Peaceful protests were meant to be a compromise to warn that something worse was coming. Black Panthers. Weather Underground. IRA and Sinn Fein.
Effective peaceful movements had potentially violent components. The more radical elements disappeared and peaceful protests became useless.
Unions were a compromise. Before unions, you’d drag the factory owner into his front lawn and exact justice.
I think this guy hit the nail in the head.
Peaceful protest only works if politicians and financial elite has fear and/or respect towards the commond man/woman. Too much elitisms strips away the respect, too many years of peaceful protests takes away the fear. Sometimes ivory towers need to come down, but violence has a tendency to spread and spiral out of control. It's a balance trick.
Nelson Mandela was released on the terms that he would preach peaceful protest, as the movement he had formerly been leading was a serious threat to the South African Government.
Reverend Martin Luther King Jr was a proponent of peaceful protest, though it could be argued he was losing faith in it near the end when he was assassinated. right after his death, the Holy Week Uprisings occurred, which saw immediate action from the federal government to pass the Civil Rights Act.
At the same time, acts of violence lie on a spectrum, and I think there is a fair amount of conversation to be had about what degree of violence and what type of violence are most effective.
Yeah, Mandela failed, there is nothing like a peaceful protest in SA.
Yea only under the threat of violence has power ever changed hands. You need both peaceful and violent components to any movement to make any change last though.
Also: we've got where we are under threat of violence. Charlottesville and Jan 6 in the USA, the recent gammon riots in the UK, everything Putin does, etc, etc. The Authoritarians have weaponised both peace and violence against us.
The people saying "Violence isn't the answer" are the people who don't want to see anything change
Allow me an argument by Doctor Who: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJP9o4BEziI
You can use violence, but when does it end, and what makes you think you are going to end up better off?
You can use words, but when does it end, and what makes you think you are going to end up better off?
Violence ends when non-violent reforms are able to succeed. The real value of violence is that it makes the non-violent option palatable to the political center.
The doctor was against violence as a principle but he famously uses tons of violence (I guess in the form of trickery) but as a last resort.
House: “fear me, I’ve killed hundreds of time lords”
The Doctor: “fear me, I’ve killed all of them”
The problem here is that the war already started but just one side is really fighting it.
I would be in favour of not starting it too, but it's too late now.
"Violence is not the answer" says country that won its place in the world through violence.
There are PLENTY of examples where violence wasn't the answer. Those moments made gradual changes that didn't have epic struggles with heroic figureheads, so they're boring, they're not obvious, and nobody talks about them.
There are a lot more examples in history where violence was used as a tool to oppress, threaten, conquer, destroy, or completely wipe out, by great and powerful entities.
Violence is sometimes the answer, if used by cool heads on specific targets with plans on what to do afterwards.
The problem with the fetishization of non-violence is that it ignores that most transformative non-violent social movements have occurred concurrently with violent co-movements. Ghandi preached non-violence, but at the same time, violent Hindu radicals were running around slitting the throats of every British official they could get their hands on. MLK preached non-violence, but the Black Panthers were waiting in the wings, offering a much more unpleasant option if MLK failed.
Violent social movements have very real tangible value, but their value isn't in the violence itself. We're not going to change the health insurance system through pure violence, no matter how many CEOs lay dead on the streets of Manhattan.
On the other hand, non-violent social movements rarely succeed either. Even the most modest, centrist, and conciliatory of reforms are derided as extreme or "Communist." Look at Obamacare, a reform designed from the ground up to NOT disrupt the profits of the insurance or healthcare industries. This was a modest market-based reform that was originally a Republican reform plan. The right spent a decade going nuts calling it the second coming of Mao. And they still oppose it to this day. In the end it tinkered around the edges, but it was hardly transformative change.
The real value of violence is that it makes modest peaceful reforms much more palatable. The civil rights amendments and acts passed in the 1960s and 1970s would have never passed if there were only peaceful movements behind them. They amended the damn constitution! That took people on both sides of the aisle saying, "damn, we really need to change some things. This is getting out of hand."
And that kind of broad bipartisan consensus that reform was needed was only possible because of the threat of violence. Violent radicals like the Black Panthers made MLK palatable to middle America. Without them, MLK would have just been another radical socialist to be demonized. And even then, they still killed him anyway.
The real value of violent social movements is that they make non-violent social movements possible. In fact, without violence, non-violent social movements rarely succeed. You need BOTH violence and non-violence if you want to make substantial change to the system. The violence puts the fear of God into the placid middle classes and wealthy corporate interests. This allows the non-violent reformers to show up with a solution to the problem that allows these centrist factions to feel that they're not giving in to the violent radicals. Violence and non-violence are two sides of the same coin. And they are both essential.
It seems the technique you're describing is a kind of societal "good cop, bad cop". Similar scenario to an interrogation too (trying to get information from someone who does not want to share the information) because in this case the challenge is "how to get people to share the capacity for self-determination, quality of living, and dignity when they clearly prefer to hoard it, even to the detriment of others".
Thanks, that's got me thinking
apart of me still holds out that we don't need this type of system to push progress, taking america for example, this will not go well and many lives will be lost as there will be "both sides" and they will stay divided. The propaganda machine from Eurasia has worked. There plans are moving quite well, and i for one, will not play into that hand.
"If you will not listen to us, you will have to talk with THEM".
Non-violence is often and most effectively a direct threat of imminent violence.
Or as a promise for the cessation of ongoing violence.
Violence is always a valid answer. It's just not always the best answer. The problem with violence is it's been proven time and time again to be impossible to control and hold to a limited use since there are no cool heads at that point. Nor do specific targets exist-- just collateral damage.
And no successful revolutionary has ever had a sound plan for after the victory beyond "I want the power now." And they can either hold the power or not. But the idea of "for the good of the people" gets put to the side pretty quickly.
with plans on what to do afterwards.
True. You always need a plan what to do after success.
There are entire Game Theory textbooks dedicated to grappling with the question of when and how one engages in violence. Because broadly speaking, violence is bad. The destructive social forces inhibit socio-economic development, degrade global quality of life, propagate disease, and cause catastrophic shortfalls of critical goods and services.
Whether you're working at the micro-scale of domestic abuse or the macro-scale of the bombing of Hiroshima, you're talking about a gross net negative for everyone involved.
But if a detente is one-sided, or a violent actor is free to act uninhibited, there are huge immediate rewards for looting and pillaging your neighbors, pressing ganging people into forced labor, and seizing neighboring property at gunpoint. It works great for perpetrators who engage in violence unchecked. Its only a problem when the perpetrator runs into a countervailing force.
But then over the long term, the violence takes an increasing toll. People don't build in neighborhoods that they think will be bombed. They don't invest in communities that are fracturing and falling apart. They don't befriend people they feel they can't trust or work alongside people they're terrified of.
Go look at Yugoslavia before and after the wars of the 1990s. Huge unified economy capable of operating on par with France or Italy, only to be splintered by violence and reduced to a near-pre-industrial state for over a decade. Who won the Yugoslav Wars? Who benefited from Bosnians and Serbians and Albanians and Croats pounding their plowshares into swords and slaughtering one another?
People talk about a "Peace Dividend" and you can see it in any country that's avoided a protracted military conflict for a generation or more. You can't be a successful country if you're always trying to hold one another at gunpoint.
I really like your comment. Gave me lots to think about. I don't have much to say in return, other than that, and that your comment is really well written. I don't find many comments on here that are a pleasure to read; most long ones are incoherent rambling, or canned talking points.
Thanks for providing something for my brain to chew on and making it palatable.
Very wise, you should reincarnate as a 2nd century Chinese warlord
China's a great example of the Peace Dividend in action. You get a generation or two of peace and the country explodes with riches - both physical infrastructure and flowering culture.
Then warlords start poaching the wealth of the nation and the country plunges down into poverty, famine, and epidemic, immolating decades of social process.
After the burn out, you get a peaceful renaissance, and the country flowers again like a forest after a wildfire.
The US is a successful country and has almost always been at war.
Britain at its peak was holding 10s of countries at gunpoint.
Violence works best if you are much much stronger than the other party.
The US is a successful country and has almost always been at war.
The areas of the US that are most successful are those most insulated from social conflict. Areas that are subjected to state violence through overpolicing or are left to flounder in the face of industrial abuse, mafia violence, or unchecked domestic violence do much worse. Comparing Ferguson, MO to neighboring St. Louis illustrates this dynamic. One neighborhood is alternately brutalized by the city police and left exposed to domestic crime, dragging its socio-economic state into the gutter. The other is judiciously policed and socially supported by state and private largess, resulting in a far healthier and happier population.
Britain at its peak was holding 10s of countries at gunpoint.
And those countries suffered immensely. Meanwhile, Britain itself endured pockets of chronic crime and substance abuse specifically in areas that hosted military bases and other enclaves. The country saw an explosion in wealth inequality during its economic peak with the new wealth almost entirely accruing to the aristocracy. Victorian England was a hellhole for the Dickensian proletariat.
"Violence is bad" statements are in the same vein as "stove is hot". Both are told to children because they cannot properly gauge the consequeces of using it, but are naive and condescending when told to adults.
Violence is bad but sometimes it's needed.
A hot stove has it's uses as well.
To quote the onion, violence is never the answer, if you ignore all of human history.
A notable uptick in web queries for "guillotine for sale" is not a DDoS.
just a good ol fashioned foreshadowin'
Anyone who believes that violence doesn't solve anything has clearly never paid attention.
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Whenever violence is involved, either both sides are violent, or violence wins.
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When neither side is violent, violence is not the answer.
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Now both sides look at #1 and ponder if the other side is ready to be violent.
I think killing people through apathetic business practices that are specifically designed to maximize profit over human life is not just murder, it's genocide.
I also believe that a justice system that is curtailing law for the wealthy based on some sense of increased personal worth compared to that of a "lowly commoner" goes against the fabric of our nation and is a personal attack against the culture of our country. I also believe that anyone lending support to these traitors are themselves traitorous filth that deserves to be imprisoned in a public gallows to send a message that that behavior will no longer be tolerated.
short answer though, yes violence begets violence.
As many people say, the horror of the Nazis wasn't just that they killed so many people, but that they industrialized it, turned it into an inhuman factory process like they were mass-producing shoes.
In a similar way we have modern corporations that have brought neo liberal styles to the idea of murder. Instead of the industrial style of the Nazis, this style serves to alienate the murder from the murderer, putting a price tag on deaths and profiting from the lives they're destroying all veiled by the size of these companies and the corporate double-speak that places all the lives they have control over into their sterile profit-centered game they play.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategy_of_tension
a political policy wherein violent struggle is encouraged rather than suppressed. The purpose is to create a general feeling of insecurity in the population and make people seek security in a strong government.
🤔
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Pacifism is only good for aggressors and cowards
Non-violence != Pacifism
A person can be an advocate for non-violence and not be a pacifist. No need to conflate the two, particularly when people have so much hate and vitriol for any perceived pacifism.
Arguably, accepting the necessity of occasional violent protest is more reasonable than giving up pacifism.
The answer is violence, but to advocate for peace in principle.
Peace and principle... or else
The answer is obviously codifying the position of power that violence granted you in a set of laws, hoping they won't be challenged by further violence
There's a lot of evidence that says that non-violent resistance is more often effective, and when it is effective it's more effective, than violent-based resistance.
Can't grab the source info link at the moment, but this video talks about it.
Edit:
https://cup.columbia.edu/book/why-civil-resistance-works/9780231156820
https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/about/civil-resistance/
non-violent resistance is more often effective
It's only ever effective when a credible violent alternative is present.
No oppressed person in history has ever gotten their rights by appealing to the better nature of their oppressor.
Civil rights weren't won when black people asked politely and just moving everyone's hearts at how unjustly they were being treated, when MLK died, he had a 75% disapproval rating. Civil rights were won through repeated demonstrations of power and showing what would happen if their demands weren't met.
You're jumping the gun and assuming a lot.
Please read more about what I am talking about before assuming what I am saying.
https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/about/civil-resistance/
A few questions for the study:
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What's the data source? If they're just doing news reports and traditional history that can hide a lot of failed non-violent protests. A non violent protest, especially one against the medias interests, is way less likely to show up in the historical record then a violent insurrection. Only the successful movements like the civil rights movement will get mentioned on the non-violent side whereas every insurrection or riot, successful or not, is captured in the historical record.
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What's the breakdown by method? It seems they're including strikes in this which has a very high success rate and high occurrence, so much so it could drown out all the failed protests.
The book's methodologies: https://www.ericachenoweth.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/WCRW-Appendix.pdf
The data set:
https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.7910/DVN/MHOXDV
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Random, generalizing comment:
The people saying "Violence isn't the answer" are the people who don't want to see anything change
50 upvotes. Comment actually based on real data that happens to show that the original premise is actually wrong: 0 upvotes. Why is Lemmy exactly like Reddit? I thought people coming here were a bit more aware of ideologies etc.
The real data you like is arguing the Nazis were more effectively defeated through non violence.
1900-2006? This past century has literally been humanity's most transformative ever, and this chart is just glomming all the data together. We'd need to see trends of how these have changed over time to get a realistic picture.
Well, when you only look at that one image alone and not any of the rest of the information and studies that accompany it, I can see why you'd make that hasty judgement.
Maybe go read more of the vast amounts of information available on it: https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/about/civil-resistance/
Further reading: How Nonviolence Protects the State
I haven't read it yet but I read another book by that author
Everyone knows violence isn't the answer....its the question. And the answer is yes!
I thought we were supposed to learn from history and NOT repeat it.
Learn from history and do it better this time
yeah, and although sometimes violence is required sometimes, its best we avoid that.
It’s a double edged sword, because people who you don’t agree with will resort to violence as well. Like the Taliban.
Violence is not the answer. It is the question, and the answer is YES
History nerd here, can confirm.
Predictably, people are arguing if violence can be an answer. But the best rule of thumb is "speak softly, but carry a big stick". If peaceful demonstration and diplomacy ran its course, then violence is the only path forward. I mean, the abolition of slavery in the United States could never be done by peaceful means (unlike what UK had done) so war was the only way.
If brute force doesn't work, you're not doing it enough
Maxim 6: If violence wasn't your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it.
My Abeka Book history book says God destined America to succeed, so I think you guys might be overreacting.
Violence leads to counter-violence.
The only thing that will improve something is to put meaning into the world.
Your statement is too vague to convey an actionable suggestion. I'm intrigued by the thought you seem to be hinting at. Would you expand on this, include a recommended method, and reason about why it's an alternative to violence?
I'm very tired and had a long day so I'll keep it short:
A lot of people (myself included) have difficulty listening to authorities. But if i can see the deeper meaning and benefit of a rule, it's easy for me to keep to it. That is what i mean by putting "meaning(ful rules) into the world".
On the other hand, if somebody gives out commands without explaining the reasoning behind them, i will often complain, revolt or otherwise try to undermine the authority. That is what i mean by "violence leads to counterviolence".
I hope that was clear enough.
For sane news, that covers important domestic and international news on a daily basis, look at PBS Newshour or Democracy Now on YouTube. Sane. Journalistic. Thoughtful.
Abandon the legacy billionaire media, but don't abandon journalism.
Violence is the question? Right?
It really isn't though. It's always two steps forward three steps back. Anything good that arises out of the destruction, always comes at an immense cost, and usually corrupts the revolutionary leaders who made it happen.
Is there any violent revolution in history for which genuine peace followed in the immediate aftermath?
I think violence is often necessary. But I wouldn't say it's ever the right answer.
Is there any violent revolution in history for which genuine peace followed in the immediate aftermath?
Most of them, depending on your definition of immediate.
A few weeks to months following the rebellion. Maybe a year at most.
It's different if the rebellion does not itself topple the structures of government. I'm talking about violent coups specifically I suppose, not a bit of violent protesting that motivates an existing government to act.
Maybe look into how we ended up with 8-hour workdays and weekends… Hint: it was not through peaceful, polite negotiations with the ruling class…
Okay, but I'm talking about violent coups really. Not just not-so-peaceful protests.
Even so, it seems violence didn't help the Union movement all that much either. I'm no expert though of course.
We overthrown Pinochet with music and in the polls and since then most of our problems have been resolved in the polls too.
Democracy is the answer.
fall of the berlin wall...not a single shot was fired.
this sounds like a genZ meme
