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The issue of self-defense while on a strict path of nonviolence

Sykoknot said:
So all in all i believe I won that battle. I had the wound but positive Karma.

My motivation for non-violence is intellectual, intuitive, and just plain fear.
Conflict with anything is not in my nature. Im a harmonizer.
Conflict is my greatest, and only, true fear.
When i am faced with it i just tell myself karma is on my side.
Its all my mind can think.
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What the fuck are you going on about? Karma is karma, it's all "bad".
 
Wikipedia:
"
Karma means "deed" or "act" and more broadly names the universal principle of cause and effect, action and reaction that governs all life

According to Paramhans Swami Maheshwarananda, we produce Karma in four ways:

* through thoughts
* through words
* through actions that we perform ourselves
* through actions others do under our instructions

Everything that we have ever thought, spoken, done or caused is Karma; as is also that which we think, speak or do this very moment. After death we lose Kriya Shakti (ability to act) and do karma.
"
 
High Yogi said:
Fight for the greater good and everything is OK
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Thinks of Robspierre and the guilotine....:\ Greater good is purely subective; I imagne NAZIsm to be consdered thusly by the NAZI's during the Holocaust- clearly "greater good" has a very flexible definteion.



Speaking of Gandhi, the tactic of non-violence is only effective against democracies with reasonable, humane, merciful people
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I don't agree there. Non-violence is really only needed when a regime/situation is being imposed that is violent. Martin Luther King was in that corner I beleive. Fighting and agression was the 'others' way of acting. Non-violence in violent sitatuions is possibly the 'noblest' humans can aspire too...

Heurstic said:
I believe that acts of compassion and assistance help foster constructive reciprocal altruism and healthy behavioral norms, both of which reduce violence. However, I also think that a behavioral norm in which violent aggression is met with violence tends to reduce violence. Not only does this norm deter violence simply from a vantage of self-interest, but it also clearly sets a standard as to what is and is not acceptable behavior in a society.
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I really don't think history agrees at all there. Violence almost always spreads from violence; if one looks at 9/11, a lot of the world is involved in brutal warfare because of the volent deaths of 3500 people or thereabouts. Multiple tmes that number have perished violently since.

And, in turn- the major cause for such as 9/11 was agressive actions by first world nations. Not a justification, but the reasons behind violence usually stem from volence.
 
Coolio said:
Wikipedia:
"
Karma means "deed" or "act" and more broadly names the universal principle of cause and effect, action and reaction that governs all life

According to Paramhans Swami Maheshwarananda, we produce Karma in four ways:

* through thoughts
* through words
* through actions that we perform ourselves
* through actions others do under our instructions

Everything that we have ever thought, spoken, done or caused is Karma; as is also that which we think, speak or do this very moment. After death we lose Kriya Shakti (ability to act) and do karma.
"
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This doesnt say it is bad.
 
swilow said:
I really don't think history agrees at all there. Violence almost always spreads from violence; if one looks at 9/11, a lot of the world is involved in brutal warfare because of the volent deaths of 3500 people or thereabouts. Multiple tmes that number have perished violently since.

And, in turn- the major cause for such as 9/11 was agressive actions by first world nations. Not a justification, but the reasons behind violence usually stem from volence.
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Let's leave international relations aside for the moment, though, and focus on individuals. What do you suppose would happen if the police decided not to use violence anymore? If storeowners, homeowners, etc., would all practice nonviolent resistance in the event of a robbery or home-invasion?

Now, with respect to international relations, while I agree that violence frequently is met with violence, the threat of violence has helped avert some enormously large wars. The threat of violence, for example, kept the US and the Soviet Union from direct conflict for 40 years. It similarly keeps North Korea from taking military action against its neighbors; keeps the PRC from invading Taiwan; and so on.

Nonviolent resistance ultimately relies upon an appeal to the values of the aggressor. If the aggressor has certain values, then he will not be willing to press his violence beyond a certain limit, which may enable the resistor to win. However, if the aggressor lacks such values, nonviolent resistance is, imho, little more than an abdication of responsibility towards oneself and one's dependents.
 
swilow said:
I don't agree there. Non-violence is really only needed when a regime/situation is being imposed that is violent. Martin Luther King was in that corner I beleive. Fighting and agression was the 'others' way of acting. Non-violence in violent sitatuions is possibly the 'noblest' humans can aspire too...
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The US is and was pretty democratic... Violent regimes have been imposed in the Soviet Union, China, North Korea, Nazi Germany, etc... Don't you think there have been MLK's and Gandhis there too? The Gulag was full of them.

Heuristic said:
Nonviolent resistance ultimately relies upon an appeal to the values of the aggressor. If the aggressor has certain values, then he will not be willing to press his violence beyond a certain limit, which may enable the resistor to win. However, if the aggressor lacks such values, nonviolent resistance is, imho, little more than an abdication of responsibility towards oneself and one's dependents.
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Generally, this distinction is most apparent in warfare vs. crime. The vast majority of people are moral and reasonable; a minority are not. In war, you have a lot of normal, basically good people on each side psyched up by a bunch of Hitlers to believe that the other side is evil and that they have to kill them in order to defend themselves. In crime, you have a small minority of predators within a population that prey on others' weakness.

In war, if one side realizes that the purported enemy is just a human being like them and not an aggressor out to kill them, they will frequently realize that war is all a scam and that it's not worth killing and getting killed over wealth or vanity. For a more personal example, see the many examples of fraternization in WW1 trench warfare.

In crime, the aggressors are not human to begin with, otherwise they wouldn't prey on other people. And if they see the target to be weak, all the better for them for they will be able to rape and rob them without risking injury to themselves.

In war, the spiral of violence leads to futile loss of life on both sides. In crime, the lack of violence allows a minuscule proportion of the population to commit a disproportionate amount of aggression and be released to commit crimes again and again. If violence would be allowed to escalate in crime as it does in war, criminals would be weeded out immediately for the simple fact that they are such a small proportion of the population.
 
I agree with your post, RigaCrypto. Most soldiers are not sociopaths, they've just bought the wrong party line. Most career criminals are sociopaths.

I see us as a species eliminating war long before we eliminate sociopathy.
 
If someone attacks me they have given up their right to live and I find no moral dilemma in ending their life. I deeply believe this. I have also never been in any sort of violent altercation, just so you don't think I am looking for violence.

Of course I am relatively disengaged from politics or the realm beyond the immediate interactions I have control over, so this is more in reference to micro-nonviolence.

If non-violence IS the most efficient way of enacting change in society evolution will allow this meme to rise to the top.
 
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If undertaking a "strict" path of nonviolence I'd have thought that to respond with violence would be less than strict observance of the path.
It's a straight up fight between instinct/nature & the more logical or even spiritual processes, like so very many things.
If you truly believed in a path of non violence you would not respond, however we are if nothing else conflicted over such situations and will continue to be so.
 
One could use equal force without malicious intent to neutralise an attack. Aikido and studying other forms of martial art would prepare you for this.

The aggressors/attackers mindstate is in a very bad place, one where I would not want to be.
 
MyDoorsAreOpen said:
But what of the issue of using violence in self-defense? Is that a natural 'riding of the flow', that should be accepted dispassionately? Or is it something that ought to be avoided, because of the effects it might have on our future willingness to aggress in less dire situations, and what kind of person that might make us?
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If violence is a cycle, then you help to perpetuate that cycle through self defense in a violent matter. To be non violent, even in the face of great violence, is to put an end to that cycle that seems to plague us, is to fight fire with water, instead of fire with fire.
 
Stopping the cycle is an important concept, but that is not always achieved through non-violence. With criminals, by not responding violently, you are perpetuating the cycle of violence, because the criminal will live to attack another victim. You would be stopping the cycle by imprisoning or killing the attacker. To use your analogy, you would fight fire with water, the criminal being fire and your gun being water.

The true cycle of violence is most apparent in larger-scale conflicts, where each side is trying to avenge the perceived wrongs caused by the other side, and in doing so gives renewed reasons to the others to get payback too. Generally, nobody remembers who started it, but they see that the others attack them and do the same in return. For example, this dynamic contributes to the Israel - Palestine conflict. This is where stopping the violence and letting the other side know that you are not an enemy would have a chance at stopping the cycle.
 
There is nothing moral about starting shit out in society for no purpose other than chaos. On the contrary, if at any way possible, situations should be resolved in the most peaceful way possible, so both parties come away from the event with a better perspective, unharmed.

That said, I am not one to let someone break into my house or anything like that so they can do whatever they want unopposed. If it comes down to the point where my family will get hurt or not, you better believe I'm going to come to a quick decision. Even then, its only going to the point of incapacitation in a matter I see fit, but not death.

There are different degrees and levels to violence, you can't just lump every act in one word. Its all a matter of personally contemplating where your line is at.
 
Yes, many degrees of violence for many levels of need.

Many times conflict can be prevented if the attacker(s) realize that they will receive stiff resistance. Though normally I do not prefer violence. There has been a few situations that I have diffused with meerly stating that " you know if you do this, there WIll be hell to pay" or what ever. The difference is being able to turn the switch just in case you have to back those words up. Other wise they would mean nothing to whom blurted out to.

People must know others limits before they can gauge their own justifiable need to end a situation.
 
The only way to defeat evil is to deny it battle in the first place.
 
Peace, through superior firepower.

"Be not accosted on thy streets lest the offender be smited by your 9mm."

- Corinthians 90:210
 
I think its fine to defend yourself, or your country, group, or anyone else from violence by using violence.

amnesty international did not get women the right to vote in Afghanistan, I did, along with my comrades who where prepared to do horrible things so that they can end, and a new start can happen.
 
for those who don't just have a street fight in mind, let it be known that the philosophy of aikido is applicable at any scale (violent or no)

from the way you open the door, to the way you talk to your collegue, to the way to deal with a crazy dictator who wants to firework the world

to the 3 stages that yougene mentioned, we can add a fourth one :
Stage 1: We fight I get hurt
Stage 2: We fight you get hurt
Stage 3: We fight no one gets hurt
Stage 4: We don't fight (the ultimate aikido technique, which follows what capstone said 3 posts ago)


one of the criticisms against aikido, which appeared during Morihei Ueshiba's life (aikido's founder) is that he was developping techniques in order not to hurt the opponent
 
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