There are those things, but I just don’t think that we should condone it. We can say that we can see that someone was provoked, but that it’s still not OK.
When you say you’ve seen it happen–you mean you’ve seen the time of time/place where it was OK to throw a punch to establish civility and that that worked? Or…what?
Can you define what kind of behavior that is? I honestly am not sure I’ve ever seen anyone act in a way that “should” result in an ass whooping–male OR female.
I fail to see a contradiction between the two statements. Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. The competent use it when appropriate. Not as a last refuge.
The first quote, in context, clearly isn’t meant the way you interpret it here. It basically means that if you’re resorting to violence, then you fucked up somewhere along the way (even if, now, it is in fact your best option).
Well, it is Salvador Hardin saying it, and not Isaac Asimov. That being said, the context it was in, was in regards to permanent solutions, over a thousand years.
Compared to that, we are all incompetent.
Yeah, eventually, like after Mary has suffered deeply and killed herself. No offense, but for at least some situations, you’re dreaming.
You know…you are pissing me off. Meet you behind the powerhouse after school. You better be there to!
I’m a probation officer, and I deal with a lot of assault and battery cases. The OP sounds exactly like the shit I hear every day. Someone was a jerk to me, therefore I have the right to beat the shit out of them. They always say “What was I supposed to do? He was looking at my girlfriend!” or “What was I supposed to do? He called me X!” Then the speech about how “I just want respect! He was disrespecting me!” It’s a sick kind of thinking.
Here’s what you’re supposed to do, jtgain. You’re supposed to walk away. They’re just words. They can’t hurt you.
Anger management programs have come a long way in the last 10 years jtgain. I suggest you look into one. Most of the people I send to them tell me they enjoyed it, and their relationships all improve.
Wasn’t it Robert Heinlein who used to say that “an armed society is a polite society”?
What are you supposed to do? Be less of a pussy. If someone looking at your girlfriend or calling you a name hurts your feelings to the point that you want to beat his ass, then you’re a weak assed bitch who will spend his life feeling ‘disrespected’ by everything the world throws at you. You don’t demonstrate your power by attacking people over shit like that, you show your FEAR.
Yes, it was, and he was wrong. An armed society isn’t a polite society; it’s just a society where you get shootings in addition to the rudeness.
The implication is that if you have to use violence, you are incompetant. IOW you aren’t smart or wise enough to come up with a non-violent solution.
Or you just defending yourself from an incompetent.
The country that starts a war doesn’t always win.
I don’t think society today is more violent than previously. It’s that we hear about it more because of 24 hour news and the internet.
In Ye Olde Days, someone robbing a bank and shooting a guard in Bumfluff, Wyoming wouldn’t generally be considered news in, say, the UK. But nowadays- thanks to 24 hour news channels and the web- the entire English-speaking world hears about these things, even if they’re actually happening on the other side of the planet.
There are also fewer people in it.
Fewer people? Fewer rude people? I’m still not seeing any reason to think Heinlein didn’t have the seeds of some great ideas.
The problem is that if you resolve interpersonal conflicts by fistfights, you’re essentially dividing society into two groups - those who are physically strong enough to defend their rights and those who aren’t. Is “respect anyone who’s big enough to hit you” really the basis for a civil society?
Look at Robert Heinlein - an icon among the rugged libertarian individualist crowd. Now look at Hamilton Felix the protagonist of Beyond This Horizon, one of Heinlein’s political utopian novels. In this future society, men carried guns and challenged either other to duels if they were insulted. But the novel was written in 1948. So when Heinlein wrote about a female character who tried to carry a gun and assert herself as the equal of the male characters, the readers were supposed to see the absurdity of this. The men all dismissed her and refused to accept her dueling challenges. Eventually, she came to realize that she was not a real equal and learned to accept her secondary status as she should.
Is that the kind of society we want to live in now?
Clearly, neither of you were bullied as kids. The lesson there was that if you took the verbal abuse without response, they’d get bored and pick on someone else. If you responded physically, the alpha male would clean your clock. If you beat him, the whole group would beat you to a bloody pulp. I never saw a problem solved by starting a fight. I never saw the combatants make friends afterward.
The only time I saw violence solve the problem was when I grew weary of a lone bully that had been picking on me (physically) during much of 8th grade and defended myself.
Really? How old are you? The 8th grade fistfight I mentioned above is not only the only fight I’ve ever been in, it’s the only fistfight I’ve ever seen. I hang out with grownups–we all outgrew fisticuffs by the time we reached high school.
The closest I ever came to a fistfight as an adult was when someone was pushing me around in a bar. I faced off with him, the bouncer separated us, and it was over.
Well said.
I’ll be in ma’ bunk.
Personally I lean more towards Glory Road but compared to what we got right now? This very minute? Yeah - I could live with that if I had to.
You’ll have to come over my place for a bbq some day. One of my best friends and I spent a fair bit of our free time from 2nd grade to about 10th grade beating the living snot out of each other. Sooner or later, between punches, it dawned on us that we had as much in common as we did different from each other. It happens.
I’ve never seen a problem solved by endless debate; especially when both sides believe they are equally right. I’ve never seen a Al Sharpton type and a David Duke type make friends and I don’t see either going away or leaving others alone. That doesn’t mean debate and the verbal exchange of ideas is bad; just that like physical violence it has its placed when used wisely.
So when talk does nothing, it’s time for physical violence?