Violence

[Starman]

“To everything there is a season and purpose under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die….”

We are born at a certain time, and as far as I am concerned, we die at a certain time. They are one and the same, birth brings us into this world and death brings us into another world, which we here call the “afterlife.” Death is another birth in my point of view.

[BigJohn]

Originally Posted by JustBe

There are so many battles within battles, within battles in the world.

When I was in my early twenties, a woman asked me to go and visit her brother who was in jail waiting for his trial for killing a woman.

Of course he was 'innocent'. He never could admit he did something 'bad'. To him, he was innocent just like everybody else in that jail.

I was able to talk to him without any barriers between us nor any guards present. Sometimes the visits lasted 1-2 hours.

I even visited his daughter several times only for her to tell me the same story. She claimed her Father came upon an accident that involved a young woman. Instead of helping her, he raped her and she died. Hard to believe his daughter could say such a thing but being her story never wavered, I suspect it was true.

That and other experiences make me wonder how "close we really do get" and never realize it.

[Redchic12]

Starman #40. Love those comments and totally agree.

[BigJohn]

It seems violence has always existed. I suspect the reason why we are not aware of it so much is because we don't 'look for'.

For example: slavery has been outlawed but where I live, the people were openly selling and trading people as recently as 1871. The 1871 local newspapers saw nothing 'wrong with it'. The newspapers at that time portrayed that part of our history as a normal aspect of life. Surprisingly, nobody complained about in the editorials.

In recent times, one chap I got interested in was Pol Pot. Under his reign, the Khmer Rouge killed about 25% of their country's population. As far as I know, that atrocity is not teached in schools nor is it something that most people can recognize nor relate to.

[BigJohn]

It seems violence has always existed.

Can you imagine how it was before people lived in caves?

[Starman]

There are many levels of violence, and the word literally means to violate. Verbal abuse can violate a person, as can emotional abuse, and of course physical abuse. To violate someone there is an intrusion into their personal space, which insults or inflicts pain on them.

Violent actions can be done by verbally insulting or threatening someone. We often think of violence as a physical attack but it can also be an emotional attack. As a former social worker I saw children who had been emotionally deprived. This was a violent act which was perpetrated on them.

Violence often comes from a lack of compassion, and it can be nurtured by thoughts, words, or deeds. People who do violence are often, but not always, in pain themselves and they often want others to feel their pain. Many do that by inflicting pain on others. Although in my opinion there is no excuse for violence.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by Starman

There are many levels of violence, and the word literally means to violate. Verbal abuse can violate a person, as can emotional abuse, and of course physical abuse. To violate someone there is an intrusion into their personal space, which insults or inflicts pain on them.

Problem with 'violence' as an ambiguous term, it defines being called a name as akin to a knife attack. That's melodramatic. We have different words for different things, and whereas blanket-terming 'violence' makes it hard to infer meaning, using specific language makes things clear. Regular people understand 'violence' as a physical assault, and being called a name is just rude. The proper umbrella term is 'abuse', and you have to be specific about the type.

[Starman]

Gem, me having worked in the medical and mental health fields I guess I have a different view of violence then “regular people.” I have seen that people can be violent with themselves; physically cutting on themselves as a form of self punishment. Kids who were devastated by a verbal attack which were much more then just “rude.” A verbal attack which caused mental issues that might stay with them lifelong.

Yes, I agree that violence is commonly thought of as a physical attack, beating someone up, a knife attack, or being shot by a gun. Violence as I see it is a deliberate attack, but in my opinion it can be more than just physical. Childbirth can be violent, especially if the baby struggles or it is otherwise a difficult birth.

Abuse or conflict of any kind, in my opinion, can be violent. An assault on a person’s senses can be a violent assault. Watching violence can violently impact us and leave a mental scar on us. Generally regular people do not view mental or emotional conditions the same way that they view physical conditions, and that is why I think violence is only viewed as a physical attack. But verbal and emotional violence can leave mental scars, especially in children, that may be deeper than a physical attack.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by Starman

Yes, I agree that violence is commonly thought of as a physical attack,

I did social work, and in the various areas of the field, they tried to make 'violence' mean just about anything, but in practice, violence is understood to be a physical attack, and the boffins in my psychology classes were just out of touch with how words are actually used in common parlance.

If you then say childbirth can be violent, that's not the language anyone uses. That's what we call a weird thing to say. Childbirth can be difficult or complicated, so it's not that we disagree, it's just that you use violence in a completely ambiguous way and when I say 'violent' there's no question as to what I mean.

[Starman]

Gem, I think the term violent or violence can be used in many ways, as whether or not something is violent or not is sometimes subjective. A person may think they were violently attacked when others may not think it was a violent attack at all. In my opinion it is the impact which determines whether something was violent or not and that impact is subjective.

I do volunteer work with hardcore combat veterans who have been exposed to and involved in a lot of violence but most of them don’t see it as violence. People can become calloused to violence to a point that it becomes normalized. It used to be acceptable, and legal, to physically beat your wife and children, but today that is considered domestic violence. So the evolution of how we use words, and how we view violence, have changed over time.