to resign his political duties if the violence did not end.

Evan Osnos wrote:

The violence left him [the Dalai Lama] shaken; in a remark that startled his supporters worldwide, he said, in October of that year, "As far as I'm concerned, I've given up."

His aides later softened the comment, but the Dalai Lama's patience was fraying, as was that of many of his followers. They revere him as a religious authority, but many exiles have concluded that his political strategy is hopeless. "It's time for His Holiness to recognize the reality that China has no need to talk to us. They are playing for time," Lhasang Tsering, an outspoken Tibetan exile who fought as a guerrilla against China in the early seventies, told me. "Soon, Tibet will be filled with Chinese. We will be wiped out." To invoke patience and virtue in the face of "genocidal and colonial rule," Tsering says, is akin to "national suicide, and that, to me, is the ultimate violence."

(Not online, typed it from my copy of the New Yorker.) (I know that as a subscriber I have access but I tried at some point and there were complications and I haven't tried again yet.)

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@failures art,

I can never actually justify violence. There is no justification it of.

Back in the stone age when I was a Junior in high school, a teacher placed before us, as to killing and gun use. I was adamantly against. Ken asked (or was it his twin Bill?, no matter they were twerps), he asked if a gun was aimed at my mother would I shoot, I replied that I would not. He stared in disbelief (he did that all the time anyway), I explained it wasn't my place at for to intentionally end the life of another. Same stays true even now, as to my having that right. I am however at a time where I am aware that I can and will and even do react in ways I am against.

When pushed too far in a medical stay, I threatened a fellow patient. (Sorry, they called us "residents" (like that made the stay better?)). It wasn't justified, I knew better and guilt stays with me, even as his family said it needed to be did.

Fighting back, justifiable merely to a time making an escape but not with intended harm, push and shove and that is all. Killing, never justifiable. Even with that, there ate are a few that I'd want to destroy if they hurt threatened a person I care about, whether it might happen is a mystery. As of this writing, it is anger which brings me towards violence.

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@Sturgis,

I'm always interested when people claim that they are willing to become more violent in defense of another, than in defense of themselves. I believe this is a popular virtue to state, but I'm not so convinced that people actually believe this as much as they believe the idea of it.

A
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@failures art,

My headiing to behaving in a violent manner partially was because of frustration. I have seen cared for people threatened and hurt, I have never actually stepped in and added to the fray. Standing aside, I have had an unbearable sadness wrap my being, at best, I will summon help from the and the police. It's frustrating and anger which bring my violence forth.

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@Sturgis,

Do you really believe that violence is never justified? I think if we were to explore some theoretical situations, you'd find ones where you would use it. Is your belief that even when you must use it (Read: believe that you must), that it is still not justified?

Additionally, what about from a societal/cultural level? What types of things are consider justified, versus those that aren't? Where do you believe society draws that line, and why?

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@failures art,

be careful with the big brush...

I think violence is a lot like sex. each person has their own triggers and levels of participation.

I am much more likely to defend someone else against violent behavior, simply because someone else is more likely to be victimized than I am at this point in life.

If an aggressor has already resorted to violence, I have no qualms in using it back on them. with an inboard restraint, of course. I have no desire to kill or maim anyone.

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@Rockhead,

Rockhead wrote:

be careful with the big brush...

I'm trying my best here to avoid that. What statement was too broad?

Rockhead wrote:

I think violence is a lot like sex. each person has their own triggers and levels of participation.

Certainly tangential, but you'd not be the first to draw a comparison between sex and violence. Or rather, the methods employed in both...

Rockhead wrote:

I am much more likely to defend someone else against violent behavior, simply because someone else is more likely to be victimized than I am at this point in life.

Fair enough. If you were attacked then you feel you'd have a less violent response than seeing someone else being attacked?

Rockhead wrote:

If an aggressor has already resorted to violence, I have no qualms in using it back on them. with an inboard restraint, of course. I have no desire to kill or maim anyone.

I'm very interested in where that line of restraint is. I think this is what I'm most curious about.

A
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@failures art,

failures art wrote:

I'm very interested in where that line of restraint is. I think this is what I'm most curious about.

maybe folks who ask to many questions Razz

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not gonna get real involved here, but...

I can only speculate on most of it, as I am not nearly as public oriented as I used to be. and I almost cannot imagine a scenario where I would be physically attacked any more.

my lines on violence are drawn just like most of my other behavioral lines.

based on fairness and a dislike for bullies and frauds. or other folks that seek to take advantage of weaker folks.

and a desire not to end up confined for my outburst.

I will say that the threat of physical violence is a much better tool than the violence itself, unless you do it just right.

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@djjd62,

wutcha' gunna' do chump? Mad

A
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