which of these is "violence"?

[Antonio the Sixth]

2, 3, 5, 12

Physical acts that cause material harm.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Wait, I accidentally voted 4. The way you've arranged these options makes no sense even for the point you're trying to make.

[Antonio the Sixth]

OK, this thread is by and large just a puerile waste of time to make fun of extreme woke parlance, but how the f**k are evictions not violence? Like, the Dules of the world are free to call it legitimate violence (every political ideology has its own definition of what violence is and isn't legitimate), but surely if words are to have any meaning then physically removing a person from a place against their will is clearly a violent act?

[Antonio the Sixth]

OK, this thread is by and large just a puerile waste of time to make fun of extreme woke parlance, but how the f**k are evictions not violence? Like, the Dules of the world are free to call it legitimate violence (every political ideology has its own definition of what violence is and isn't legitimate), but surely if words are to have any meaning then physically removing a person from a place against their will is clearly a violent act?

Yeah! And it's also violence when the waiter politely asks me to leave my table after I've been sitting there for six hours without ordering anything. I refuse to be physically removed! This restaurant is common property, comrade!

If the implication is that two big guys are gonna come in and forcibly haul you out of the restaurant, and if you're overwhelmingly likely to suffer physical harm as a result (like, say, there's a shootout in the street outside - or, you know, you're homeless and likely to starve or die of cold) how is it not violence? Are you going to criticize the woke people for defining violence as everything they don't like and then do the exact same thing? Well, I'm sorry, but I like to use consistent definitions for my terms regardless of whether they serve my ideological ends or not. If you definite violence in a way other than "a physical action taken against a person's will that causes them physical harm" then by all means let me know your definitions.

JacksonHitchcock, I'm sorry but your family sob story is of no relevance to the way we define concepts, and if you're looking for my sympathy then ranting like a self-righteous jackass is unlikely to get it.

[Antonio the Sixth]

OK, this thread is by and large just a puerile waste of time to make fun of extreme woke parlance, but how the f**k are evictions not violence? Like, the Dules of the world are free to call it legitimate violence (every political ideology has its own definition of what violence is and isn't legitimate), but surely if words are to have any meaning then physically removing a person from a place against their will is clearly a violent act?

Yeah! And it's also violence when the waiter politely asks me to leave my table after I've been sitting there for six hours without ordering anything. I refuse to be physically removed! This restaurant is common property, comrade!

If the implication is that two big guys are gonna come in and forcibly haul you out of the restaurant, and if you're overwhelmingly likely to suffer physical harm as a result (like, say, there's a shootout in the street outside - or, you know, you're homeless and likely to starve or die of cold) how is it not violence? Are you going to criticize the woke people for defining violence as everything they don't like and then do the exact same thing? Well, I'm sorry, but I like to use consistent definitions for my terms regardless of whether they serve my ideological ends or not. If you definite violence in a way other than "a physical action taken against a person's will that causes them physical harm" then by all means let me know your definitions.

JacksonHitchcock, I'm sorry but your family sob story is of no relevance to the way we define concepts, and if you're looking for my sympathy then ranting like a self-righteous jackass is unlikely to get it.

What do you mean by this? You are the one who is redefining violence to suit his own ends, not me. Most evictions do not result in a situation where the property owner has to actually resort to physical violence. Now, perhaps the threat of potential violence is behind an eviction order (if the tenant does not comply with it), but backing up your words with a possibility for violence is not the same as a violent action. It's the difference between telling a burglar "Hey man, get your hands off my valuables and leave my property" and actually shooting him in the face.

If you're pointing a gun at the burglar, then I'd say is a violent act even if you don't actually shoot, yes. When the threat of violence is so intrinsically connected to an action, I think it's fair to say that the violent quality carries over to it. I guess we can agree to disagree on that but it seems to me that it's not helpful to obfuscate this connection.

[Antonio the Sixth]

OK, this thread is by and large just a puerile waste of time to make fun of extreme woke parlance, but how the f**k are evictions not violence? Like, the Dules of the world are free to call it legitimate violence (every political ideology has its own definition of what violence is and isn't legitimate), but surely if words are to have any meaning then physically removing a person from a place against their will is clearly a violent act?

Yeah! And it's also violence when the waiter politely asks me to leave my table after I've been sitting there for six hours without ordering anything. I refuse to be physically removed! This restaurant is common property, comrade!

If the implication is that two big guys are gonna come in and forcibly haul you out of the restaurant, and if you're overwhelmingly likely to suffer physical harm as a result (like, say, there's a shootout in the street outside - or, you know, you're homeless and likely to starve or die of cold) how is it not violence? Are you going to criticize the woke people for defining violence as everything they don't like and then do the exact same thing? Well, I'm sorry, but I like to use consistent definitions for my terms regardless of whether they serve my ideological ends or not. If you definite violence in a way other than "a physical action taken against a person's will that causes them physical harm" then by all means let me know your definitions.

JacksonHitchcock, I'm sorry but your family sob story is of no relevance to the way we define concepts, and if you're looking for my sympathy then ranting like a self-righteous jackass is unlikely to get it.

What do you mean by this? You are the one who is redefining violence to suit his own ends, not me. Most evictions do not result in a situation where the property owner has to actually resort to physical violence. Now, perhaps the threat of potential violence is behind an eviction order (if the tenant does not comply with it), but backing up your words with a possibility for violence is not the same as a violent action. It's the difference between telling a burglar "Hey man, get your hands off my valuables and leave my property" and actually shooting him in the face.

If you're pointing a gun at the burglar, then I'd say is a violent act even if you don't actually shoot, yes. When the threat of violence is so intrinsically connected to an action, I think it's fair to say that the violent quality carries over to it. I guess we can agree to disagree on that but it seems to me that it's not helpful to obfuscate this connection.

Isn't all criminal law "violence" then for being backed up by the implicit threat of force? Laws criminalizing rape and murder are thus "violent".

...of course it is. Ever heard of Max Weber?

[Antonio the Sixth]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence

Seriously, this is common knowledge to the point of truism among people who know anything about political theory.

[Antonio the Sixth]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence

Seriously, this is common knowledge to the point of truism among people who know anything about political theory.

Legally speaking, the state has a monopoly on the use of violence. That does not, however, mean that everything the state does is a violent action. Violence refers specifically to physical actions that are harmful and destructive. State actions are inherently coercive, yes, but they are not all violent. Not everything you don't like is violent, and not everything violent is inherently bad. Stop trying to condescend in order to mask your misunderstanding of these terms.

lol, I'm a big fan of the state, so that's clearly not what I'm saying

The monopoly on legitimate violence is not an incidental characteristic of the state - it's almost universally accepted by social sciences as its defining characteristic. To be a state is to exercise a monopoly on legitimate violence within a defined territory. Not everything the state does is violent, but everything it does carries the implicit or explicit threat of violence. Whether or not the act itself is violent depends, as I said, on how explicit the threat is. Criminalizing something carries the very explicit implication that those caught doing that thing will be forcibly imprisoned and/or killed, so the relationship seems pretty damn direct to me.

And yes, that's an inherently arbitrary boundary, but it still makes more sense to me than the alternative. Otherwise, I guess armed robbery and kidnapping are also non-violent crimes, since you can in fact commit them without causing direct physical harm.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Well this is pointless. If you really want to distinguish between harm applied by physical force and harm applied by the immediate threat of physical force, good for you. But coercion is not what I'm talking about. Blackmailing is not a violent crime, but armed robbery is. Both involve threat, but in one case the threat is inherently violent, and in the other it isn't. I think that's a more important distinction than that between whether or not one specific eviction is resolved by sending the police to physically remove the occupant or whether the occupant just complies to avoid that situation. But I guess if you're willing to say that armed robbery is nonviolent then I guess we can leave it there.