What Does it Take to Justify Violence?

@Cyracuz,

Cyracuz wrote:

I think you are using the term violence in a completely different way than I am.
Theft is not violence, though it is equally wrong in my opinion. If you steal the food so someone starves to death, you have not done violence, but that doesn't mean that what you did was ok. Carry your line of thinking to the extremes, and you can say that just because you got that job you wanted, many other people are not able to eat as well as they could have if they got the job instead of you, they may not be able to pay their bills and may end up without a home. Does that mean you committed an act of violence against them by accepting the job you were offered?

Certainly??? To cause death is not violence??? Sir; we make too big a deal about theft since much of it is simple theft from which people could be easily made whole... But this comes from a time when property was most certainly life, and the taking of it doomed one to death... In many places that is still the case, and yet we take that much and more... The injustice of treating some one so cruelly for taking a little property is that people who take a great deal of property are left free to take more, by law; and this frustrates and injures everyone, and it does result in real violence as everyone recognizes, sudden and explosive, and all the while society thinks it does good by locking up a few thieves... Injustice is not a thing that can be accepted of the rich and punished for the poor... It is the way the rich maintain their hold on society, but it is just more injury to the masses because the injustice of it is clear to the lowest classes, and it causes them contempt for all of us...

3 Replies

@Fido,

Fido wrote:

Cyracuz wrote:

I think you are using the term violence in a completely different way than I am.
Theft is not violence, though it is equally wrong in my opinion. If you steal the food so someone starves to death, you have not done violence, but that doesn't mean that what you did was ok. Carry your line of thinking to the extremes, and you can say that just because you got that job you wanted, many other people are not able to eat as well as they could have if they got the job instead of you, they may not be able to pay their bills and may end up without a home. Does that mean you committed an act of violence against them by accepting the job you were offered?

Certainly??? To cause death is not violence???

so to trip somone with my foot by accident, causing them to fall out of a 20th story window is violent?

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@Fido,

is old age violent? is denial of something someone needs violent?

1 Reply

@Fido,

Quote:

To cause death is not violence??

Not necessarily. People die in great numbers every day because of your lifestyle and my lifestyle. Are you a violent person? I am not. That doesn't change the fact that my way of life means suffering and an early death for many others who live in all the countries we have to exploit ruthlessly in order to maintain our standards of living.

If a man drives his car off the road by accident and kills himself and his whole family who was riding in the car with him, does that make him a violent person, or just a very unlucky one? He was the one who was supposed to be in control of the vehicle, but his loss of control does not constitute violence even though he can be said to be the cause of all their deaths.

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@failures art,

Might makes Right.

If I am powerful enough to kill someone and get away with it, I may do so. (IMO of course)

I consider this to be true even when I am the one being attacked.
Reasons for violence can be anything really, emotion, amusement etc.

Killing off individuals recklessly is not beneficial for our society and all that.
And besides, it is rare for me to truly desire someone demise.
I've never really fought anyone let alone kill anyone in case anyone might wonder, hehe.

1 Reply

@Brinkman,

Brinkman wrote:

And besides, it is rare for me to truly desire someone demise.

so it has happened before?

0 Replies

@hamilton,

hamilton wrote:

is old age violent? is denial of something someone needs violent?

Yes; life does us violence; and we use that to justify much of our violence... I think we should take it up with our maker, if we can find him...

The denial of something some one needs especially if we need it not ourselves is violence... But is that not half of what having is about: Denial to others??? But consider this: The two worst emotions we must suffer in this age are loneliness, and envy... And both result from our conception of the individual... The individual is a criminal... The individual is immoral... Community is morality, but community works for justice and equality, and drives out envy... Individuals without the support and defense of community suffer first loneliness and then, envy... They are easily dispossessed, and easily turn to crime...

1 Reply

@Fido,

so to become an individual (I AM UNIQUE!!!) is to become criminal?

1 Reply

@hamilton,

hamilton wrote:

so to become an individual (I AM UNIQUE!!!) is to become criminal?

Yup; and live with it... No one is truely in aindividual... No one can say where they leave off and society begins...What people who doubt their unqueness do, it turn against society as outlaws... That is why in this country that makes a fetish out of individualism, all our heroes are outlaws...

2 Replies

@Fido,

To "justify" violence is to suggest that we can make it a "good". I prefer to consider the possibillity that sometimes the "evil" of doing harm to others is necessary, even though it remains "evil."

0 Replies

@Fido,

To "justify" violence is to suggest that we can make it a "good". I prefer to consider the possibillity that sometimes the "evil" of doing harm to others is necessary, even though it remains "evil."

2 Replies

@JLNobody,

I read in the newspaper today that in some country in Africa (I don't recall the name of it) they had recently freed 32 teenage girls from a house. They were being kept in that house to bear children, and the children were then sold for use in rituals etc... The authorities called such houses "babyfarms". The man in charge of this operation got sentenced to 14 years in prison.

And I find myself thinking that it's just messed up that someone can keep 32 young girls captive and use them to "produce" human babies that he can sell. Violence against this man, not for justification or revenge, but simply to rid the world of a monster, seemed a very good idea for a while...

1 Reply

@Cyracuz,

I understand...for a while.

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@JLNobody,

JLNobody wrote:

To "justify" violence is to suggest that we can make it a "good". I prefer to consider the possibillity that sometimes the "evil" of doing harm to others is necessary, even though it remains "evil."

If any action is just, it justifies itself and needs no further justification; but injustice is always justified, and the sure and certain proof that you are about to do what you should not is the attempt to justify it to yourself...

1 Reply

@Fido,

that makes sense...

1 Reply

@hamilton,

hamilton wrote:

that makes sense...

I know... I do make sense once in a while... Likely just an accident...

1 Reply

@Fido,

you really benefit from chaos theory, dont you...

1 Reply

@hamilton,

hamilton wrote:

you really benefit from chaos theory, dont you...

Cream floats to the top, I guess...

1 Reply

@Fido,

whoops! there it goes!

0 Replies

@failures art,

Quote:

What Does it Take to Justify Violence?

Abusive original violence is necessary to justify retributive counterviolence,
or to justify a pre-emptive disabling attack.

David

1 Reply

What Does it Take to Justify Violence?

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