Violence is generally considered to be a bad thing. Actions that lead to property destruction, personal injury, and death are frowned on for good reasons. But…
We are also a species that has a lot of violence in its nature. It’s something humans do, out of fear, anger, self-defense, aggression, greed, sociopathy, and sometimes in the name of law and order, or sometimes just for 'fun’. So, for something everyone agrees is bad, we sure seem to have a lot of it.
(If this looks like TL;DR to you, skip all this and go down to Who is entitled to commit violence? When is it justified? At the very least, jump to Part 2: Follow the Money — the Unacknowledged Asymmetry)
A little background. Well okay, maybe more than a little
Popular culture is full of violence. How many of the big action/adventure movies would be dead at the box office if they didn’t promise bigger, better explosions, bigger, badder bad guys to dispose of, and heroes who can take it and hit back harder? There’s a mythic/religious side to it — almost all religions have a good versus evil dynamic, calling on those who would be good to resist evil, sometimes by any means necessary.
(There’s lots of philosophical — theological debate over whether or not we have created God in our own image, as Jethro Tull put it in Hymn 43 and Aqualung. Take a look at the liner notes below the track listing, verses one through nine.)
So, you have stories like the recent Wonder Woman film (caution: Spoilers at the link) where she paradoxically goes to war to end war by taking on the God of War himself, to ambiguous situations such as “Han shot first!” Star Trek has wrestled with the problem of violence a number of times through all the various series to date. (See for example A Taste of Armageddon.) Robert A. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers is set in a future where humans are only one race among many in the galaxy, and brotherly love does not translate across species. Survival is a matter of being prepared to be as violent as necessary when necessary in a universe that has no special regard for humans. (Compare and contrast with the quasi-government of the Three Galaxies in Have Space Suit, Will Travel.)
We wouldn’t find this so entertaining if it didn’t connect with us on some level. It would seem then that any discussion as to the morality of violence should get a littler deeper than just black and white reasoning. If you’re going to talk about violence, you have to discuss things that can be a little harder to parse. Things like motivations, history, biology, psychology, perceptions, privilege, and other matters.
Take biology for example. The fight or flight response is well-known. When faced with a threat situation, humans are hard-wired to react in two ways — prepare to fight or flee. The higher brain functions shut down; the body prepares for violent action. It’s not really a good time to appeal to reason; reason is in the safe room and adrenaline is at the wheel. If you’ve ever wondered “What were they thinking, they may not have been, thinking, that is.
(What Not To Do In A Disaster at BBC Future spells out in detail just how badly humans respond to stress. Read the whole thing — it’s worse than you know.)
There’s also the mindset problem, as in authoritarianism. Some people are predisposed to consider violence justified under certain circumstances. When your world view is based on “us versus them” and you see the group you identify with as under threat from “the other”, authoritarian followers are more likely to see violence as not only called for, but completely justified. Via Sara Robinson,
Aggressive support of authority. Right-wing followers do not hesitate to inflict physical, psychological, financial, social, or other forms of harm on those they see as threatening the legitimacy of their belief system and their chosen authority figure. This includes anyone they see as being too different from their norm (like gays or racial minorities). It's also what drives their extremely punitive attitude toward discipline and justice. Notes Dean: "Authoritarian aggression is fueled by fear and encouraged by a remarkable self-righteousness, which frees aggressive impulses."
Authoritarian leaders are no prize either. Violence and the implicit threat of violence is part of their nature. Also from Robinson:
...they are dominating, opposed to equality, committed to expanding their own personal power, and amoral. These are usually accompanied by other unsavory traits, many of which render them patently unsuitable for leadership roles in a democracy:..
...Now, we celebrate our most powerful social dominants, pay them obscene salaries, turn them into media stars, and hand over the keys to the empire to them almost gratefully. They have free rein to pursue their ambitions unchecked, with no cultural brakes on their rapacity. They will do whatever they can get away with; and we'll not only let them, but often cheer them on.
Violence is rooted in conflict. When two (or more) parties want different things, and when those things are mutually exclusive or carry disproportionate burdens for one side versus another, conflict is likely. The rule of law is intended as a remedy, by providing means to resolve conflicts before they descend into violence. The goal is justice — a rather complex construct in its own right — and that can be a problem. To paraphrase Bujold, on average half the parties leaving a courtroom are dissatisfied with the outcome, but that does not mean justice wasn’t done. Guess what’s under attack these days.
A state monopoly on violence is another, in which only duly designated representatives of government are allowed to commit violence or to possess the means to inflict it. It’s a good thing or a bad thing depending on how/who the government exercises that monopoly on and for. There’s also the problem that governments of different nations can find themselves in conflict — and there’s no higher authority that can rein them in.
Heinlein’s Starship Troopers postulated controlling abuse of authority by pairing it with responsibility, where no one could serve in government or vote who had not first been in public service of some kind. (Not just the military.) They had to demonstrate the ability to put the needs of society ahead of their own.
Deterrence is another strategy. The goal is to make the cost of violence so high, no one in their right mind will resort to it. A display of overwhelming force (which has its own costs), a situation liable to result in loss of status through shaming, or some other negative incentive can be effective under some circumstances. MAD has worked well enough for decades. Of course, there’s that “in their right mind” loophole...
Religion is supposed to be a moderating influence, promising rewards for good behavior, eschewing sin, and doing good to others. Religion has also driven some of the nastiest conflicts in human history, in which both sides pray to the same God — while the other side is the tool of the Devil. They can’t both be right — but they can both be wrong.
There’s the Battle of Nauvoo, and the Mountain Meadows Massacre. More recently, this in the 1990s, and then there’s Waco, TX. This isn’t to say there have not been cases of religion as a moderating influence nor religious leaders who have not fought against violence — but like everything else connected with status and belief there will be those who resort to violence over it if they feel threatened.
America’s History of Violence
The Civil War is America’s worst episode of mass violence, but it’s not the only one. (See the passage on religion just above.) What happens when the state does not have a monopoly on violence, or ends up serving the private interest over the public interest? When do private security forces become the equivalent of a private army waging war? There’s a long history of state-sanctioned violence in the service of private enterprise. The Ludlow Massacre, the Pullman Strike, the Battle of Blair Mountain, the Battle of the Overpass… the Dakota Access Pipeline protests and the response to them.
Then there’s vigilantism. Private citizens seeking justice when law and order fails — or that’s the rationale. Charles Bronson’s film Death Wish is the fantasy — a man seeking… something after a horrible crime is committed against his family and the police provide no satisfaction. He begins acting out against criminals prepared to do violence by using violence against them. Supposedly the crime rate drops dramatically as would-be criminals are deterred.
I don’t think anyone would argue that if you are being attacked and are in imminent danger of physical injury or death, that you would not be entitled to defend yourself by any means necessary. Except that that has now been extended into the principle that anything goes if you sincerely believe that is about to happen. Pro-active violence in other words, as in Maxim 27.
Which is how we get events like the shooting of Trayvon Martin — or the invasion of Iraq. Are there any slopes that are not slippery? Stand your ground laws expand self-defense and the Castle Doctrine to a level where they are in danger of becoming a license to kill. Some would say we’re already there. And there’s a certain selectivity as to how they are applied.
The NRA is taking that Death Wish fantasy scenario and doing its best to expand it by pushing for concealed carry and open carry everywhere — exaggerating that violent crime is on the rise, despite disputes over what is actually happening and why. Claiming increased gun ownership explains a drop in violent crime ignores a far more convincing alternative explanation. It also ignores incidents like this one, when ‘carrying’ and poor impulse control collide.
Cases of individual vigilantism in practice can be questionable, to say the least. When carried out en masse, it can become a lynch mob, aka riot. We have as a country failed to acknowledge events like the 1921 Tulsa, OK riot, the Rosewood Massacre, and more, much more. America has had its own episodes of ethnic cleansing with serious levels of violence — still largely unacknowledged.
If you’re a native American, well… this isn’t news. H. Rap Brown knew a thing or two about violence in America as well.
These are just a few sides of the violence conundrum. So, let’s focus on a single question:
Who is entitled to commit violence? when is it justified?
The short answer is… there is no short answer. Self-defense is usually considered justifiable — but under what circumstances, to what degree, and given alternatives, that justification can get stretched pretty far. We don’t arm peace officers for show. (That name is just a bit Orwellian, no?) As to the question of when violence is appropriate in a larger context...
The dirty little secret about violence is that it does work to bring about change. It draws media attention and forces politicians to respond. The problem is, it may not be the change you were seeking.
When violence breaks out, no one is in control of what happens. You can’t know who is going to end up looking like the good guy or the bad guy as far as the rest of the world is concerned. (Not to mention there will be plenty of people trying to put their own spin on it.)
And there’s also the problem of how much violence does it take? There’s a cynical bit of wisdom that says the government will act — once the body count gets high enough. The question is, how many bodies, and whose?
Take gun violence. Despite all the horrendous episodes of gun violence, the result has been more guns everywhere. Media attention is neutralized when people become conditioned to respond “Fake News!” to stories they don’t want to hear, or fabricate alternative facts, by people with a vested interest in controlling the narrative.
Media attention is also neutralized when press coverage is blocked, or self-censored because it would offend the wrong people. And government action is shaped by who has more power on this issue — the gun lobby and the GOP base.
So, if you think violence is the answer, you had better be damn well sure you’re asking the right questions. Here’s a few:
- Are you prepared for the consequences, the collateral damage, the unintended results? You won’t know what they will be ahead of time, or who else has something planned. (Who threw the bomb at Haymarket?)
- Do you have legal support lined up? The ACLU is rethinking its support for armed and/or violent groups despite its concerns about free speech.
- Who else will be affected by what happens to you? Family? Friends? Your job? Your cause?
- Have you exhausted alternative strategies? Have you considered alternative tactics?
- Are you prepared to handle the media and their coverage? How?
- Are you prepared to be demonized? (Which will happen whether you are violent or not — see the point about authoritarian followers above and projection below.)
- Are you there to defend those who need defending, or are you there to attack the attackers — and how? If you can’t make that distinction, perhaps you need to reconsider.
- Are you armed? Carrying mace? Wearing a mask? How do you look like the good guy?
- What is the law enforcement response? Who are they giving priority to as a threat, and how are they interacting with people at the scene? (As per this.)
- Are you prepared to document what happens, or be documented? We’ve seen that video recordings and photographs can have a huge impact in the media. What message will your images send, and who will receive them? Got a drone handy for the big picture? You know law enforcement will be doing surveillance and looking for images/video afterwards.
- Are you coordinating with anyone? Do you have a plan? (And are you using the internet to do it?)
- If you are not planning violence, but are met with violence, how will you respond?
This isn’t an exhaustive list, but it’s a start. Your answers will depend on your circumstances. Also, Maxims 43 and 15. Meanwhile, here’s a few other things to think about.
Remember What You’re Fighting For: Differences Matter
Compare and Contrast. One side is NOT like the other.
Inclusion versus Exclusion. Justice versus Injustice. Equality versus Privilege. Economic justice versus Oligarchy. Knowledge versus Ignorance. Tolerance versus Intolerance. Accountability versus Authoritarianism. Democracy versus Fascism.
Motivations matter. We need the modern equivalent of “Why We Fight” to address the enemies we now find within. Speaking of which…