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A GDST For What Even Is a Violence
ElJeffe
Registered User, ClubPA regular
Registered User, ClubPA regular
Here is a place where y'all can argue about the definition of violence to your hearts' content.
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ElJeffe on
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I find the "Violence is defined as anything we don't like" argument less than compelling when it's used to advocate for complete surrender in the face of genocide and inaction to prompt said surrender because what if people don't voluntarily ship out fertilizer and people voluntarily choosing to not sell fertilizer is violence against developing nations and really, how can you possibly justify violence against developing nations?????
But that's just me. I am possessed of a distinct lack of vision in these matters.
As such I usually ask people to clarify what THEY mean when they use a word because asking what THE WORD MEANS is not the point.
Yes, people know that.
ok thread solved
I'm pretty ok for using qualifiers like 'emotional' violence for emotional assault that causes emotional trauma and harm, but diluting violence to mean anything you don't like because you prefer it to harm is a strange choice.
And harm doesn't mean lesser than violence. I'd rather someone violently punch me in the stomach than harm me by Enroning my 401k. The latter would cause me much more harm, even if it's not a definitionally violent act.
It's OK for words to mean things.
It is, blisteringly, taco when words at least have a cordial defenestration.
We’ll see you around then, peace out dogg.
We should make another spin off thread to be sure
Not adhering to prescriptivism does not mean words have no generally acknowledged meanings within a society. The very definition of descriptivism still puts forth the idea that how words are used in a culture defines them.
For at least the second time
I'm pretty sure it's a purple flower.
Harm and Violence are related, but not the same.
Is both Harmful and Violent at times
edit: ilu
wait does this mean yes they know or no they don't know then
wait what did I even type
This very forum has had multiple people espousing this exact logic chain when speaking from a left wing perspective:
"Surrendering to genocide is ideal, because if they don't surrender and get genocided quietly, the people doing the genociding are going to voluntarily not sell fertilizer to third parties, which is violence against those third parties, and who are we to decide that those third parties deserve that violence being done to them?"
So, again, I find this "Violence actually has a very variable definition in left wing writing" argument less than compelling.
counterpoint: "moist"
Im confused by what your objection is here. You saw someone write something in another thread once so uh ok? People have different opinions, including among the political left idk what to tell you man.
Ok?
It seems that, tactically, that suffers from going up against what people understand the word to mean. If you tell me my employer is committing violence towards people and I'm like, wait, what, please explain, and you go on to say that they drive housing prices up, thus making it harder for some people to buy houses and thus nominally increasing homeless rates, I'm probably going to nod and smile until you go away. If, instead, you explain why this fairly standard economic practice is actually doing immense harm to people and contributing to social decay, now I'm going to take you seriously. And in the time it takes you to explain why making housing more expensive is Violent, Actually, you could just as well be explaining the harm without having to redefine English words.
I'm just firmly of a mindset that it's better to expand your understanding of an issue rather than beat words into new shapes for purposes of waging a rhetorical battle.
If you're going to play word games, maybe work on stripping connotations from words thar shouldn't have them. Like the way "capitalism" has been taken to mean a necessarily positive thing, rather than just a value neutral word that describes an economic system.
Which feels like it degrades the language.
This has nothing to do with one is defining violence, but rather viewing whether violence is justifiable or not so narrowly as to argue that violence is unjustifiable even if done in self-defense.
To which I say: Literally who is putting forth that it is more acceptable for people to allow themselves to be exterminated than to use violence to defend themselves.
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Like our legal code, what we regard as violence doesnt really care much about the actual harm done, and is heavily weighted in service of class interests.
If all harm through systems you disagree with are "committing violence" to a population you can then state that is okay for that population to rise in violence in response. When the goal is for a violent revolution or the use of violence to correct systems it is in the interest of those who promote that to turn around and label systems as violent first to reduce the argument that they are striking first.
Let's take the foreclosure argument. Foreclosure is extremely harmful to people involved. It is a long process with off ramps that exist and many times lead to poor outcomes for folks. If we describe this as a violent action of the bank against the homeowner then the homeowner is in the right to fight back with equal or greater violence to defend themselves. A violent response to a legal economic event which is horrible but exists in a system as a known possible outcome.
What would be preferable is a more fair legal framework where those off ramps are easier to obtain, help is granted, and the harm is reduced or negated as much as possible especially with outside circumstances occur.
But the baseline is when you start labeling it all as violence you produce reason to rise in violence. And it isn't really about if the even is violent or not but a recruitment pitch.
I think this is a very compelling case for the notion that we have elevated violence to be the ultimate evil when, in fact, it isn't.
As was said earlier, I'd rather be punched in the face than have someone fuck with my retirement savings.
Violence is bad. It's not the ultimate bad unless you take it to the extreme of murder.
And really, you're kind of playing into the right's notion of violence as the Very Worst Thing. Rob a liquor store at gunpoint, that's (threat of) violence and you go to prison for 10 years. Embezzlement that results in the financial ruin of a thousand people, eh, little white collar crime, 18 months.
Yes, but nobody would say violent long term exposure to the sun's rays harms the rickety roof even though that may have been the underlying cause of the collapse in the first place.
It think its kind of hard to build a serious movement towards social justice in as deeply a class stratified society as ours without a pretty serious reexamination of way and nature of the victimization it inflicts.
To be clear, I am all for such a serious reexamination.
Just, you know, using the word definitions we already have. 😉
Nothing's stopping you from doing that with the words already at your disposal.
Yeah, as a bit of an internet tough guy I far prefer a threat that sounds like I can punch it back. Violence isn't as scary a term when you can do it in return.
Yes, I havent invented any new words.