Also the states were taxing people anyway.
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What is violence? And is violence ever an acceptable solution?
- Thread starter CornBurrito
- Start date
Also the states were taxing people anyway.
Specific instance of violence between two armed groups of soldiers. That started it. Things were progressing for years at that point. People can argue who shot first but it wasn't an ambush or some group of British politicians suddenly shot by rogue colonists. There was no proactive plan of violence enacted to achieve a goal of independence.
My view on it is pretty straightforward. Our institutions such as democracy and human rights are based on idealism, but are grounded by practicality in that they serve to maximize social stability, thus minimizing violence. Society, in a void, would slowly inch farther and farther towards maximizing these institutions. However. These institutions only work when everyone or almost everyone agree to play by the rules of the system set in place. If a group of people begin to actively ignore, violate the spirit of, or abuse the system set in place, then it's value as a tool of social harmony will fall. Once these institutions are viewed as worthless by an individual, all bets are off towards violence occurring. If a majority of the people of a nation view it as worthless, then the nation will dissolve into violence. Is it a justifiable response? That's subjective. What I do know is that if all of a nation's institutions collapse, the guy with the biggest army will ultimately get to dictate what the next institution to stabilize society is going to be whether you like it or not.
Yeah, that wasn't my opinion. We can define violence in obscure ways to justify assault and murder. Luckily this is all defined in our legal system, which is the minimum guide we use for whether forms of violence are acceptable.
you're the first skull avi I've ever seen make a lick of sense
I must be misunderstanding you. You seem to be saying that the American Revolutionary War was a response to violence, but that the violence it was in response to was the violence of the Revolutionary War itself.
CornBurrito
Member
But this presumes the legal system is inerrant.
I'm not sure most people take whatever is in our legal system on pretty much any topic to be some sort of moral truth.
If anything it's more the other way around. People seek to enshrine what they think of as moral truths in law.
Straight Edge
Member
That is exactly was profit is.
CornBurrito
Member
I agree actually. But most people don't, and especially not people who think taxation is theft.
Astral Dog
Member
Also yes i think psychological violence is definetly a thing that threats the well being of a person.
Despite being seen as cruel and unneccessary, a form of violence is glorified to sell movie tickets and tv services every year. consider Animals specially mammals also use 'violence' to solve conflicts very commonly
Despite being seen as cruel and unneccessary, a form of violence is glorified to sell movie tickets and tv services every year. consider Animals specially mammals also use 'violence' to solve conflicts very commonly
Phrozenflame500
Member
This is a good post.
IMO political violence is only really justified when the current societal system is so disastrously broken that bigger army diplomacy is seen as a better alternative.
Sub Boss eyes the pile of Comcast technicians in the corner ==>
That's not really a misunderstanding. There was no plan for the proactive use of violence to achieve independence. The revolutionary war is a bit unique in the sense the specific first shot isn't known but there was absolutely no intention to start a fight that day.
HiredN00bs
Banned
My understanding of violence is that it is any sort of aggressive, attacking action. People using the word to describe oppression are part of a movement to redefine it, in my opinion.
Physical violence is a last resort that we ought to avoid at all costs as a species. We ought to resolve conflicts with the least amount of harm to every person. It is possible to have non-violent moral and societal evolution and revolution, and it's what we should strive to acheive.
Physical violence is a last resort that we ought to avoid at all costs as a species. We ought to resolve conflicts with the least amount of harm to every person. It is possible to have non-violent moral and societal evolution and revolution, and it's what we should strive to acheive.
Wyndstryker
Member
Violence is never an acceptable solution. But in very few cases, it is the only solution.
You should never fault people when violence is the last option available. Because when you hit that point, the nice and ethical options are long gone.
You should never fault people when violence is the last option available. Because when you hit that point, the nice and ethical options are long gone.
I'm no anarchist or edgelord, just a One Piece fan :3
PandaShake
Member
🤔
Regginator
Member
Standing up against oppression, marginalization, power abuse, and other forms of these injustices are few of the instances that I'm not entirely appalled by violence. As long as it's properly targeted to these wrongdoers, not innocent people. So yes, there are some instances where violence can serve as a solution. Preferably not of course, but people saying stuff like "no, never", as admirable as it is, should wake up and take a look at life. It's not all kumbaya. Sometimes life doesn't deal you cards you can fix by just talking and being civil.
King Tubby
Member
I can't support violence without a purpose that isn't more violence.
OG Shaka Zulu
Member
Brother, I didn't have any of this week's events in mind.
I was with him till the part about running counter to American values. America was founded through a violent uprising against their colonial rulers. The slaves were freed through a violent civil war. People were hurt and killed during the fight for women's suffrage and the civil rights movement.
John Kowalski
Banned
I try to avoid thinking of violence as right or wrong. In general violence can be seen in two fashions, as a catalyst of net negative behaviours, or as a consequence of ill working systems that result in toxic behaviours, and those are two obvious reasons why we should design systems that take that into account and can handle maintaining a respectable social contract. Violence happens, violence will happen, and at best we should strive to decrease the number of situations that motivates that kind of attack on physical and mental integrity of any person.
If we want to see wars as discrete things, then we can't say wars were fought over themselves. That doesn't make sense.
Regardless of intentions, and some intentions definitely veered towards violence on both sides, the war was fought for specific reasons. The question the OP is clearly going for is do those reasons justify violence.
Your argument doesn't really make sense for the reason I outlined above, but also because it could be used to justify pretty much almost any war and additionally the other side in the same war you are talking about. Essentially you're saying that one violence starts further violence will inevitably be justified of its own accord.
I largely agree with this post from the shooting thread.
I think you have to be careful about mixing up your definitions of violence, also. Systemic violence makes sense within a certain context, but by that same definition, many forms of non-violent protest would be considered violent (if you boycott, are you not depriving someone of their livelihood? When you march in the streets, is that not a form of intimidation or exclusion? Are words and slogans not potential forms of violence?) There's nothing wrong with pushing back against harm, but proportionality is key. Today's protest movements understand that.
Political assassination is a whole different story. Once you take leave of all the institutional and political structures and start fighting your ideological battles with bullets, then you're setting a violent process into motion that is very difficult to stop, even after the "war" is over. It's very tough to rebuild a democratic institution once it's been shattered, because the illusion of mutual respect that is essential to political dialogue can't hold if people believe they can solve their disagreements better by bludgeoning their opposition into submission. And that's putting aside the possibility of the winners of the revolution being the most ruthless, not the most just.
Looking back at the 20th century's history of revolution and rebellion shows how bloody and costly violent political struggle can be. I would never choose that road unless it was an absolute last resort (in other words, a response to imminent physical harm).
I think you have to be careful about mixing up your definitions of violence, also. Systemic violence makes sense within a certain context, but by that same definition, many forms of non-violent protest would be considered violent (if you boycott, are you not depriving someone of their livelihood? When you march in the streets, is that not a form of intimidation or exclusion? Are words and slogans not potential forms of violence?) There's nothing wrong with pushing back against harm, but proportionality is key. Today's protest movements understand that.
Political assassination is a whole different story. Once you take leave of all the institutional and political structures and start fighting your ideological battles with bullets, then you're setting a violent process into motion that is very difficult to stop, even after the "war" is over. It's very tough to rebuild a democratic institution once it's been shattered, because the illusion of mutual respect that is essential to political dialogue can't hold if people believe they can solve their disagreements better by bludgeoning their opposition into submission. And that's putting aside the possibility of the winners of the revolution being the most ruthless, not the most just.
Looking back at the 20th century's history of revolution and rebellion shows how bloody and costly violent political struggle can be. I would never choose that road unless it was an absolute last resort (in other words, a response to imminent physical harm).
The uprising wasn't really violent. It turned into a war because people with guns tried to prevent independence. We didn't attack the British to throw them out.
The civil war was started by the slavers.
Important movements are rarely completely free of bloodshed but that doesn't mean that's why they succeeded.
Violence was imposed on the rebels by the colonial power, not the other way around. Violence wasn't a strategy along some planned continuum onto independence. Independence was the goal and an outside power wouldn't let that happen without violence.
It's an important distinction when trying to justify violence as a proactive means to achieve things.
Why do you say that? Which violence are you referring to in particular? That was my earlier question. You can make an argument on this front I think, but it needs some sort of explanation.
This is of course also ignoring the fact that you're turning this into colonized Americans vs colonizing British. Instead of British people on two sides of the Atlantic. Plenty of Americans actively supported the loyalist cause. These people were often the target of violence from other Americans in the revolutionary war, because they were seen as enemies of the revolution. How does your argument deal with that?
This seems anachronistic to me. Why is the British state less deserving of power here than the creole elite? Is it because America is something that clearly exists as an independent thing now?
The British didn't want violence either. Maintenance of the nation was the goal, and an internal opposition group wouldn't let that happen without violence. Much like they hadn't in 1715 or 1745.
Also you'll find the bolded really wasn't true. Especially at the start of the war.
Again, I think you can make the argument you want to make, but you aren't going about doing it in a very convincingly way.
I'm not sure it is, because I'm not even sure it's actually a meaningful distinction. Either way, it's certainly a distinction that owes a lot to future developments that simply weren't part of the equation in 1775-6.
I'm sorry, but this is nonsense. The American Revolutionary war was absolutely violent. It was a war because two different groups with access to guns and willingness to use them disagreed over the relationship between the monarchy and parliament, and over the social position of wealthy colonists.
CornBurrito
Member
What about Native Americans and the Trail of Tears?
Astral Dog
Member
im not sure what do you mean or what i said wrong 😟
HyperCroutons
Member
Honestly when it comes to modernized first-world nations I don't see the point of violence anymore unless you have to defend yourself from a physical assault or someone's threatening you with a gun, knife or something like that. There is so many other ways now a days to make a difference like you can protest, vote, grassroots efforts, lawsuits, or utilize the internet to get a problem noticed.
Now if you live in North Korea or a tyrannical third-world country then I could see violence being more of a useful tool. Then again what do I know, maybe I'm just sick of seeing violence when it comes to my experiences with it.
Now if you live in North Korea or a tyrannical third-world country then I could see violence being more of a useful tool. Then again what do I know, maybe I'm just sick of seeing violence when it comes to my experiences with it.
Gabriel_Logan
Member
I think its becoming more and more mainstream to say the colonists may have overreacted a little bit. I love America and am glad it exists, but I think I might have been a Loyalist.
Personal, person-to-person issues? Sure.
Actually big issues, like land disputes, or changing the power structure of a country? Violence is who you're gonna call, most likely.
People solve issues like adults because there's overwhelming retribution for violence, since we (thankfully!) live under civilized states. And civilized states mandate that everything is resolved without violence, and that the state has a monopoly on it.
As soon as there's no state... Yeah.
French revolution?
Italian partisans resisting Nazi occupation?
It's pretty easy to limit your thoughts to a modern, first-world experience of a lawful life protected by a standing military and police. But human history is far more than that.
benjipwns
Banned
Hey, don't bring me into this on the American Secession. Especially after I recently posted this: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=239984735#post239984735
gutter_trash
Banned
the US revolution was not about freedom, it was about taking away the Brit's taxation powers to enrich the US Elite while using propaganda to manipulate the lower class into believing that that they would be more "free" without the Brits
I don't say there that the war wasn't violent, I said the uprising, meaning the more general rebellion period before the war, wasn't based on violence.
The issue being discussed here is violence as a tool to achieve a just goal. Those who believe violence can or should be used in cases where immediate self defense isn't the issue cited the revolutionary war as an example of a successful implementation of violence as a tool. I don't agree with that because the revolutionary war didn't become a war because those seeking independence wanted it to be one, but because the colonial power forcibly and violently oppressed their non-violent actions toward that independence. Rebels didn't start the war to become free. War wasn't entered into as a conscious strategy as a means to achieve anything. It was prepared for, sure, but not intentionally started. It only happened that way because an oppositional force made it so. That it ended in the desired outcome doesn't validate a strategy that wasn't employed by the participants and could only be imposed on events in hindsight.
Maybe the difference isn't all that important in most contexts but for the specific claim about using violence as a tool I believe it is.
Why cant you as an adult stop painting pretend narratives because you dont like the implications?
So often I see people say stuff like this. Yet there are uncomfortable things that remain true whether we like it or not. In this case, it is that violence does often work and studies have been done that show a good percentage positive return.
It is also not about maturity as you fallaciously imply. How many children do you know are thinking about political violence to end some injustice? How many children commit violent acts or riot in general? We are but creatures, and I assure you the universe assigns no maturity value to people turning to violence as a last resort.
So the important questions become: at what point is it appropriate to use this option? What situations would make it the right choice for a given moment? For example, if our country started putting Muslims in concentration camps would violence be warranted? Extreme example, but i would say yes. And that choice would be made by those involved with far more gravity and maturity than your dismissive "as adults" commentary.
Can you deal with a world that is morally ambiguous?
Outside of killing in self-defense and in very specific military situations, I don't believe violence is ever justified. I don't believe in the death penalty and I certainly don't believe in any solution that involves the taking of human life in general, regardless of the severity of the crime or the character of the criminal. On a global scale, sometimes war can be necessary (such as on a global scale like with World War 2), as a means of using violence as a last resort to defend others, but otherwise I find the use of lethal force pretty detestable as a means of resolving any problem, both political and domestic and find the wide-spread prevalence and fetishization of violence in many facets of modern pop culture particularly troubling.
Is it self defense if you are attacking a government actively killing or oppressing your people?
Attacking whom within said government, specifically?
I don't think it's much of a stretch to call the forced marching of thousands basically to death an act of violence. I'd say anyone fighting back to save themselves or others in immediate danger would be justified.
Government institutions, military outposts, simple supply routes to cripple productivity
Soldiussnaku
Member
I agree with this. Nicely put.
My people were picking cotton while being whipped and hung, at the time. What the fuck do I care about a dispute over taxation?
CornBurrito
Member
Oh I agree.
Interesting question. I think I would define it as self-defense if any kind of political uprising was primarily focused on the sole objective of overthrowing a violent regime that was directly brutalizing its a people, a means of using violence to displace the government when literally no other forms of political or social insurrection are possible without bringing about an even greater loss of life, as opposed to a directionless cause where the people are just reacting impulsively with violence as a means of taking revenge against the government that actively abuses them. Though that were the case, that would almost translate the situation to a scenario of war...where all conventional norms of morality often prove more difficult to strictly quantify, so it's hard for me to get too into hypotheticals when so many other social, political and militaristic factors would play a role. Regardless, in rising up against such a government...I would feel it crucial to take all government figureheads prisoner as a means of deposing them as opposed to resorting to murder, in addition to the soldiers that might still serve them if at all possible. Perhaps absurdly, almost childishly idealistic given the practical gravity of the situation...but I feel if violence were literally the only possible solution to upending such a government, the violence should have to be limited in scale when at all possible.
And to this day one of the most tightly held American values is the right to violently overthrow the government when they stop listening to the people.
That assumes that people respond to good arguments, which is not always the case. As others have pointed out, saying that victims of oppression just weren't trying hard enough to convince their oppressors that they are in fact human beings who are worthy of respect is incredibly insulting.
Epsilon-delta
Banned
Excellent post.