- cross-posted to:
- politicalmemes@lemmy.world
- comics@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- politicalmemes@lemmy.world
- comics@lemmy.ml
For everyone who says something like that, i try to remind them of this little things called WWII
Can’t discuss a fascist away, but you can get rid of him by violent means. Violence is sometimes morally acceptable if not outright required even.
Who has the moral authority to decide when or when not to use violence?
Usually whoever has the most accumulated violence. History is written…
We failed to make Russia bend the knee with soft power.
Rearming Europe, after decades of trying without, is necessary because there’s an ongoing war in Europe.
We overestimated our influence without an army, and that’s even with the army of turkey and USA on our side in case we’d get attacked.
Violence is necessary, just unwanted. If someone hits my wife then I’m not going to use my words to solve the situation.
It’s complicated because if you give everyone a gun, then there’s a shooting happening every day. Give nobody a gun, then we don’t know how to defend our countries.
Pros and cons to be outweighed, depending on the larger context.
There’s a reason why we’re taught about MLK instead of Malcolm X.
They’re well aware of how little nonviolent protest accomplishes in the end.
A very good example of an exception, no doubt. Shall we tally up the number of times it took violence to drive out the British, though?
Anyone who thinks violence has never solved anything should open a history book
The credible threat of violence is often much more powerful than violence itself. See unions, the civil rights movement, mutually assured destruction.
Society is very often an implicit contract of “do what we want or else.” Without the “or else”, the powerful have no reason to listen.
violence doesn’t “solve”, it is about eliminating the problem.
It’s their failure to solve or even recognize and formulate the problem that pushes some people to use violence.
Honestly, yes. Dunno why you were sittin’ at a healthy karmic 0 because that is literally what violence is for. It doesn’t solve a problem, it staunches it for the current government. Violence isn’t a solution even when people think it is; it’s a fascist band-aid
Violence is often the solution, but it shouldn’t be the first solution we try.
It’s stupid to assert that law enforcement should be completely unarmed. There’s absolutely legitimate situations where it’s in the public’s best interest. Now, the situations that do require it aren’t super common, but they exist.
Violence is always the solution. If there’s an example for major changes implemented without at least an implicit threat of violence, that’s the absolute exception. All big changes always require (the threat of) violence.
In the US at least, law enforcement is overarmed. We’d cut back on a lot of unnecessary violence if, say, officers kept their guns in the trunk rather than on their hip.
Police Union: How could you trample on the sacred rights of the police to escalate any situation into multiple fatalities?
Or you could do what Finland does, and make an independent investigation every time the police shoots someone.
That’s definitely fair
So, a such a situation would require Special Weapons? And maybe Tactics?
SWAT teams exist ostensibly for this reason, but arming everyone works too.
That works a lot better in countries where everyone and their mom doesn’t have a gun. Though good god we don’t train cops enough to justify giving them a gun
violence is never the solution, but it works in a pinch for sure : )
Of course the solution to peace is not having war, but if someone attacks you, don’t just stand there and do nothing.
Yep. Violence isn’t the solution, it’s the last resort.
A more accurate morality would be “Violence should never be the first course of action”.
Violence should never be employed
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against someone who is not harming you or infringing on your rights
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against a party genuinely willing to negotiate
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when your use of violence will seem excessive to onlookers such that they will turn against you
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Violence is almost always the solution. Civilization is an effort to find a better solution. But people who reject the systems we’ve built up seem to forget why we built then.
Civilisation is about pooling resources to make a consistent supply of beer and food. It makes no clear preference between violence and peace. Crops are easier to grow during peace, while war affords more land to grow crops. So the optimum strategy for a civilisation is to alternate between periods of peace and war.
Yeah, to uphold the status quo of the few owning everything and controlling everyone
That’s not why we built them. They got hijacked for that, and they need fixing.
They were built so we had an alternative to killing each other over disputes.
That’s not why we built them
Isn’t it though? The police were created to hunting down escaped slaves. The government was set up to keep the wealthy land owners in charge (only they could vote afterall). Schools were created to meet the needs of growing industry.
I’m struggling to find anything that was built specifically for the people and not the rich.
The USA didn’t invent the concept of police or government.
The first police were appointed to investigate and punish minor crimes commited agains civilians.
Maybe. I’m pretty sure the context is US capitalist society though.
The government gives the working class a way to have their grievances heard and addressed in a way other than starting a rebellion.
Yes, it serves to keep the powerful in power, but that’s irrelevant to my point. It also serves to make sure the little people get taken care of well enough that we don’t kill the ones in power.
For a more specific example, see unions. The alternative to unions is plant managers getting killed.
I think you just made my point. The rich designed a system where they trade complacency for the illusion of control. And they didn’t have to give up any meaningful amount of power.
And you are missing mine.
So help me see it?
Then why are most “uncivilized” societies have more egalitarian and non-violent than “civilized” ones?
And why has every civilization since the dawn of them been about using violence to uphold the status quo?
The institutions aren’t broken. They’re working as designed.
Then why are most “uncivilized” societies have more egalitarian and non-violent than “civilized” ones?
Uncivilized societies engage in violence much more frequently than civilized societies.
That’s the case for individual/personal violence, and also for institutional/mass violence.
Civilized societies are better than uncivilized society in anything they do collectively, be it science, production, or murder.
Since civilized societies are so much better at murdering, the few cases where mass murder does happen are much more significant.
However, such cases remain an exception, as opposed to what is the case for uncivilized societies.
Uncivilized societies may be harmless, but they are certainly not peaceful.
Civilized societies are more powerful, but they yield their power much more carefully.
I’ve done a bit of googling and the evidence I’m seeing doesn’t agree with you on several points.
For example, a war in NZ between Māori tribes killed roughly 10% of the population, while the US civil war only killed 0.5%
And this report from UNESCO agrees with my assertion that organized violence appeared not long after agriculture as a way to reinforce the status quo.
Pretty sure feudalism got started because the raiders noticed that if they didn’t steal and burn everything and mostly prevented others from doing that, then they could extract more from the peasants in the long run. Nothing got hijacked, “civilization” structured around the threat of violence was exploitative from the start.
Nothing got hijacked, “civilization” structured around the threat of violence was exploitative from the start.
It’s not a threat of violence, it’s a preferable alternative to violence, for both sides. Revolts aren’t great for those in power, but they are catastrophic for a significant number of those not in power.
Self defense is a thing. I notice most these comics that end up on my front page pretty much suck. Oh a .ml post. I see. Is there a non .ml version of “comics” somewhere?
Oh, bullshit.
First panel: I agree with the aspiration to avoid violence but allow for circumstances like self-defense or defense of a vulnerable party.
Second panel: I do agree we shouldn’t give them weapons, at the least not lethal weapons, certainly not military-grade weapons.
Third panel: If you want to be capable of preserving your national sovereignty, having a military is required, therefore justified in that context.
Fourth panel: While the two previous questions logically follow from the position stated in the first panel, the last question makes no sense and is a complete non-sequitur from the stated position. [i.e. “Violence is never a solution” --> “oh, so do you mean it’s a solution in this one case? !? !” <–non-sequitur]
complete non-sequitur
I don’t think I agree? We don’t see a response to the two questions, but it’s implied that the answer to them is no. This then fills out the sequence to get to that point
I understand what the cartoonist is trying to imply–that there are no true pacifists and people who say they’re against violence are hypocrites who actually like violence when it’s used to protect their privileged position. They just didn’t do it right.
First, true pacifists do exist, who would answer “yes” to the first two questions–and which would make the last question ridiculous. So if the cartoonist’s goal was to criticize the hypocrites, they just needed to show the first person answering the first two questions with an unqualified “no” to show they didn’t really mean what they said in the first panel.
I understand what the cartoonist is trying to imply…
I actually don’t think you do. They are a pacifist, as is shown by their desire to demilitarize the world. They clearly think that violence is currently used primarily to maintain the status quo, and they depict that in a negative light quite obviously.
What they were actually implying is that a lot of people claim to be against violence despite, in fact being pro-state-violence
That’s my point and why I say they didn’t do the cartoon right. If they wanted to say what you explained, we’d have to see the first person answering “no”. As it is, the cartoon implies that anyone who says violence isn’t the answer is lying/hypocritical.
the cartoon implies that anyone who says violence isn’t the answer is lying/hypocritical.
No… it doesn’t. By its adversarial nature, it heavily implies the answers “no” to the first two questions.
Like, your main criticism is that the comic doesn’t make any sense if the answer to either question was yes, but that’s the definitive reason I wouldn’t read it that way.
A rhetorical question that you know (or are insisting you “know”) your opponent disagrees with is a very common language trick.
Not a non-sequitur, since she’s suggesting that the second person would believe that police and armies are exceptions to the rule. Given that these are, definitionally, the only parties in most modern states legally allowed to commit violence, and that the primary function of same is to maintain the status quo, be it borders, property, or laws themselves, ths last panel does nearly follow from the previous two. It is certainly a bit of a strawman, though, since he did not actually respond yet. The strawman here, however, is intentional, as a means to suggest to the reader that perhaps violence is justified in more than these two cases.
Yes I believe violence is never the solution, but since there are people out there that don’t share my ideas, I need to keep some police officers around to keep me safe and some military personal to keep my country safe.
this is ironically, a fallacious argument.
The implication here is that violence literally never solves problems. The actual implication is that violence generally doesn’t provide a reasonable solution to problems, which everybody would be inclined to agree with, even in the case of military/police conflicts.
Have a better argument next time :)
I’m having trouble parsing what you’re saying. Who is implying what?
the people who say “violence isnt the option” imply that the issue is that violence never fully solves issues, because it doesnt. That’s true. It only gives you power, which is a useful tool in asserting control, which is ultimately what leads to solutions.
The people who are on the other side, are arguing that this is an absolutist statement, and therefore, must literally mean “violence is not the answer” i.e. you should fuck each other until a solution arises. Which is obviously a facetious argument.
“violence is never the answer” is not a particularly good phrase, but when commonly understand my the broad population, it’s not as problematic. Though it is sort of poetically true.
I mean… I do agree police shouldn’t have weapons. They’re less likely to die at work than an Aborist.
Arm the pizza delivery drivers!
hiro Protagonist with his sword.