The Ethics of Violence

We live in a society that condemns violence of any kind, but can an argument be made that violence can actually be a moral necessity? Before continuing I will make my personal beliefs clear. I see violence as justified only in retaliation to violence with the use of reasonable force or in defence of one’s Natural Rights of life, liberty, and property. However, I am going to posit some other arguments concerning the use of violence simply to explore the subject further.

By violence I am referring to physical violence and not the use of lethal force, weapons, or verbal abuse. There are varying degrees of physical violence so I am limiting my discussion to range from an open hand slap to non-permanent physical damage.

When it comes to human conflict there are many ways to reach resolution including rational or irrational argument, intimidation, seduction, stubbornness, trade, bribery, or even calling on an external arbiter, like the police or courts. Of all the various means of reaching resolution, physical force trumps them all. To be blunt, you can simply beat your enemy into submission regardless of how intelligent, eloquent, seductive, stubborn, or rich they are. You can claim your rights, but rights are meaningless if your opponent does not recognise them and chooses to give you a beating.

Might may not make right, but it can win the day. This is why laws are passed against violence to prevent might from succeeding against right. Again, this only works if the perpetrator of violence chooses to acknowledge the law.

Now consider this situation.

What Sean Connery is describing here is a very important phenomenon. When I was a child and my parents fought, I always saw my father retreat in the end. I perceived this as a sign of weakness and a demonstration of female superiority. Later did I realise that he retreated not because he was weak or lost the fight; he left so that he would not hit her. Like the women described by Connery, my mother did not recognise the boundaries and did not know when to stop being provocative even when she had had the last word.

Before we begin any undertaking it is important to understand the risks involved. What are the consequences of our actions? If we remove violence from the equation, then the biggest risk in human conflict has been removed and therefore there is no immediate consequence for bad behaviour.  I am not writing just about women who do not know when to stop being provocative. The same applies to children. If they know that the worst thing that can happen as a consequence of their action is a tongue-lashing, then what deterrent is there to bad behaviour?

A few years ago I was punched in the mouth by a fifteen year old kid on the rampage with his friends. I was told later by the police that it was good that I did not hit him back because I would have been arrested for assault.

A friend recently sent me this message, “I went to a philosophy group last night. It was enjoyable until a socialist with an axe to grind showed up and started dominating the proceedings.” Again we see an example of someone who does not know the boundaries of self-control, decorum, and socially acceptable free speech (meaning, you’ve made your point now let someone else speak). Anyone shameless enough can tread all over everyone else with impunity.

Think of the well known trope where a character provokes another character until he gets punched in the face. “He had it coming”; “He asked for it”; or “He deserved it” is the usual justification. We accept this in films, but not in life. In the old days, bad behaviour was met with a duel or an invitation to “step outside”.

It seems the role of violence as a deterrent to bad behaviour is gone, which begs the question of whether this accounts for the rise in bad behaviour or general rudeness. One may argue that reintroducing violence into society can strengthen the violent by putting them in the position of judge and executioner, so to speak. As Connery said, “If the situation merits it” but who decides if the situation merits it? The perpetrator of violence does. What if he decides that not having dinner on the table at six o’clock merits it?

The word that keeps coming to mind is “equilibrium”. There are those who argue that violence in the home or society is never merited. I’m beginning to question that blanket statement. However, we do not want to live in a society where bullies are allowed to flourish and people live in fear of their fellow man. The answer must lie in-between these two undesirable extremes.

I do not have an answer to that question of equilibrium, but I suppose it might be similar to the gun issue. If guns are outlawed, then only outlaws will have guns. The boy who punched me is a child of violence, so such behaviour is as natural to him as breathing. I am not such a person. I lack the necessary social conditioning to have the will to violence. I am essentially the disarmed good guy while the bad guys are fully loaded.

So perhaps the problem is a lack of chivalry. If we look at the knight’s code of chivalry it can be summed-up as “the ethical use of violence”. Once violence is removed from society then so too is chivalry. So rather than discourage violence perhaps we should focus on teaching children to be chivalrous and thus make them better judges as to which situations merit violence and which do not.

The Code of Chivalry forbade the knights from violence towards women, children, and peasants. Women and children are generally physically weaker than men and peasants are not trained soldiers. Today, women and children are protected by law against violence and social aid agencies are in place for their protection against the violence of men.

Traditionally, the male role in the household was as judge, jury, and disciplinarian concerning all issues of bad behaviour simply by his ability to distribute violence. This duty required him to be a man of character, virtue, and fairness. The image of John Wayne as McClintock comes to mind where he punishes his unruly, shrew wife with a spanking over his knee for her bad behaviour as the town’s folk cheer him on for finally taking his responsibilities as a husband.

This may be a shocking statement, but can we suppose that the socially enforced removal of all violence from the household has contributed to men never learning chivalry, the ethical use of violence? The result is either arbitrary male violence against women and children because he lacks the moral training in how to be a fair disciplinarian or the complete castration of the male role in the household rendering him completely impotent (a virtual slave to a wife and children who know no boundaries).

I suppose it can be argued that men should learn to be disciplinarians without resorting to violence. Traditionally, women used “nagging” to keep an unruly man in line, but I have yet in all my many years met a man who nags and those who come close are easily silenced through a threat of force. At this point he either shuts-up or it moves into the physical stage. This does not work with women if she is confident that violence has been removed from the equation. Thus is the man rendered powerless.

Then there is the question of “Who put the man in charge?” Why should he be the dispenser of discipline? Studies into fatherless homes have found that boys tend to either submit to the mother and become spoiled and feminized or they rebel and she lacks the physical strength to control or intimidate him. In both cases the boy never learns to become a man. So again it is the man’s physical strength and its implied physical force that put him into that role.

Again, if that threat of violence is completely removed then discipline becomes impossible. I heard of a man who disciplined his daughter, not through force of any kind, and in retaliation she called child protective services claiming she was physically abused. They took her and her younger brother away, and when he spoke with his attorney he was told that the only way to get his children back was to lie by saying he had a problem, and then after therapy he would most likely have his children returned.

As far as relationships go, there is the phenomenon of emotional infidelity. This is when one person in a relationship, marriage or otherwise, begins a “friendship” with a member of the opposite sex. It begins innocently enough, but as the relationship progresses the mutual feelings become more intense. Technically, no infidelity has occurred because there is no physical relationship, but eventually the friendship begins to threaten the relationship as feelings become transferred from the partner to the friend.

Both sexes can be guilty of emotional infidelity, but it is most common among women. Unfaithful men tend to prefer the old fashioned sexual infidelity. The cuckolded man knows something is wrong and becomes clingy in an attempt to maintain the relationship. The grasping makes her feel even more trapped, divided, and inevitably she leaves her partner. Studies have shown that the man in this situation has only one tool in his box. He must force her to choose or reject her. This does not ensure success, but every other option ends in guaranteed failure.

In this day and age it seems barbaric for a man to deny his partner a male friend, especially when some girls prefer the company of men to women. However, again we see the lack of enforced boundaries. Should a man discipline his wife before she strays and finds herself in a position where she may throw away a perfectly good relationship over transient emotions? They say women are more emotionally driven than men, so is it the man’s place to ensure she does not make poor emotional decisions? Should he be her disciplinarian? Some say yes, but I would like to believe that in a proper relationship that would not be necessary.

In this Socialist Age the collectivists see people as part of groups. There are men, women, minorities, gays, children, rich, poor, conservatives, liberals, and so on. They pass over-reaching legislation, create quota, and such to help or hinder each group. The problem is that they cannot see the trees for the forest. Individuals are unique. Not all white men hold positions of power and oppress everyone else. Not all Blacks favour affirmative action and welfare. Not all poor people want to go to university. Not all women want to be engineers to address the imbalance of the male to female ratio of students in that field.

Likewise I’m not sure all violence is wrong. Yes, some men beat women and children, but some men use moderate physical force ethically to correct bad behaviour. So I’m no longer completely convinced that violence is unwarranted. Perhaps sometimes instigating violence is ethical because it enforces important boundaries in behaviour. Violence then becomes a tool like any other and with it should come moral education to use it justly. Traditionally, this education came from family and religion, but with the breakdown of both we have instead a State enforced ban on violence leaving only the violent with the capacity to use it.