"Violence has never solved anything!" True or False?

[poppy]

In response to today's riots in Baltimore, a facebook friend wrote "Violence has never solved anything!"

My immediate thought was "What about the American Revolution?"
I didn't post that - it was not the time or place.
But I wanted to pose the question to the Hive.

Not specifically about the riots today, more in general.  It's an interesting topic.

Has violent civil disobedience ever been a positive?

 

 

 

*My heart goes out to anyone who has been personally affected by violence. I am lucky to say I have not. If this topic is too touchy I will ask for it be removed*.

[creekland]

I feel for Baltimore.  Those getting the destruction now have absolutely nothing to do with the cause.  They are pure victims of it all.

 

It has to be pretty rare for violent civil disobedience to be something I can support - on the level with protecting more than are getting hurt - like with Hitler and WWII.

 

This is not what's going on now.  Not even close.

 

The American Revolution?  I'm not even sure that was worth the means.  

[mom2bee]

Its hard to say because if you and I have a dispute and lets say that you whip out a pistol and end the dispute. Well your problem, from your point of view has been solved. I'm no longer opposing you. Either because I've conceded, been wounded or killed. YOUR problem has been solved, but not mine, even though we both had a problem with the same thing.

 

So, while violence can't solve both opponents problems, it can solve at least one groups problem so to say that violence has never solved anything is not true. The American continents were taken forcibly from the people who lived here--the use of violence by the Europeans/Whites against the native Americans solved the European/White problem of getting the land. WW2 did not end in a group hug. Civil Rights within the US were not the result of STRICTLY non-violence.

 

There are hundreds of theoretical non-violent ways to resolve virtually every conflict that humans have ever found themselves in. But they usually go against humans innate nature.

[Aura]

In perfect world, the answer would be "no." But we live in a messed up world, and sometimes, some people will only listen to and respond to physical force. I think the American Revolution would be a good example of that. Someone breaking into your home and being met with the business end of a shotgun might be another, thought this doesn't usually qualify as "civil disobedience."

[SproutMamaK]

I think violence has solved lots of things. That's why wars exist. It's certainly not always a solution; more often than not, violence is the problem itself, or it exacerbates the problems. But I can't say it's NEVER solved anything. When there are issues thatone or both parties are unwilling/unable to solve via reasoned discussion, or when the consequences of NOT taking violent action are greater than the consequences of the violence itself, I think it can potentially be a solution. In a perfect world it would never happen, but in a perfect world it would never be necessary either.

 

I will say, though, that I think SENSELESS violence, such as (imo) what we're seeing in Baltimore, has never solved anything.

[ChocolateReignRemix]

Violence has certainly solved problems.  Sometimes while doing so it has created others.  Sometimes it has failed.

 

[PinkyandtheBrains.]

Historically, violence has often been used to initiate change.

[Melissa in Australia]

violence sometimes leads to revolution. But mostly violence leads to lots of mess and people getting unnecessarily hurt.

[Guest]

It's solved lots of things, but not in the senseless, destructive rioting format chosen here. Angry, aimless, belligerent mobs don't solve problems. They just create new ones, in addition to what they're protesting.

[HS Mom in NC]

My daughter takes Tae Kwon Do to learn a discipline, engage in the culture of her birth country and for those rare situations when violence can solve a problem. I hope she won't have to use it to solve a problem, but she's got it if she needs it. 

[Guest]

Never mind.

[PinkyandtheBrains.]

It's solved lots of things, but not in the senseless, destructive rioting format chosen here. Angry, aimless, belligerent mobs don't solve problems. They just create new ones, in addition to what they're protesting.

 

There is quite a bit of senseless, angry, rioting, and looting during revolutions, including ours. 

 

 

 

I can't say I like it, but there is plenty of historical precedent.

 

[idnib]

Has violent civil disobedience ever been a positive?

 

Hmmm. This is a different question than your title. For your title, I would say violence solves problems, unfortunately. Not all problems all the time, but I would find it disingenuous to say it solves no problems anytime. It obviously doesn't solve the problem for the recipient.

 

I also think there's a difference between instigating violent civil disobedience and using it for self-defense. The gray area comes in when people feel that their rights and/or humanity are in peril and that violence is a valid self-defense even if they have not been physically attacked.

[Ausmumof3]

Yes. It can solve things. It's not always the best way to solve things. It often creates other problems that are worse than the ones it solves. Often the solution costs more than it's worth. Even if it did solve the problem, does the end ever justify the means?

[SparklyUnicorn]

Unfortunately, yes. 

 

edited

 

I meant unfortunately that sometimes it does solve things.

 

 

[PinkyandtheBrains.]

Yes. It can solve things. It's not always the best way to solve things. It often creates other problems that are worse than the ones it solves. Often the solution costs more than it's worth. Even if it did solve the problem, does the end ever justify the means?

 

I think this is a valid question.

 

The American Revolution started out with small violent protests, riots and skirmishes. It resulted in a full revolution and what is now the U.S.A.   Many other revolutions and wars, ending up with profound changes (new countries, overhaul of those in charge etc) started with riots and violent protests.  Are the changes worth the violence it took to obtain them? 

 

 

I personally would love to see peaceful, nonviolent change. 

[Reefgazer]

I think it can in certain circumstances.  Mostly no, but sometimes, yes.

[ChocolateReignRemix]

I will Godwin the thread by invoking the Nazis.

 

Was there any other way to stop Hitler than violence?

[Joanne]

"Violent civil disobedience" is an oxymoron to me. The term "civil disobedience" implies to me a non violent tactic.

 

And in terms of the OP question: Define solve?

[AimeeM]

Not in this manner. It isn't organized and they haven't a specific target. They can say it's the police, but they are targeting their own community as well, which makes no sense if the goal of this was to bring peace to their area (which is what someone claimed they were trying to do). 

 

Destroying your own community, putting at risk your neighbors, hurting innocents, stealing from your neighbors, and damaging public property paid for by your own tax dollars makes about ZERO sense

 

Hurting yourself and others, to protest someone being hurt, makes about as much sense as blowing up an occupied abortion clinic to protest murder. On the Makes-Sense-O-Meter, this would rate "none."

[Murphy101]

False.

 

Sad reality.

 

ETA bc wifi got interrupted. But how necessary it is in some situations does not mean it should be then be an accepted default either.

 

And I don't think these riots are doing anything to help their cause at all.

[Mergath]

Violence may solve an immediate, short term problem, but it usually only escalates the long term issues that caused the problem in the first place. 

[LucyStoner]

False. And I say this as the child of very active activists who preached, taught and lived non-violence. It may not be the best first option, but sometimes it's the only option.

 

I say that yes, sometimes violence is the answer.

 

This is all general, not a discussion on what I think of the riots in Baltimore.

 

Also, while sometimes it is not a good option, it is unfortunately often an inevitable outcome. To quote Jello Biafra from the Home Alive cd I dug out after some recent threads here:

 

‎â€Some day, even the experts will figure out, that crime is not caused by rap music…or even my music, but by a power structure of self-absorbed property owners so brain dead and stupid they won’t even see that if you’re too ******* greedy to pay taxes for schools and services, they’re not going to be any good any more! And that uneducated time bombs are a very poor investment as a future work force. And if you go on teaching people that life is cheap, and leave them to rot in ghettos and jails, they may one day feel justified in coming back to rob and kill you. Duh!â€

 

This is the part that resonates with me the most:

‎

And if you go on teaching people that life is cheap, and leave them to rot in ghettos and jails, they may one day feel justified in coming back to rob and kill you.

 

It doesn't mean that they are justified, but I can see why people feel that rage. I could have been an uneducated time bomb myself at one point.

[LisaKinVA]

There are times violence does solve a problem. I've seen it throughout my life.

[creekland]

I suspect violence will be the only way to (possibly) stop ISIS and feel that's a similar situation to Hitler and the rest of WWII.

 

I just don't consider efforts to stop those those Violent Civil Disobedience.

 

From what I see going on, those in Baltimore (and Ferguson earlier) are doing FAR more damage to their cause than help.  Then there are their communities they are hurting - real people who own real businesses and insurance doesn't pay in situations like these.  When protests were peaceful the common comments were (mostly) positive.  Now the common comments I'm seeing are more akin to racism raising its ugly head and spreading.  That's the polite way I can put it. (sigh)

[Sneezyone]

Non-violence is the plea of the brutal master who discovers himself at the wrong end of a pitchfork (see Rameses). If violent, civil disobedience never worked, we'd still be British subjects.

[creekland]

 If violent, civil disobedience never worked, we'd still be British subjects.

 

I doubt it.  Britain has allowed oodles of colonies to become independent - many without any sort of violence whatsoever.  It might not have happened in the 1700s, but to suggest we'd still be British subjects is stretching way too far IMO.

[MotherGoose]

I don't think you can compare the violence in Baltimore, much of which seems to be perpetrated by people who are being violent for the sake of violence, looting, destroying things, to the American Revolution, which was a war, fought with rules, between two countries. There were meetings, there were discussions. There were attempts to do something else first. People didn't just start behaving violently without even having all the facts. I don't think that the looting in Baltimore or Ferguson, especially when it's done to people in the community in which the protested event happened, has ONE THING to do with civil disobedience. It's just an opportunity for people who want to destroy things to have an excuse to do so. Not to say there weren't people who disobeyed the rules in the Revolution, or in any war.

 

ETA: Sorry my memories of the Swamp Fox and such were rusty this morning.  I know they didn't line up and march towards each other.  

[IsabelC]

In response to today's riots in Baltimore, a facebook friend wrote "Violence has never solved anything!"

My immediate thought was "What about the American Revolution?"

I didn't post that - it was not the time or place.

But I wanted to pose the question to the Hive.

Not specifically about the riots today, more in general.  It's an interesting topic.

Has violent civil disobedience ever been a positive?

 

 

 

*My heart goes out to anyone who has been personally affected by violence. I am lucky to say I have not. If this topic is too touchy I will ask for it be removed*.

 

 

In response to the general question, my gut instinct would be that peaceful protest is always preferable. However I need to check my privilege and consider that it's very easy for me to *say* that violence is always wrong, when I'm speaking from the privileged position of never having been in a situation anywhere near desperate enough to warrant 'violent civil disobedience'.

 

To the specific current situation, I'm still confused about what is really going on in Baltimore. On the one hand, it's described as a justified protest against appalling institutionalized racism, but the news that I'm hearing (which may or may not be accurate) is that it's mostly people looting stores and burning things. To my mind, breaking into a liquor store and stealing alcohol just doesn't come under the heading of "protest" - it's just burglary.

[SporkUK]

I find it telling that I see many people, particularly in the media, are saying this to the rioters, but no one is saying this to the police. I mean, they beat someone in custody so bad his spine snapped, the current rate in the US for a black person being killed by a police officer or in police custody has risen to a staggering 3 people per day. 3 black people every day has been the rates since just before the beginning of the year - that is a staggering amount of violence and the police who are doing that seem to think their violence is solving something...

 

And that's before we get into how the media portrays the events vs how people on the ground are. The media often portrays these things as aimless and violence for violence when it is one group of people and something else entirely when it is another. There have been repeated far more random riots after sports matches that created far greater amounts of property damage in the last year with very few batting an eye - some in the media even chuckled it off as good fun, and yet people pushed to the brink after over 5 deaths of black people by Baltimore police in the last month alone seems that are being silenced and justice unserved seems to be repeatedly being told they need to be "more civil". Personally, the ways things currently are, I think something big and disruptive is what it is going to take to change anything. 

[poppy]

I don't think you can compare the violence in Baltimore, much of which seems to be perpetrated by people who are being violent for the sake of violence, looting, destroying things, to the American Revolution, which was a war, fought with rules, between two countries. There were meetings, there were discussions. There were attempts to do something else first. People didn't just start behaving violently without even having all the facts. I don't think that the looting in Baltimore or Ferguson, especially when it's done to people in the community in which the protested event happened, has ONE THING to do with civil disobedience. It's just an opportunity for people who want to destroy things to have an excuse to do so. Not to say there weren't people who disobeyed the rules in the Revolution, or in any war.

 

Do you think the people in Baltimore don't have all the fact?

 

[creekland]

 

There have been repeated far more random riots after sports matches that created far greater amounts of property damage in the last year with very few batting an eye  

 

Those I'm around think these are crazy too and lose their affinity for teams when they happen.  Maybe I just hang around unusual circles.  I've yet to see anyone who feels these are good or who laugh them off.

 

But Baltimore?  We're an hour and a half away.  Around here people who USED to feel sorry for people in the area due to the Freddie Gray incident and were seeing the injustice of it all now aren't nearly so sympathetic - to put it mildly.

 

How is that helping?

 

I've been watching NBC this morning and think they've been doing a good job at showing what's going on, good, bad, and ugly.  They are showing the good (people cleaning up - local faith leaders coming together to try to help on scene, etc), but human nature - esp for those who only catch news tidbits - is to focus on the bad.  They focused on the Freddie Gray injustice UNTIL something worse came along like this violence.  Now they are dismissing or care less about the original injustice.  And again, that's putting it mildly (for some).

[Leav97]

Those I'm around think these are crazy too and lose their affinity for teams when they happen.  Maybe I just hang around unusual circles.  I've yet to see anyone who feels these are good or who laugh them off.

 

But Baltimore?  We're an hour and a half away.  Around here people who USED to feel sorry for people in the area due to the Freddie Gray incident and were seeing the injustice of it all now aren't nearly so sympathetic - to put it mildly.

 

How is that helping?

 

I've been watching NBC this morning and think they've been doing a good job at showing what's going on, good, bad, and ugly.  They are showing the good (people cleaning up - local faith leaders coming together to try to help on scene, etc), but human nature - esp for those who only catch news tidbits - is to focus on the bad.  They focused on the Freddie Gray injustice UNTIL something worse came along like this violence.  Now they are dismissing or care less about the original injustice.  And again, that's putting it mildly (for some).

 

But, are they really.  90+% of the protests were peaceful.  Is 90% of the broadcast dedicated to the peaceful protest?

[Nan in Mass]

Its hard to say because if you and I have a dispute and lets say that you whip out a pistol and end the dispute. Well your problem, from your point of view has been solved. I'm no longer opposing you. Either because I've conceded, been wounded or killed. YOUR problem has been solved, but not mine, even though we both had a problem with the same thing.

 

So, while violence can't solve both opponents problems, it can solve at least one groups problem so to say that violence has never solved anything is not true. The American continents were taken forcibly from the people who lived here--the use of violence by the Europeans/Whites against the native Americans solved the European/White problem of getting the land. WW2 did not end in a group hug. Civil Rights within the US were not the result of STRICTLY non-violence.

 

There are hundreds of theoretical non-violent ways to resolve virtually every conflict that humans have ever found themselves in. But they usually go against humans innate nature.

I really like your post. I especially like the the part about there being two sides to every problem and violence only solving one side. (At least two sides...)

 

This is why non-violence is NOT the coward's way out. And why it is so important. It will require a huge amount of strength. It will require cultural change. Now that the human race has weapons powerful enough to destroy the world (or at least the thin layer of life on its surface), I believe our only hope is to make this cultural change to non-violence and we need to make it quickly. It is at the core of most of the world's religions. We have made a good start. (Looking at it from an anthropological standpoint.)

 

As far as these riots go - who threw the first stone?

 

Nan

[Sneezyone]

Do you consider the ideas of the Magna Carta a product of violence? Or just the manner of agreement?

 

It seems to me that we have a lot of small minded greedy elders who are trying to ignore the founding principles of this country. I dont feel like I like in the U. S. any more.

 

And the people bussing in rioters...shame on them.

 

Do I consider the ideas of the Magna Carta a product of violence? No, the manner of agreement? Yes, always. The ideas were quickly dreamt up and just as quickly discarded when convenient.

 

I also feel like it's very easy for the powers that be to seek non-violence, mid-battle (because the struggle to confront murder under color of law is an ongoing battle) as things become uncomfortable or unpleasant. Those pleas feel very disingenuous given the unprovoked state violence that's been forgiven and treated with grace for far too long.

 

Also, can you provide a credible link to reports of 'bussed in rioters'?

[CaffeineDiary]

I think a potentially false view is the idea that the riots are somehow the start of violence.  To paraphrase from Ta-Nehisi Coates excellent article, one view of this situation is the police and the state maintaining a brutal and violent war against the people, and then calling "time out!" when they get punched back.

 

[PinkyandtheBrains.]

I don't think you can compare the violence in Baltimore, much of which seems to be perpetrated by people who are being violent for the sake of violence, looting, destroying things, to the American Revolution, which was a war, fought with rules, between two countries. There were meetings, there were discussions. There were attempts to do something else first. People didn't just start behaving violently without even having all the facts. I don't think that the looting in Baltimore or Ferguson, especially when it's done to people in the community in which the protested event happened, has ONE THING to do with civil disobedience. It's just an opportunity for people who want to destroy things to have an excuse to do so. Not to say there weren't people who disobeyed the rules in the Revolution, or in any war.

 

 

 

The American Revolution did not exist in a vacuum. In the years preceding it, there were indeed riots, looting and violent skirmishes. These acts were perpetrated by loyalists some of the time, and sometimes by the rebels.  There would be looting, setting fire to buildings, tar and feathering, beating people up, tossing tea into a harbor....and more.  These incidents continued well into the official war.  And there were always those who took advantage of the situation, just like today.

 

And while some battles operated under the standard British protocols at the time, many of the battles were more like what we would call guerrilla warfare today.  The rebels would have been slaughtered if they had followed the rules against the well geared and well trained British army.

 

There were also peaceful protesters (on both sides) during the American revolution, those who spoke out without violence, wrote letters and advocated for their side.

[Nan in Mass]

I don't think you can compare the violence in Baltimore, much of which seems to be perpetrated by people who are being violent for the sake of violence, looting, destroying things, to the American Revolution, which was a war, fought with rules, between two countries. There were meetings, there were discussions. There were attempts to do something else first. People didn't just start behaving violently without even having all the facts. I don't think that the looting in Baltimore or Ferguson, especially when it's done to people in the community in which the protested event happened, has ONE THING to do with civil disobedience. It's just an opportunity for people who want to destroy things to have an excuse to do so. Not to say there weren't people who disobeyed the rules in the Revolution, or in any war.

On a field trip to Lexington and Concord, we were told that the Americans won because they broke all the European warfare rules. They hid behind the stone walls that border most New England fields and roads and picked off the British as they marched to battle in their bright red coats and orderly lines. We were also told that the "battle" of Bunker Hill was started by accident and that the Tea Party was a disorderly riot that many disapproved of. (I have a relative who was involved and I was told as a child that this was NOT something to be proud of lol.) It is interesting to read the writing of Patrick Henry. It is interesting to read contemporary newspaper accounts.

 

Nan

[MotherGoose]

Do you think the people in Baltimore don't have all the fact?

 

I don't know for sure, but I tend to doubt it--and their definition of "facts" may be skewed.   I do know that in other police involved shootings, people jumped to conclusions and began rioting and were later proven wrong, even if they never admitted it.  

[Pam in CT]

"Violent civil disobedience" is an oxymoron to me. The term "civil disobedience" implies to me a non violent tactic.

 

 

Not just you -- this is also how Gandhi, who first took civil disobedience viral, and MLK, who further refined it as a strategy, understood it.

 

What's going on in Baltimore isn't civil disobedience.

 

_____

 

 

FWIW, at least here on the East Coast, we generally think of the American Revolution as starting with the Boston Tea Party.  Looting the private property of merchants who weren't, themselves, the cause of the colonists' grievances.

 

Which is not to justify what's happening in Baltimore, just taking a slightly wider-lens view of the American Revolution discussion upthread.

 

____

 

MLK said: It is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends.

 

And also: A riot is the language of the unheard.

 

 

Both can be true at the same time.  

[ChocolateReignRemix]

I don't know for sure, but I tend to doubt it--and their definition of "facts" may be skewed. I do know that in other police involved shootings, people jumped to conclusions and began rioting and were later proven wrong, even if they never admitted it.

Which ones?

[Carol in Cal.]

Peaceful protest can be effective, but it is almost always coopted by or otherwise forcibly associated with violent protest, sometimes tactically by its own enemies.  Also, peaceful protest ONLY is effective when basic moral verities are accepted to the core by just about everyone in the society in which it occurs.  Hence peaceful protest in Tiananmen Square during the last 1980's was forcibly crushed without mercy, but peaceful protest in India some decades earlier was not.

[vonfirmath]

I doubt it.  Britain has allowed oodles of colonies to become independent - many without any sort of violence whatsoever.  It might not have happened in the 1700s, but to suggest we'd still be British subjects is stretching way too far IMO.

 

I know the American Revolution sparked off other fights for independence (Some unsuccessful). If we had not fought, what would have been the spark?

 

 

I don't think you can compare the violence in Baltimore, much of which seems to be perpetrated by people who are being violent for the sake of violence, looting, destroying things, to the American Revolution, which was a war, fought with rules, between two countries. There were meetings, there were discussions. There were attempts to do something else first. People didn't just start behaving violently without even having all the facts. I don't think that the looting in Baltimore or Ferguson, especially when it's done to people in the community in which the protested event happened, has ONE THING to do with civil disobedience. It's just an opportunity for people who want to destroy things to have an excuse to do so. Not to say there weren't people who disobeyed the rules in the Revolution, or in any war.

 

Actually, as I recall it, the Americans did NOT fight "according to the rules" We would have lost a straight on battle where you lined up two lines and fought at steps, etc.

 

[creekland]

I know the American Revolution sparked off other fights for independence (Some unsuccessful). If we had not fought, what would have been the spark?

 

 

Britain's realization that it cost too much to keep colonies vs just establishing good trade treaties and acknowledging that other countries tended to want independence.

 

Britain gained many of their colonies AFTER our revolution, so it certainly wasn't the spark for independence for many.

 

Wiki actually has a good British Empire summary:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire

[Tanaqui]

Violence can solve problems. I am loath to admit it, because I think that violence is rarely the best choice (in the worlds of text adventures everywhere, "violence is seldom the answer, you know"),  but sometimes it works. (Note: When I say it's a solution, sometimes that means it's a solution for the bad guys. Violence was certainly the solution for the Fascists in pre-war Italy, for example! But it can also be a solution for the "good guys" as well. Going back to WWII, sending Hitler chiding notes certainly never solved a darn thing.)

 

But the sort of violence that accomplishes anything productive (defined here as "productive to the people engaging in the violence") is seldom in the form of riots. Riots give people an excuse to ignore the problem.

 

[MotherGoose]

Which ones?

 Michael Brown, for one.  These are not all innocent people minding their own business who are shot by the police for no reason.  That seems to be what the protesters want you to think, but is certainly not accurate.  

[MotherGoose]

I know the American Revolution sparked off other fights for independence (Some unsuccessful). If we had not fought, what would have been the spark?

 

 

 

Actually, as I recall it, the Americans did NOT fight "according to the rules" We would have lost a straight on battle where you lined up two lines and fought at steps, etc.

 

I agree with you.

[MotherGoose]

Violence can solve problems. I am loath to admit it, because I think that violence is rarely the best choice (in the worlds of text adventures everywhere, "violence is seldom the answer, you know"),  but sometimes it works. (Note: When I say it's a solution, sometimes that means it's a solution for the bad guys. Violence was certainly the solution for the Fascists in pre-war Italy, for example! But it can also be a solution for the "good guys" as well. Going back to WWII, sending Hitler chiding notes certainly never solved a darn thing.)

 

But the sort of violence that accomplishes anything productive (defined here as "productive to the people engaging in the violence") is seldom in the form of riots. Riots give people an excuse to ignore the problem.

This is what I was trying to say.  Riots become riots for the sake of riots.  

[Sneezyone]

For every Michael Brown, there is a Rekia Boyd, Akai Gurley, and John Crawford. How many innocents are enough to justify outrage?

[Bluegoat]

My feeling is that no many of the really serious problems are ever solved, so it is difficult to answer the question.

 

The answerIi always come to with this is that there are times when it is the best of bad options.  But I think, in particular with relation to civil disobedience, that it should really be undertaken in a very controlled and self-concious way.  The nature of violence though makes that difficult - it can be difficult to be aggressive while maintaining control and real personal or social clarity.