Dangerous topic?

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

So the othernight I was discussed non-violence. I was surprised when there was some disagreement in the group about what NVDA (non-violent direct action) was and was not.

The key question was that of property damage. Does destroying property count as violence or must violence be perpetrated against a person?

So we could all agree that if group X wanted to engage in NVDA against wal-mart, there are many ways they could do it. Picket, protest, boycott are easy example.
Clearly that'd be OK and it'd be NVDA. If they went after the Walton family (or just each stores local manager) with axes, that'd be violent, and NOT okay.

But would destroying their property, say, by slashing the tires on all their trucks, would that be VIOLENT or not?

Personally I feel that such property damage is violent. Be it throwing blood on a fur coat (which also affects the person) or destroying the factory of an evil company (assume the factory is empty) these actions are violent, albeit violence for a good end. That doesn't justify it, but I'm not asking here if you think it's good or bad, just trying to get input from others about what they think of as violent and what they see as non-violent.

Comments

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Slashing their tires would commit great violence upon the meaning and intent of NVDA.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

But let me guess, you get a bunch of white kids with college degrees sitting around a table and they start dissecting it like its an analytic term, rather than say, looking at the history and intent of the concept as expressed in history and movement. Damn white kids.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Nice. Unbridled racism.
Stay classy.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Some disagree, but OK, that's where you stand on this issue.

Is defacing their bathroom also violent?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Destroying property can absolutely count as violence. Especially if the property in question is things like food, shelter, or privately-owned wells.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

What's the limit then? Does bathroom graffiti count as violence?

[vnsplshr.livejournal.com]

"Does destroying property count as violence or must violence be perpetrated against a person?"

It's all destructive... so it's violent enough.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Destruction = Violence

Always?

If I burn a cigarette, am I destroying it? I am engaging in violence?

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Violence is subjective.

Some could argue that destroying the earth for a profit is violent.

Martin Luther King felt that poverty is a form of violence.

So, it greatly depends upon who you ask.

"Let us put our trust in the eternal spirit which destroys and annihilates only because it is the unsearchable and eternally creative source of all life. The urge to destroy is also a creative urge" - Mikhail Bakunin.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

"It doesn't mean that I advocate violence, but at the same time, I am not against using violence in self-defense. I don't call it violence when it's self-defense, I call it intelligence." -Malcolm X

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

I would even contest the "good end" part, because unless you're one who is predisposed to this kind of violence in the first place, the advancement of whatever the good message you're trying to make is well lost and buried to most people underneath several feet of crazy.

And if by some odd chance one is successful in advancing your message through violence, then it will be married with violence in the ones you have advanced it to as well, and now you have a violent mob, also not considered to be healthy for society.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

So destroying documents in a draft office--that's violence? and it will be buried to most people under several feet of crazy?

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

I would even contest the "good end" part. . . .

Bingo. If you pretend that there is no good and no evil, everything comes into perspective. In other words, if you regard something done to you as violent, but done by you as a merely destructive act undertaken for a "good" end, you are mistaken. The problem: Everyone holds a different definition of what is "good."

Consider any act under the precepts defined by the Silver Rule, and you'll be fine. Including graffiti and tire slashing.

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

If I burn your house down, that is an act of violence even if you are comletely unharmed. People who argue otherwise need to be beaten with a ball peen hammer until they agree.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Can you give me necessary and sufficient criteria for action X being violent?

[notmrgarrison.livejournal.com]

Violent being bad doesn't mean non-violent isn't bad. You can't have non-violent always being good without seriously stretching the meaning of the word violence.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Yeah...I didn't say any of that.

Neither did I claim NVDA was superior or inferior to VDA

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

I would work at an Evil Factory.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

huhh?

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Yes, damaging property is violence.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Those that think violence against property is not violent can kindly explain to me how these three incidents in US history got blown up into the second coming of Genghis Khan:

http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-641

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-march-to-the-sea-begins

http://sciway3.net/clark/civilwar/march.html

http://ngeorgia.com/history/march_to_the_sea.html

http://www.civilwartraveler.com/EAST/NC/CarolinasCampaign.html

http://www.civilwarnorthcarolina.com/carolina.html

http://www.exploresouthernhistory.com/wilsonsraid.html

http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-3356

http://www.civilwar-va.com/EAST/VA/va-southside/wilson-kautz.html

But not these, given what actually happened here?

http://cwmemory.com/2006/06/18/the-crater-massacre/

http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/h/a/c/Ronald-D-Hackett/FILE/0007page.html

http://housedivided.dickinson.edu/grandreview/2010/04/06/usct-at-the-battle-of-milliken%E2%80%99s-bend-june-7-1863/

http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/battles_fort_pillow_1864.html

http://www.missourihills.com/html/order_number_11.html

http://southernheritage411.com/truehistory.php?th=095

____________

I mean the guy in my icon only burned property, same with Wilson. But all the instances of actual massacres of human beings by both sides were forgotten? If violence against property does not really qualify as violence, how could this be?

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

The history books are not an accurate account of history.
It's written by the victors. You should know this. It's not difficult.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

"Violence" suffers the same semantic problem as "libel" and "slander." One cannot libel someone unless the harmful statement is written and published. Likewise, one's op-ed of hate is not "slander;" one's whispered defamation of character is.

I don't believe one can be "violent" to non-living entities. Rather, one can be "destructive." Even graffiti is destruction.

Oh, and one more thing. Ends have nothing to do with it. When it comes to judging the destructiveness of vandalism, one need not regard the motive of the destroyer any more than a rapist can defend his act with "Bitch had it coming." Defacing a building with paint contrary to the wishes of the owners is destructive regardless of whether that building is Evil, Inc. or The Superfriends' Clubhouse.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

It depends on the non-living object in question. If the object is non-living but just so happens to be the kind that if destroyed leads to mass starvation and refugee crises like say, farms, food supplies, water mains, hospital equipment.....