A recent series of posts to the R&R thread about the trials and tribulations a member is/had gone through recently spawned this thread idea. I PMed the member asking if it was OK with them I start this thread and was given the green light so here goes: FOCUS: When is feeling like one has to resort to violence acceptable and/or when is it not? When it did turn violent, what were the reasons and was the outcome worth it?
Violence, at the personal level, is to defend yourself or others. To attack someone for reasons of pride or hurt or anger is to be condemned.
Resorting to violence is perfectly acceptable when one encounters someone who DARES speak ill of Derrick Rose.* *Incidentally, maybe it's because I've been forced to watch The Lion King several times in the last week(daughter loves it), but that pic Nom put up with Rose and Simba had me laughing hysterically.
Yeah while I like istealcheese, that was a little crazy. Also its unfortunate but he's going to have to deal with this woman for the rest of his life. Crazy burns a lot of bridges.
In my experience, Crazy is also the best in bed. Anyway, to the issue at hand. I consider myself a modified pacifist. Violence is only permissible to defend yourself or the lives of others. That being said, and I need to think a bit more about this, but a part of me suspects that violence does serve a greater purpose at times. Something along the lines of 'people are never really sorry until they're really sorry.' Usually the application of violence/pain brings about such a change of heart. I want to be wrong about it, but my review of history (both personal and otherwise) leads me to believe that violence can and does serve a greater purpose. DISCLAIMER: As I said, I have to give this more thought.
Funny, I've always thought of pacifism as an inherently immoral position. Think about it, when pacifism comes up, it is usually in the context of letting someone get away with something, be it socially (letting the bully of the playground beat up a classmate and take their lunch money), or geopolitically (nation A standing by while nation B commits genocide on nation C). I guess I just think that the human species in general has an inherent violent streak, and pacifism ignores that, usually to the detriment of someone(including yourself).
Not to side track, but is "violence" the right word when it is a person vs. inanimate object? It just feels weird to me. Are demolition men violent when they take down buildings? This is a silly thought, but it just popped into my head. Now, I read the post and I've been cheated on. If SO cheats with someone else, setting up the SO as the cheater and the someone else as the cheatee, I think it is absolutely insane to be mad at the cheatee. The cheater is the only person that should be mad at, because I don't care what the cheatee did, the cheater should have shut that shit down. It takes two to tango. All anger and rage should be directed towards the cheater. It's not the cheatee's job to say no to manage your relationship. If you stay with the person who is going to keep running off, and get mad at the people they run off too, you're going to need a lot of bats. Its addressing the symptom, but not the problem. Now I do believe it is shitty to hook up with a married person for purely karmic reasons, all of the above still applies when all is said and done. Also, violence that doesn't leave any permanent bruising or scarring sometimes might be appropriate in the day to day situation. Like if someone won't leave your SO or family alone, but they haven't crossed any real legal boundaries yet. No holds barred if someone actually tries to hurt you though.
Parker, Parker, Parker this is why you get into so many tiffs here. Stop overanalyzing everything little thing. I used the word because he did in his post. I think the reason he did was when he was beating the shit out of the dude's car it's quite possible he was envisioning it being the guys face. Either way, I feel that when someone puts a fist through the wall right next to my head, yeah that's violence.
I wasn't questioning you Shegirl, I'd never do that. Just the overall conversation/context of violence that we're about to have in this thread. I'd consider punching the wall with next to someone's head violence, not sure if I would call it violence if the person wasn't there. Beating up car with person in, violence. Beating up car with person, not violence, just stupid. That's all. <3 you.
I don't disagree with your assertion that the above situations are where pacifism comes up. I do disagree that pacifism inherently allows people to get away with things. In many situations (including my own life) there have been times where yes, violence solved the problem. But I think keeping it that simple is illusory. Just because violence works in some situations doesn't necessarily mean there weren't other non-violent means to obtain the same outcome. I think sometimes humans (my much younger self included) go to the violence option after a very short nonviolent appeal. As I said in my post, I'm not sure that violence doesn't serve a purpose, my point here is that just because violence does solve some problems doesn't mean there aren't other options that would have worked if they had been tried.
I can get behind the whole "violence is for defense only" thing, but if someone raped my girlfriend (or something horrible like that) and got away with it, I'd be inclined to hunt them down and let them listen to their own bones crack for a while.
In the circumstance we are discussing it’s unquestionably violence. Cheese said he was calling the bloke out, smashing the car is an implied threat of violence, the psychological impact would have been real. I suspect if the guy came out armed and cheesy approached with his "smasher" and got shot in the face for his trouble self defence would be an easy prove. I’m not a violent guy, and haven’t been in a proper fight since high school. The last time I had to resort to a physical threat was a couple of years ago in a pub with workmates. A drunk idiot was harassing a couple of my female colleagues and wouldn’t leave when they asked him to. I went over and asked him respectfully to go, then I asked him forcefully to go, the whole while he was being a belligerent cockhead. I ended up grabbing both his arms pinning them into his sides while squeezing as hard as I could and spun him around 180 degrees, with a smile on my face calmly told him “if you don’t fuck off now cunt, I’m gunna take you outside and fucking kill you” or words to the same effect, he left. Assholes and dumbasses don’t respect or respond to politeness if it goes against their interests, one way or another only force works.
I agree that violence isn't a cure-all for any situation, and that depending on the situation, a non-violent alternative could easily be more effective. But once you take violence completely off the table(and everyone either knows or figures out that you've taken it off the table), people that haven't written violence off will try to take advantage in whatever way they see fit.
Growing up I had a lot of violence directed at me both at home and at school. Some aspects of violence, like bigger stronger people picking on the weak really upset me. On the other hand, I've become pretty desensitized to fighting and because I've made poor choices in who I choose to be friends with and substance abuse (in the past) and alcohol (admittedly still going on) I've found myself in a fair number of fights into adulthood. I think it's pretty hard to find an instance where it's okay to escalate a verbal confrontation to a physical one, I've never done so and I don't plan on it. If a person is destroying some of my property, I think it's best to just record what is going on and call the police. Someone destroying your car or home could be a threat of violence but I don't think it's worth it to step in and risk potentially killing someone when you can simply whip out your phone and record them. If I sense a physical confrontation going, nowadays I just try to turn around and walk away. That said, once I'm in a physical confrontation that I can't remove myself from, I'm not fighting fair. If someone starts using weapons, all bets are off. Fists are dangerous enough, at that point it's about staying alive; I'm grabbing the deadliest thing I can use and trying to inflict as much damage as possible until that person is no longer a threat. The only time I will ever hesitate to defend myself is if I'm being attacked by a woman. If there I couldn't remove myself from the situation I'd just let her beat me up. First off, if I defend myself I'm going to jail should the cops get involved. Secondly, if I defend myself I'm probably going to get my ass stomped by a bunch of dudes who think I'm beating up a woman. That's a lesson I learned at a very early age growing up. The short of it is due to split custody I spent a decent amount of time in an area where I was the only white kid around for blocks, group of older black girls would harass and attack me on the regular, one day I pushed one of them down. The cops were called and I was lectured on how it's wrong to hit girls. Next day I got jumped by grown ass men, I was 12 at the time. Lesson learned.
I used to be a lot more aggressive. Grew up learning martial arts and how to fight pretty effectively, so I liked to test it by picking fights. I wouldn't directly go fuck with people, but I would put myself in situations where I'd have to defend myself. Looking back, it's absolutely frightening to think about. The only time I've ever outright beat the shit out of someone, and I've told it before, was when a guy in my fraternity jizzed in some sorority girl's purse. To prevent the sorority from pressing charges against us as an organization, I told them Id handle it internally. After a party one night, he went around the back of our off-campus house to piss when two of my guys grabbed him and I proceeded to pound him in the face a few times then let one of my guys take over with shots to the gut. After he severely had his ass kicked, we explained the situation to him very clearly and what the alternative was (sexual assault charges, etc) and that if happens again we would turn him in. It didn't happen again.
I bashed the living fuck out of the guy who ran down my sister. I wanted to kill him, every ounce of me, and I damn near followed through. Didn't bring her back. Didn't do shit except leave another mark of regret on my record. Now I live with the knowledge that she'd probably never have spoken to me again after what happened. I cheapened her memory with what I did. So often those you want to defend with violent acts become the victims themselves. I'm sure there are exceptions, times when violence really is the cure. I've just never been witness to one. Take it for what it's worth.
I don't like fighting, I don't start fights; I will always walk away or talk myself out of the situation. Fighting as a part of a legitimate sport such as martial arts doesn't count, most anybody would agree with that. So personally I can say I've been in one fight in my life, way back in the sixth or seventh grade, and I'll admit I got my ass kicked. Simply put I'd rather be left in peace to smoke my cigarettes and do whatever the hell it is I actually do. Would I fight if put in the right situation? Yes. Without a question, I would fight and fight to win. Maybe I've been sheltered by growing up in a relativity crime-free area or by being well liked enough or tolerated enough in high school to never draw any negative attention, but I've never really been in the a situation where I've had to fight anyone for anything. It might be stupid luck I've either decided to have other plans or leave before a violent situation rose up at the bar I usually frequent; or the one occasion where there was a shooting at my college I wasn't there that day. I've always believed violence has its purpose. Some people should not be allowed to live after committing certain acts; self defense is a natural right; defending the innocent is a noble thing; in some cases protecting personal property is necessary. To totally disregard violence as an option in all but the most mundane of circumstances is an act of denial; to quote something I heard once "When done righteously killing is a chore like any other.". To preserve the existence of yourself or of others there are times you must resort to physical force. Morally violence can serve a good purpose, as a previous post stated; some actions demand immediate correction more severe than can be done verbally.
Doing martial arts you end up with a different take on violence. You know what you are capable of and have seen what other people at a high level are capable of. I've learned a different level of respect for how much pain can be inflicted and it can be frightening. All of that said violence has no place in polite society. It is the first resort of the truly weak and the last resort of the truly strong. I was in a situation once with a SO who was cheating, much like isc. I went to his house, there she was when she had no business there. I wanted to do physical harm to the both of them. I could see the situation played out and knew it was a crossroads to my life. I got in my car, called a friend, let her talk me down and drove home. I don't even want to think of the alternative to that action. What would I have taken from everyone involved, including myself had I not walked away? Pass on that.