Violence & Ethics

Nonviolence in General: Violence in Specific

Is the principle I've landed on after doing much thinking about how violence could look both now and when anarchism is more fully realised.

I believe anarchism is a mostly nonviolent and prohuman ideology. The goals are towards human flourishing and human connection directly. Even in questions of crime, a very common answer is to not punish or respond with violence. However, there are situations that could warrent violence while still remaining ethical.

I think of ICE and recent events. To apply this principle, we can say that we shouldn't act as an agressor in general. We should not seek out ICE vehicles, buildings or people, and act violently towards them preemptively. This is violence in general. However, assuming a situation where there is someone being acted on violently by ICE or has tbe potential to escelate to that, we can ethically act violently towards ICE whether preemptively or in defence. This is Violence in Specific.

The specific situation has developed in a way that provides you choices of actions. And it would not be wrong to defend your fellow human being from authoritarian force in this moment. You can juxtapose this by saying that in a benign situation, say your friend forgot to put butter on your bread, you can not ethically act violently because of that.

So.. Nonviolence in general, in general we should not be seeking violence and instead should be supporting each other and building healthier sysytems with each ofher. Violence in specific, preemptive or defensicd, if a situation develops in such a way where violence could reduce further harm or end the situation all together.

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To add further to this discussion, I was thinking about what would reduce violent behaviour between people with an established Anarchism. If the monopoly on legitimate violence is dismantled, now we must ask ourselves what is legitimate violence when all of us now have equal power relative to each other? Whats stopping us from acting violently to get what we want?

Not only should we educate towards nonviolent solutions and build systems that provide needs and wants for people, we should also, I would argue, do our best to encourage a radical responsibility and deconstruction of any institutional violence. No one should be able to hide behind a role to justify their violence. One can not simply say they were following orders, that its anarchist to punch nazis.

Your choices should be your own and you should take responsibility for it. If you really want to punch a nazi, its not because you're anarchist, its because you are acting on your own beliefs. And we should judge you based on that and the context. Perhaps in the moment it was fine, or perhaps you really did just punch someone for no good reason. Either way, the choice is Yours. There is no collective responsibility or collective haven you can fall back onto.

I believe having this radical reaponsibility and a deinstitutionalisation of violence will prevent a lot of weasling around violence and force people to think more about their actions and those consequences.