thread: 2005-05-16 : Violence
On 2005-05-17, Mark wrote:
Boy, this is moving faster than I can stay with it.
Christopher, your recent definitional post tears it. You're conflating a whole bunch of stuff under one umbrella. Your "freshman hypothetical" to me above is just one example. There is a non-violent answer to that situation: You restrain the aggressor to the best of your ability. What you do not do is escalate. If he lets you pull him off without harm, you don't beat him down. If you do, you use the least amount of force necessary to _prevent_ his violence. I'd like to think - in your example - that I would place myself between the agressor and his prey. Forcibly, if need be.
And because we live in an imperfect world, we sometimes do resort to force when we don't genuinely have to. That doesn't make it right, and it certainly doesn't make it (or our capacity for it) something to celebrate.
Gotta run and do some gaming.
Mark
