Violence: A Taboo Worth Preserving

Non-violence lies among the better angels of our nature

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Every society has rules. This fact is demonstrably true not only through voluminous study and observation of cultures across time and place but by the very definition of the word society as an organized collective of individuals formed to mutually protect common interests. To threaten those shared interests is to violate the norms established by the group. Hence, rules are necessary for the very survival of human communities.

The content and form of the rules can vary widely. They can be implicit or explicit; verbal or written; authoritarian or liberal, etc. But, invariably, they exist.

As our society grapples with rapid change from globalization, technological advancement, and political upheaval, we find ourselves in a unique position to choose, with intention, which of our values have become obsolete or counterproductive, and which are worth preserving.

When social criticism of violence is dismissed

Recently, we have collectively witnessed public violence on the individual, national, and global levels. While many of us recognize the abhorrent nature of these events, there are also those who obfuscate or even defend the perpetrators’ responsibility for their harmful actions. One tactic of these apologists is an ad hominem one, to dismiss any social criticism of violence as hypocritical. But the logical consequences of that necessarily devolve into complete anarchy by setting the moral bar at the basest moment of any society’s history. For example, a result of that line of reasoning is that if a society has ever unjustly taken a human life, that society may no longer enforce laws against murder, as doing so would be hypocritical. There is no room for growth or reform where fear of hypocrisy rules, only a continual lowering of ethical standards.

Another rebuttal that violence apologists proffer is that the situation is "complex." Situations may indeed be complex. Many of us may be partially or wholly incapable of grasping the dynamics at play, either due to the limited capacity of the human mind or insufficient lived experience to share the perspective of those involved. This is a powerful (and I would argue, correct) justification for non-judgment regarding the choices of others in most situations. In fact, one could say the withholding of social condemnation not only forms the central tenet of many of the world’s religions, but of democratic liberty itself. However, its potency terminates abruptly and unequivocally at the use of violence.

Justifications for violence are rare

I have previously written about the very rare cases of justified violence carried out in response to imminent, certain physical harm, and how even in those instances, force must be limited to the minimum scope and intensity necessary to diffuse the threat to human life (Fattahi & Young, 2021). None of the high-profile instances of violence we’ve lately seen fall under this proviso. On the contrary, they have been provocative, prideful, misguided, and disproportionate acts of aggression. Sometimes they have even been deliberately founded on pretenses manufactured by those seeking to benefit from the suffering of others. For an exhaustive scholarly exploration of the dangers of attempting to justify violence, I’ll direct the reader to psychologist Steven Pinker’s (2012) book, The Better Angels of Our Nature: A History of Violence and Humanity.

The sacrosanctity of non-violence must transcend our differences

If we as a species are to survive, the sacrosanctity of non-violence must transcend our differences in all domains of life, including politics, nationality, and race. Non-violence must be the unifying global theme of the 21st century in much the same way as world wars and the Cold War defined the 20th. The one indispensable and universal condition society must enforce is that, despite all the uncertainties of modern life, no one may inflict harm on another. To paraphrase many of history’s greatest moral leaders, this aggression must not stand.