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

I must say that one thing I notice a lot of the better quality spiritual development traditions is that they tend to take a dim view on the use of violence, and use voluntary abstinence from violence, coercion, aggression, and overall harm to living things, in tandem with other practices, to cultivate greater connection with one's place as an eddy in the big stream. This seems pretty sensible to me. After all, to be willing to aggress is an active commitment to wallowing in, and perpetuating, the cycle of pain that got us into this whole mess called sentient existence. To throw oneself into an all-out kicking and screaming struggle, even if to be defeated soundly, only serves to temporarily enhance the mirages of solidity and immortality, by activating some rather base brain circuitry. I say if this vehicle I call 'I' right now happens to have a frontal cortex for putting more base, suffering-inflicting drives in check, I have every reason to rejoice and use it to do just that! :D

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?

I've only once found myself in a situation where my life was in definite danger, and luckily for me, the police happened to be right there, before I could even decide what to do. Other than that, I've never found myself in a situation where I've been called upon to fight. I don't tend to put myself in those kinds of situations, or hang around with other people who do. But bad things do happen to even the best of people. You could lead the most exemplary life, and be good to so many people, and still be the victim of a random attack.

On the one hand, I understand to a large extent that when it's your time, it's your time, and that I can't ever achieve inner peace until I'm at peace with that way of thinking about death. However, of all the very good people who've been the victims of violence, there must have been people who just had a lot more to give the world, or were a good ways into, but not nearly all the way towards their peak spiritual, psychological, and interpersonal potential. Is such a person, if backed into a corner with no escape, best served by aggressing?

best served? seriously, careful with those words, man. there is ALWAYS another option. "it was either him or me" is a fantasy/myth outside the context of frontline war.

The Three Stages of Aikido
Stage 1: We fight I get hurt
Stage 2: We fight you get hurt
Stage 3: We fight no one gets hurt

"Harm no man, but let no man harm you."

So says peter tosh...

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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I've often heard that justification for non-violence in the media: 'If you use their means, you will become as bad as them', and I've been curious about the rationale of the people using this argument. Do you feel if you use violence you will somehow become infected with evil from the person you are defending yourself from? Or that you will like it so much you'll start attacking innocent people too?

Look im a very very placid person. I dont start violence. However, if someone trys to hurt me ill have no problem in smashing the shit out of them. Dont fuck with me and you wont be fucked with, is how i roll.

RigaCrypto said:

I've often heard that justification for non-violence in the media: 'If you use their means, you will become as bad as them', and I've been curious about the rationale of the people using this argument. Do you feel if you use violence you will somehow become infected with evil from the person you are defending yourself from? Or that you will like it so much you'll start attacking innocent people too?

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i think it's more to do with how resorting to violence is admitting to not being wise/smart enough to resolve the matter elsehow.

personally, my approach has always been to avoid violence at all cost. my anger is massive, so i truely fear what i might do should i lose my temper and cross that line. fortunately, i have quick feet, a quick tongue and i'm always aware of my environment.

RigaCrypto said:

I've often heard that justification for non-violence in the media: 'If you use their means, you will become as bad as them', and I've been curious about the rationale of the people using this argument. Do you feel if you use violence you will somehow become infected with evil from the person you are defending yourself from? Or that you will like it so much you'll start attacking innocent people too?

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Violence itself is judged evil in this case; there doesn't have to be a reason attached to violence. All violence is bad in and of itself.

^TO IMPACTO: Have you ever been randomly attacked? As much as concousness is an innate human trait, instinctive defense also is. That is to say, if someone is kicking you in the head, talking is not going to do anything. That is- if you actually want to do something ie. stopping the head-kicking

I would always try to avoid violence, but I am not ashamed to say I used to be pretty violent when younger. I think if you haven't experienced volence or partcipated in it, its a hard call to make.

Though I know that Gandhi, for example, let a person kick the shit out of him in Sth Africa; a police officer stepped in, and demanded an apology from the attacker to Gandhi, to which Gandhi replied (paraphrasing here) "I had already forgiven him even when he was kicking the sht out of me".... Violence begets violence, no doubt.

Anyway, physical pain is not that bad-I'd rather deal with that then the emotional repercussion of seriously hurting someone; which I have in the past (serious being smashing a bottle over this guys head).

violence is sometimes the only option. If some one comes at me or a loved one looking to cause harm I have no problem doing a dragon punch on them followed by a couple of round house kicks a couple o jabs and then finishing off with a bicycle kick to the face.

sometimes its all you can do

^i strongly disagree. wanna fight about it?

to swil: yes it have. got mugged a couple times as a kid, and almost mugged a few times since. dodging punches isn't that hard.

not everyone is a punch dodging ninja like you though :/

Physical Defense:
When the time comes, I think that there are some people who are genuinely committed to non-violence intellectually may surprise themselves by react with violence in self-defense. The violence can range in intensity from shouting, to deflecting, to fatal wounding. I suspect that there may be a certain kinethetic/physical fighting language to minimize hurt, buy time, show concern, etc.. If someone (like me) is unaware/uncomfortable with that physical way of communicating, then I may just react and cause more harm than I want or not protect myself enough.

This may somewhat parallel to what I have been thinking about recently..
Verbal Defense (not self-defense, but for helpless):

What about purposely using aggressive language/tone, after failed attempts at kind/loving communication modes throughout the years, to get a person who responds well to aggression to stop inflicting verbal insults upon a helpless person (child/someone who doesn't like it, but doesn't leave)....would that ever be justified? Do intentions matter? i.e. Whether the person means to inflict harm or is just unaware on the "child" ?

Impacto Profundo said:

i think it's more to do with how resorting to violence is admitting to not being wise/smart enough to resolve the matter elsehow.

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Maybe if you're Superman's cousin, you would be able to resolve any matter in the most satisfactory way every time. But in the real world, for real people who bleed, it may not always be possible. In short, this is a laudable but unrealistic proposition. Which is fine when assumed for oneself as a personal ideal, but it becomes problematic when naive and people who base their views on violence on Tom and Jerry cartoons try to impose this idealistic view on others through restrictive self-defense laws. In real life, if you get stomped with a mallet, you do not pop back up like Jerry does, and you better do whatever you can to stay alive, let alone keep your attacker happy and healthy.

My opinion is that one should be preaching these ideals only if one has been attacked, bled, and stood up to them. And even then, it is each person's choice whether they want to sacrifice their lives to save their attackers'.

Coolio said:

Violence itself is judged evil in this case; there doesn't have to be a reason attached to violence. All violence is bad in and of itself.

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This is a more emotional argument, a knee-jerk reaction of fear that is akin to digging one's head in the sand. I've noticed that most people who take that view live very safe lives, kept safe from criminals, among others, by the violence used by cops on their behalf.

swilow said:

Though I know that Gandhi, for example, let a person kick the shit out of him in Sth Africa; a police officer stepped in, and demanded an apology from the attacker to Gandhi, to which Gandhi replied (paraphrasing here) "I had already forgiven him even when he was kicking the sht out of me".... Violence begets violence, no doubt.

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Speaking of Gandhi, the tactic of non-violence is only effective against democracies with reasonable, humane, merciful people. The British left India because they had moral qualms about slaughtering defenceless people. I would have liked to see Gandhi try that if India had been colonized by the Soviet Union or China. I'm sure there have been people there who have tried non-violent resistance, but we haven't heard of any success from them, have we?

One thing I'm distilling from all this is that fighting back in self-defense is instinctive, while aggressing with little provocation is a choice, and therefore they shouldn't be considered ethically as one phenomenon.

I guess one litmus test might be this: might one go to a human community where fighting back in self-defense is a necessary and frequently encountered necessity for the survival of any male, and hope to find a significant number of men, although quite hardened and numbed to violence, who are still steadfast on resolving matters nonviolently whenever possible? Or would we only expect to find men who have a hair trigger for laying someone out, at the slightest hint of an insult to their honor?

If the latter, then it's hard not to conclude that a voluntary path of nonviolence supervenes upon an already violence-free living environment.

Then becomes the question: what kinds of compassionate acts and ways of living and thinking have an actual, measurable impact on reducing the amount of violence in human communities?

you're presuming that defending one's self requires counter-attack. all good martial arts teach ways to deflect attack and incapacitate your enemy without harming them. being put to sleep is a great deal gentler than being punched in the face, it's also safe and enables an uninhibited getaway.

belief in a non-violent way of life does not simply mean not punching someone in the face, it extends to all aspects of life meaning to not be hasty. acting solely on instinct is often a violent act, whether it deals with self-defense or not, because it's done without forethought.

ghandi had the forethought to realize a passive approach would further his cause more than physically rebelling against an overwhelming force. had he lived in a one on one world, i'm sure he would have turned out differently.

oh right, i forgot to mention that the police still beat and kill people in India. score one for nonviolence huh?

My own view is that it is actually unethical NOT to use violence in self-defense, when necessary. That is, you have a moral obligation to prudently protect yourself against physical violence being unjustly inflicted upon you. If others depend upon you for their well-being, I think this obligation is actually increased.

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.

So, for example, I would imagine that the person who wears a sign saying "I will not with physical violence oppose anything being done to me" would be more likely to invite violent aggression than someone who does not.

There is a branch of criminology, called victimology, which might be relevant to this discussion. In many cases, an inability or signaled unwillingness to use violence in self-defense marks an individual as a potential victim for certain types of criminals.

I disagree Heuristic. It's better to let yourself be killed than to cause harm for any reason. Martyrdom is the ultimate ethical act.

I had an experience in the past, another kid my age (at the time 16) started verbally assaulting me after school for things i didnt do, he was very misled. I was sitting and told him im not going to fight as i have no reason to be aggresive. He started trying to hit me and i got up and walked a few feet away. No hit connected, so i felt maybe he'd give up and realize i wasn't going to fight. He said "im going to kick the shit out of you because itll make me feel better. My best friend at the time stepped in and tried to make the kid think rationally.

In the end we agreed he can have one free shot and than its over.
He was packing a lighter wrapped in a shoestring in his hand. The punch put me unconscious for a few moments.

In the end, i was left with a fat lip and some tears.
He was left with shame, his girlfriend and many other friends disowned him for it.
One kid who i didnt know was on his side and yelling me apologized the next day. He said he realized that he was being irrational. I accepted his apology and told him its the past, and it doesnt need recalling. We are now on good terms.

As for the other kid, when im around him since then he seems stuck up to me, as i think he was ashamed.

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.

I think violence for self-defense is bad karma.
Maybe this conflict is happening because of past negative karma.
So i must take what punishment comes to me to keep my Karma balanced.

This is a link to an acid trip i had that brought out the flight/fight instinct more so than any experience in my life. Read?
http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/showthread.php?t=462916

Fight for the greater good and everything is OK