Sometimes violence is called for.

A pre-emptive strike when you know if you do not, they will hurt you even worse.

Self-defense.

Sometimes a spank for a child (i believe in spanking, not often, but it can be called for).

Punishment.

Violence is rarely, if ever, justified. Instances like self-defense, protection, and punishment should still require a great amount of thought before resorting to a violent method. To me, violence is the easy way out. There are usually better ways to do things.

I have come to a conclusion that most of you have never been pushed to your 'breaking' point. This is something genetically programmed into us. We are a species that is led by the dominant, not the passive, this aggressive nature is in you somewhere. You can choose to be an omega but my guess is if you are pushed hard enough you will find that you will lash out, and you will feel it was the right thing to do.

Everyone has their buttons.

I am sure everyone can be provoked, amd anyone can be pushed to a point they will lash out. I have thrown one punch in real anger as man (when I was a boy I used to fight a lot in school)... and it wasnt a nice feeling, it scared me, but like anyone I'm capable of it. And like anyone I probably like to think of myself as pretty tough if it came to it, but I know I could get wiped out. Even for those who have a sense that their own aggression could not be matched... you only need to try punch out some kid who pulls a gun on you... and thats that.

The point I was trying to make that is you allow situations to frequently provoke or incite you to violence, sooner or later you'll come across someone who will fuck you up.

A lot of times someone might do things that are out of order, and you feel like they might deserve a slap. I'd turn the other cheek to the point it was impossible for me not to. If someone attacked me I'd defend myself, and if they attacked someone I loved I'd defend them, to the best of my ability - other than that - I chose to turn the other cheek.

This reminds me of a thread I put up a while ago.

I asked a Q like - "what would you rather... you are packing in a situation, and for the sake of argument it has to go one of two ways... either you are beaten and robbed of your wallet and phone - hurt but not seriously (black eyes, bruises), or you kill the guy who attacks you. The fight is caused by a mugger who attacks you without provocation"

I would chose to be mugged and beaten up rather than kill someone in self defence. To me, I cannot comprehend how I could follow the other path, to kill someone would be far more painful than bruises or lost possessions - even if I was acting in self defence. But I think about 2/3's of people said they would kill to defend themselves rather than take a medium beating and be robbed. I can only say how I am and how I feel. It may not be the majority view, but I cant be anything else, myself.

And yes, obv in real life you dont have a choice that stark and clean cut.

Since Asimov was trotted out, I thought I would add a quote by my favorite SF author.

Certain types and applications of violence are very effective for producing an end. The trick, in my mind, is to use violence sensibly, which most people almost never do.

I would agree that violence should be a last option in most cases.

Yes, I've been pushed to the 'breaking' point. But I always use my razor-sharp tongue to cut people, not knives.

In response to Lebell, coordination and organisation is a much more powerful force than violence. Coordinated violence is of course more powerful than either. For every Napoleon or Wellington (who by the way were far better organisers than they were fighters) there is a Ghandi or a Jesus, or a Malcolm X. If man had never discovered how to cooperate, and look past his innate behaviours, we would still be fighting over bananas in the jungle. Yes, survival of the fittest prevails, but it is a far more economical, far more rational, and a species has far better chances for survival if they are able to evolve beyond force and control the far more subtle, and powerful forces that can only come from non-violent and cooperative behaviours.

Yes, we have to accept our violent past, and yes, we all have a breaking point at which we revert to our baser instincts. But isn't it more advantageous to us as a species, and even as individuals to at least try and push that breaking point as far as possible?

With the invention of technology, it is unsustainable to advocate violence. To succeed in a state of open conflict, all one has to do is become more ruthless than the next guy. It would be a simple matter to slaughter people, either through open conventional violence, or through stealth, surprise, poison or suicide bombing. Is that what we want?

It isn't what I want.

Yes it's idealistic to advocate pacifism, some people argue the morality of it - I am arguing that having the strength and the courage to turn the other cheek and allow a route for reconciliation is a far more powerful tool than rushing in to floor the other guy.

In agreement with Lebell, violence should always be the last resort, once all other avenues have been attempted.

There are two basic levels of violence, interpersonal, and that which is sanctioned and sponsored by society in some form. Societal sanctioned violence is a much stickier subject, so I'll just weigh in on interpersonal.

Interpersonal violence is justified only in defense of one's person or that of another, and to a much lesser extent, one's property.

Words, messages, beliefs by themselves, in the absense of a physical threat, never justify violence in retaliation, no matter how offensive they might be.

That you have offended or insulted me or hurt my feelings, or done the same to someone I love does not justify the smallest bit of violence on my part in return, unless there is an active threat of violence that goes along with it.

The reason is that what offends us differs greatly from person to person. If a man hits on me, he's implicitly questioning my sexuality by suggesting he thinks I'm straight. So long as he's polite and doesn't put his hands on me, I likely wouldn't be offended. Heck, I actually find it a bit amusing much of the time. Yet some find a challenge to their sexuality so offensive that they respond violently, even to the point of murder.

Which is the right response to someone challenging your sexuality, amusement or offense? Neither, though the former does make life quite a bit more pleasant. What amuses or offends us is a highly personal part of our makeup, and because of that there is no way to define exactly what is or isn't something that is offensive enough to justify violence. Which is why no words ever are.

Gilda

One thing I noticed in my high school days is that certain things were always "cool" to say.. saying them immediately made you a macho tough guy and couldn't really backfire.

One of these statements was that if someone ever "said X to me" then I'd "kick the shit out of them." Another was that "if he ever hit me, I'd kick the shit outta him."

The nice thing about college is that most people have grown out of this juvenile, irresponsible mindset. Some never do.

Violence is never justified. Anyone advocating violence in "self-defense" has obviously never thought about what self-defense means. It means responding with an EQUAL amount of force, not more. If someone hits you with their fist, and you hit them with a bat in self defense -- its criminal. Likewise, if you think you're GOING to get hit, and you hit them pre-emptively -- yep, still illegal. No one likes to have their physical body attacked, and anyone who thinks that violence is okay likely doesn't understand the Golden Rule very well.

Oh and "teaching" people? Horseshit. Last time I checked we had POLICE OFFICERS and LAWS for "teaching people." Using teaching as a justification belies your need to justify violence on your part to patch an ego..

I don't mean to pick on you here onesnowyowl, but this in particular jumped out at me. The problem I saw immediately with this is that in the case of self defense or protection one rarely has time for a great amount of thought. If I make the wrong wise crack in the wrong bar and someone comes at me with a pool cue, I don't have time to give it any thought. I either react or I get a pool cue broken over my head.

Or he knows you're not straight and that he has no chance and wants to flirt anyway. By the way, what's your sign?

And if a very pretty straight man were to hit on you pretending he was a woman and went down on you?

Or perhaps if I went up to your SO and said something about the 'ugly bulldyke cunt' she was with?

Everyone has their point where the shock of the insult, the level it, and the amount of disrespect will result in a violent (and justified) response. If I know someone is trying to provoke me, its easy to let the logical part of your brain absorb the insult, but the violent response comes more from the suddeness of the attack, much as if you were attacked physically and the response is the same.

Luckily for us, such insults are rather rare and we are not often forced to face our reactions to them, but when they do occur who do you blame for the resulting violence?

Oh and a side note, I’ve seen first hand what happens when a straight male hits on (or in one case even spoke to) a lesbian who has a more masculine partner. My poor room mate in college had a bad habit of accidentally doing this. :p

to be honest, names are names. Im pretty sure no one could say anything to me that the words alone would make me hit them. You just have to have some self control. Im certainly not going to risk either getting aknife pulled on me or doing 6 months inside for ABH cos someone calls my girlfriend a slag or whatever.

And as for this whole transexual thing... I really dont feel its thats hard to tell what gender someone is. And if it went down like it went down, in what sense is physical violence a justified? Is it natural to feel such a horror of a different type of sexuality that having a man touch you in that way, when you consented (under a false understanding perhaps) to it - that you want to damge them so badly? Is not to want to inflict harm on someone else because YOU feel bad a deviation from a normal personaility.

When we are children we lash out when we are hurt, as adults it is hoped that we learn restraint.

If I was in the situation of having "by accident" had sexual relations with a man, I probably would feel bad about it and betrayed, and it would be confusing... but the dude in question obviously would be someone who had a lot of issues and confusion about himself... why the hell would anyone want to beat him up?

So, if words are enough to justify violkence, then this incident is justified?

http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-onlin...19772830.shtml

For those advocating pre-emptive strikes and believe violence is ok if someone's words offend: Then you will be ok with this.

I mean he was, TEACHING them so it's ok right? Please write letters urging the judge to reverse his decision.....

I'm sorry but you have no argument at all, just a link and a straw man.

Well, gee, that's not quite the same thing as what I was talking about, now is it? Perhaps you should revisit your last post and the straw man fallacy listed there.

Was that really necessary? Couldn't you have proposed a hypothetical that wasn't in the form of your taking a nasty personal shot at me?

I'd say most people can be provoked through words alone, but not all, and a violent response to offensive language is never justified.

A physically aggressive response is appropriate to a physical attack, to the degree that's necessary to end the threat. A verbal response is appropriate to a verbal attack, or, more often, ignoring it and sometimes walking away, which is the approach Grace and I take to such personal insults, which occur on an infrequent, but regular basis.

I would blame whoever initiates the violence.

She politely asks the man to leave? That's what happens when a guy hits on me in Grace's presense.

Gilda

Lack of violent force is part of why the crime rate (and the bullshit rate) is so high in America. Rioters and criminals aren't hesitant at all to use violent force, but when a cop hits back, we scream police brutality. Basically, when somebody attacks you, there are two possible outcomes: you respond with violent force, or you get your ass kicked. You can't sit there and hope that the attacker calms down because they won't until you're incapacitated or you can hold them back.

Few have argued against self-defence here. Generally speaking we would all defend ourselves.

There are just some of here that would draw the line differently. Some would be so hurt by words that they would feel the need to commit violence to stop the words. Others take a more rational view and see words for what they are, rude bluster and move on accordingly.

The real issue is when is it OK to instigate violence... the answer is that it is never OK to instigate violence. Sure it will happen, but it is rarely (if ever) justified.

Violence is good in self defense and entertainment. If someone is trying to physically hurt you, violence coming from you can save your life and/or protect your physical well being. Instinct in a sense.

Now violence in entertainment, well it's just entertaining, so thats good.

This seems logical to me.

It's important that we keep in mind the difference between violence that is "effective" and violence that is "justified." There are many cases where violence is effective for achieving a particular end - as a learning tool for some of you - but the cases where it is actually justified are few and far between. If one should, in their response to a situation, inflict more violence than the threat calls for, then one has exceeded the justifiable amount.

But I think the most pertinent question of all is... would Jesus punch someone in the face? I think he would...out of love, of course. :)

I was with you on your points Ustwo until you kept saying:

..which is absolutely wrong. Just becuase you and a few people you know do, doesn't mean "everyone" does. I have no such line -- words are words.

pain is a distinct tool that is genetically linked to us deep in our genes and psyches.

we get violently ill from things we eat and we will not eat those things again. they even make us queasy at the thought of them. Why? because of survival.

same thing with "a little bit of violence"

animals set up their pecking order in ways that are violent, dogs, cats, lions, tigers, wolves, fish, turtles, birds. do you really think that humans are exempt from this?

I don't think humans are immune to this. If we were, people wouldn't be "teaching lessons" by beating the snot out of someone.

The point is, that we do have the ability to rise above violence.

How do I know this? I have a very short and nasty temper... or at least I did. I used to fly off the handle with the right sort of provocation. I learned to recognize that this was *not* and acceptable method interacting with my fellow humans, that provocation is empty if you don't react to it...

I still lose my temper from time to time, but nowhere near what I used to.

I have seen what violence can lead to and it isn't pretty.

Yes - of course we are exempt from this :rolleyes: it's what makes us different from all of those creatures. When was the last time you saw animals such as these build a city, invent farming, form governments, create technology and pay taxes?

It's precisely BECAUSE we are able to step beyond simple stimulus/response behaviours that we are able to have this discussion today.

lots of animals have social structures and build cities, not in the same traditional sense of tall skyscrapers but there are animals that do build things from hives to underground structures of termites, ants, prarie dogs. Governments are just fancy words for social structures, all animals have some sort of social heirarchy when they gather in groups. Technology? Chimpanzees have been known to make and use tools. It's not a computer but it's still a technology. Otters do it to to open sea urchins. Farming... ants farm aphids. Some even raid other ants colonies and create slaves.

and if you do a search here I believe that Ustwo put up a link regarding Chimpanzees commiting acts of violence on other members.

The only thing left is taxes, which no one can corroborate since there would have to be a currency structure.

Thankyou Cynthetiq, yes, there are exceptions, but on the whole, we all have to accept that humans have achieved more because of our cooperative qualities than we have from our destructive ones.

If the monkeys are still fighting in the jungle, that's because they are still monkeys. If they figured out how to cooperate more and fight less, they might not be living in the jungle any more...Congratulations to Ustwo for linking to that for me, it's a very good point.

It would be rather depressing to learn that only taxes seperate us from the animals :lol:

and if you look at history how many years of humankind are there where there were no wars or people killing other people? I'd have to say that for wars it's a handful of years, and for just people killing people... it's never.

people have always been killing people that's not different because we live in houses, tall buildings and drive cars.

Ustwo, thanks for your rebuttal. However, I don't see how my post is a strawman; I don't see how the examples I provided are different from the one you provided (if someone insults your wife you will teach them a lesson - assumed to be violent). Unless I completely misunderstood you.

Anyways, I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Simple refutation? There's a difference between what we did and what we SHOULD do. No one can argue that we're more productive in destruction and violence then we are in creativity and sharing. Which SHOULD we do? The answer is simple; avoiding violence progresses society, and sticking to archaic ("hey look, the monkies do it too..") values degrades society. Which would you rather be a part of?

sure you could sum up what you said as, "What would Jesus Do?"

but that's not the reality of the world. A great number of countries are fraught with graft and corruption. Where I sit now there are skyscrapers when 10 years ago there were none. Are the people any better off? Usually construction means jobs, jobs mean taxes, and better life for many. But no.. there's still lots and lots of poverty here in the Philippines because people are people. The Marcos regime stole billions of aid from the gracious US government and they kept it from the masses and used it for their own luxury. It's still happening to this day just on a smaller scale.

I'm not saying that I don't want to strive for a higher place, but the cold reality of it is that while we sit in our comfortable houses with electricity and temperature controlled living with food in an icebox, and armchair monday morning quarterback there are people just down the road from me in shanties and happy to get a nickel for making a simple sampaguita (flower) headpiece.

Skogafoss was at a public school yesterday where the japanese rotary club donated 15 computers to a school of 3,000 students. She's trying to get them to get books at a cheap price but even that is difficult when there's 3,000 schools and only enough funds for 50 to get books.

It isn't as simple as wishing it or talking that it should be different, one has to actively make a change. We figured out that it only costs about $2,000 to get simple books to these kids per school.

People get violent for lots of different reasons, some countries it's because they don't have food or medicine. Others like America, it's because someone made someone else feel bad.

I have absolutely no doubt I could get you to throw a punch using just words. No one is totally submissive.

Short of including a direct threat of physical violence, I have absolutly no doubt that there is nothing you could say to me that would, by itself, induce either me or my wife to violence against you, and we have been the target of some truly nasty verbal attacks.

Absolutely right. Many people have the strength of will and character to resist their baser urges, and not submit to them.

Gilda

You're not wrong. My point is that we have got where we are today largely because, on balance, in general and among other things, we have been able to cooperate with one another, for the ultimate good of us all, even when it hasn't always been in the immediate interests of the individual.

Because someone does not rise to your nasty words does not make them submissive. It just means that they can rise above the pettiness of your words.

To me a willingness to lash out at someone's words is a clear example of ones insecurities.

I don't know about that. If someone said, "Your mother is a cunt," I would kick the shit out of them. Same goes for, "Your girlfriend is a filthy whore," someones gonna wish they never said that. Call me whatever you want, but leave them out of it or I'll hurt you. Violence justified in my eyes.

Charlatan, you are married correct?

Lets say you and your wife are having a nice walk in a park.

Some guy obviously weaker than you jogs right past you rudely saying, 'Get out of my way cunt.' to your wife. He then turns around and says does the same. He continues to jog back and forth, making a rude comment about her each time.

So Charlatan you will be the bigger more "secure" man?

Somehow I don't think so.

I would. (And as already established, Charlatan and I are the same person. :D) I'd probably laugh at him. And I also doubt you could draw me to violence with words. I can't believe that your buttons are so easily pressed.

I'm not saying it wouldn't piss me off if he kept doing it... but my most likely response would be to laugh. I mean really, anyone who made that kind of effort to keep jogging back and forth, just to call my wife a cunt would have to be a bit nuts.

I am fully secure in the knowledge that my wife is not a cunt (though she does have one).