This seems to only have a good track record in places with a democratic tradition. Some dictators have figured out you can just imprison and kill the opposition, and keep doing this until there is no more opposition.
The Khomeini government is not going to just say "oh, you're right" and change. Neither will the Kim or Putin governments. Sometimes - sadly - violence is the least worst answer.
Don't say sadly. Don't further the indoctrination that violence is bad.
It is a tool, it cannot be good or bad. States are the most prolific users of violence (even more when you also count potential/threatened, not yet materialized). Anyone who wants to claim that violence is bad has to oppose the existence of states.
Violence is risky, dangerous, unpredictable, costly, etc. But those are practical and legal, not moral, concerns.
Violence is also necessary, as you say, against governments or other actors which cannot be deterred, stopped or punished using other means.
Violence is also most effective when it's certain and overwhelming/indefensible. If we lived in a world where dictators and their flying monkeys get regularly shot or droned to death, we wouldn't have dictators. Not because they'd all end up dead but because nobody would dare try becoming or supporting one.
This is why we have to publicly support _proportional_ punishment of dictators and their supporters, both now and after they've been removed from power. Good people have to use the same tools as bad ones (after all, they are just tools, not good or bad).
> Don't say sadly...It is a tool, it cannot be good or bad
It's not just a tool, it's also a human action. An action that exacts consequences on its victim and its wielder. Necessary and regrettable aren't exclusive.
On the contrary, target is a neutral word, justifying the violence against a target is exactly as difficult as it should be - based on the circumstances instead of emotions.
Victim already implies wrongdoing so it makes justifying just violence harder than it should be.
For the record, i often use target instead of victim when talking about harassment, bullying, rape, etc. because it also doesn't imply surrender to the aggressor or lack of agency.
The problem is that it is routinely misused (especially by those who have overwhelming power), and the cases where it is really needed are really, really, really rare.
Even in cases when it appears that the use of violence is justified, the long term consequences (e.g. on culture and mentality, and hence ultimately on normal daily life) are usually such that it would have been better to avoid it in the first place.
At the moment you regularly shoot/drone the dictators, the one deciding who is dictator warranting such violence is the most scary dictator of all.
This talk about good/bad people is such naive childish ploy, are we adults here or what?
And that's why it's important to establish publicly known and accepted rules about this. Nobody suggests one person deciding this, usually people who imagine this situation have some issues of their own.
But the threat of absolutely any citizen having a decent chance of successfully killing a dictator would probably lead to democratization of power - individuals would not be attracted to having so much power they would likely become targets and we'd hopefully see more effort towards establishing more direct means of decision making.
> This talk about good/bad people is such naive childish ploy, are we adults here or what?
No need for insults, it's a simplification. It's obviously a spectrum. But broadly speaking, people who regularly intentionally harm others for their gain or pleasure (or see nothing wrong with doing it or support those who do) are considered bad. People who go out of their way to help others are good. The rest is neutral. Most people are neutral - don't see injustice or wrongdoing as their problem until it directly negatively affects them.
And obviously, there are people who do both a lot of good and a lot of bad. I consider those bad because more often than not, they only do the good things to gain support or compensate so they can get away with the bad things.
That's my personal opinion and experience. Other people could for example argue for simply summing up the good and the bad and the total would neatly categorize them. Intent also matters and that's even more complex but usually unprovable from the outside.
Some tools are definitely better than others. Also some tools are not "the right tool" for the job.
Fundamentally though I'm not sure I agree with you. Violence is often an emotional reaction. When violence is used as a tool it is usually (always?) used by bad people.
If it helps you reconcile my worldview, I absolutely oppose the existence of states.
Keep in mind this needs to be judged separately in the legal, practical and moral dimension. For example a state might determine that a person _legally_ deserves to spend 10 years in prison. But the same state will attack you in turn if you abduct that person and hold them for 10 years in similar conditions to prison because _practically_, it weakens the state's monopoly on violence, even if _morally_ that action can be justified (i.e. because if a punishment is just there is no moral reason why it should matter who carries it out).
> often ... usually (always?)
I think the crux lies in how we quantify this. If you live in a western democracy, almost all of the violence you come into contact with or hear about is in fact used by bad individuals (thiefs, gang members, drunks, etc.) or the mentally ill. But even then you have the right (moral and usually legal) to defend yourself.
If you live in other places, that violence might more often be used be institutions (such as states or religions) and might not be materialized (it is potential/threatened/implied). E.g. what happens to a muslim woman who refuses to cover her face - the violence usually never happens because she knows it would and therefore doesn't break the rule. It is still violence used to achieve a goal though and she has the same (moral but usually not legal) right to defend herself - even if any practical defense is beyond her ability to do so because the aggressors are too numerous and dispersed.
I would argue that billions of people live in countries where violence is used against them every day because it is a threat which for example stops them from freely accessing information.
In that regard you're right that it is usually used by bad people. But it says nothing about its morality. The way I see it, violence being used by bad people is a stable equilibrium but it can be used by good people during a transition to a different stable state. It is usually not used by good people in a prolonged because materialized violence tends to reduce the number of people on both sides and cannot be sustained forever.
I don't believe that punishment can be just, and ergo I don't see a moral axis on which to judge violent actions for this purpose. I might concede the use of threatened violence as a means of control, but I don't see any pragmatic way to accomplish this without at least occasional actual punishment so it's a bit non sequiter.
It's likely our views are divergent enough that we wont come to a consensus on this, but I appreciate the nuanced discourse!
I've encountered such opinions before but never cared to engage with them since they seem utterly alien to me. Can you give me a summary of your opinions or links to some materials?
There are multiple goals to a punishment - e.g.:
- Deterrence
- Protection of others / prevention of re-offense
- Removal of aggressor from community to minimize further trauma for the victim by having to interact with him
- Restitution
- Retribution
- Vindication
- Removing any gains from the offense from the aggressor
- Further disadvantaging of the aggressor to make up for `expected_gains * probability_of_getting_caught`
- Further disadvantaging of the aggressor to put negative evolutionary pressure on such behavior
- Separation of the aggressor from others to prevent him from normalizing / spreading his behavior
These few are just off the top of my head, not all apply to all offenses, and not everyone will agree all of these are desired by their favorite society. But how do you achieve any, let along most, of them without punishment?
Sure. It's not something I was formally taught, but rather a viewpoint I came to over time, informed by my own anecdotal experiences and observations. So I don't have any links to share with you, but I'm happy to give a go at explaining my logic.
The naive summary would be that if an individual harms another this is "bad" (a harm to society). To then enact a punishment would be to apply another harm, which would be doubly bad. In my mind, justice is the restoration of balance to the whole, so double harm can never be considered just.
I understand the "goals of punishment" you've outlined and don't even disagree that they can be met (to some extent) via this mechanism. Though I wouldn't classify restitution as a "punishment"[0]. I can also see how the harms from punishment can be moderated when enacted by a state (a group of individuals holding some claim to legitimate power). The question is not whether a system of punishment is sufficient, but whether it is necessary.
If the goal is to reduce all harm to the minimum practical amount we must be pragmatic in our analysis and execution.
I have also seen states grossly amplify the harms involved well past what any individual could be capable of and I have seen individuals operating on behalf of the state launder harm through their office to absolve themselves of any personal accountability for what are ultimately personal actions.
From my observations, those who receive punishment after causing harm rarely become reformed and productive members of society. If anything the punishment[1] leaves them bitter and often actively disadvantages their opportunities for success, leading them to commit more harms and drawing us down a dangerous spiral. Even in confinement these individuals often commit harm to their peers or to those that guard them—and, more abstractly, to the tax payers that are compelled to back this system.
It's not that I doubt these methods can "work" to some extent, but that I see us stuck in a local maxima. I believe we can do much better.
I believe the vast majority of crime that is commited in modern societies could be eliminated through better education, cooperation, and social equality. Why commit crimes, especially violent ones, when the opportunity cost of not pursuing more productive activities is large?
For what remains, I would propose applying insurance. When the volcano erupts and the magma damages my house I do not feel the need to "punish" the volcano.
I do believe there is a floor to violence (and other criminal acts) that will exist no matter what we do. (One-off crimes of passion or acts commited by the criminally insane, for instance). For some of these there may not be any better answer than imprisonment or exile in order to protect the community from future acts. However, I'd love to explore the proactive solutions I recommended above (education, equality, etc) and leave the shrinking vestiges of the current system to handle these edge cases if necessary.
[0]: Likewise, I can see the utility of—e.g—restraining orders and would not call those a "punishment" either, though in this we start to get into the grey area of restraint (limiting an individual's freedom of movement could be classified as a harm).
That's a good way to think about it but unfortunately, human language is so imprecise that IMO many people will leave with the conclusion that "sadly" means "using violence makes me sad and implicitly is therefore bad".
Ideally we'd live in a society where laws are a complete and consistent description of a valid (also complete and consistent) moral system. That's not the reality.
(If it's possible at all because morality operates on reality while legality operated on provability - a subset of reality which can be proven to a neutral third party.)
I suspect this kind of nuance is lost on the sort of people who think having qualms about the use of violence is the same thing as pretending to be saintly pacifists.
Why would you want to, unless you live in a domain of indoctrination ("echo chamber") that pacifism is good and anything else is bad?
I always find it useful to ask "why", whenever someone tells me their beliefs. Children do it and adults sometimes tend to find it annoying because they realize they cannot justify their beliefs but being children, they are easy to dismiss. Harder to dismiss an honest question from an adult.
“If we lived in a world where dictators and their flying monkeys get regularly shot or droned to death, we wouldn't have dictators”
While I agree with the sentiment, the groups who support dictators (oligarchs, religious extremists) would decide to also use violence. So both dictators and the leaders on the side of the people would be murdered and society would be destabilized.
We need reliable anonymous communication as yet another source of friction (drink!) which the state needs to overcome to subjugate the people. And that's why so many states, even western democracies, are trying to oppose it now using children or terrorists as an excuse. The authoritarians and wannabe-dictators (most of whom will never achieve their goal or even publicly state it) are already in government positions, always have been.
There are two upsides:
- There are more normal (good or neutral) people than there are authoritarians (bad people - who want to exercise unjustified control over other people's lives). If the leadership attributes are evenly distributed, then they need to kill more of us than we need to kill of them.
- I don't think people should need to be led. It's a symptom of submissivity many have been taught since childhood ("do what I say and don't talk back") and to some extent is it probably natural but hopefully it can be reduced through better upbringing. Teach your children to question everything and to guess people's incentives and motives. What we need need is enough independent thinkers who are able to communicate and self-organize.
Using violence against someone is the ultimate authoritarian act, so for one side this is business as usual while for the other this is the epitome of hypocrisy.
Your mention of anonymity reminds me of assasination politics [0], which is an idea I found enticing in the past. However I've since come to the opinion that such a system is neither optimal nor necessary, though I believe a similar outcome may be inevitable as we continue along the arc of the democratization of power through technical proliferation.
Only in single-step moral systems (one which judges actions as moral or immoral solely based on those actions in the moment and not what preceded them).
I have a multi-step moral system. Basically any unjustified intentional harm to a person justified proportional retaliation. Unjustified means it is not harm which is being caused as punishment to a previous offense. And proportional means that it shouldn't be too weak, neither too strong. IMO the optimum is causing something like 1.5-3x more suffering/"disadvantagement". However, it is important to signal to both the original aggressor and any potential witnesses why this is being done so that one is not mistaken for an original aggressor himself.
I am also a fan of judging others by their own moral principles. Basically, if someone thinks it is OK to, for example, limit my freedom or harm me (for various reasons or in various circumstances), I apply the same rules to him and it is therefore OK for me to limit his freedom or harm him (for similar reasons or in similar circumstances).
Either system leads to similar outcomes. (The first allows stronger response to offense, the second allows only mirroring).
Thanks for the link, it looks very interesting but it goes into my to-read list for today.
> seems to only have a good track record in places with a democratic tradition
"All that said, there are very obviously regimes in the world that have rendered themselves more-or-less immune to non-violent protest. This isn’t really the place to talk about the broader concept of ‘coup proofing’ and how authoritarian regimes secure internal security, repression and legitimacy in detail. But a certain kind of regime operates effectively as a society-within-a-society, with an armed subset of the population as insiders who receive benefits in status and wealth from the regime in return for their willingness to do violence to maintain it. Such regimes are generally all too willing to gun down thousands or tens of thousands of protestors to maintain power.
The late Assad regime in Syria stands as a clear example of this, as evidently does the current regime in Iran. Such regimes are not immune to an ‘attack on will,’ but they have substantially insulated themselves from it and resistance to these regimes, if it continues, often metastasizes into insurgency or protracted war (as with the above example of Syria) because the pressure has nowhere else to go" (Id.).
> normal Iranian people who just want to leave their life?
Like the ones who are protesting? Idk, when people put themselves in front of a gun I'm inclined to listen to what they're demanding, not folks in their armchairs a world away.
Hitler was so bad that anybody is willing to publicly talk about killing him, there are movies glorifying it, people talk about going back in time and killing baby Hitler. He was so bad that the very strong taboo against killing does not work on him.
So, when _exactly_ did it become OK to kill him? Think about it.
What cumulative sum of his actions between 1889 and 1945 tipped the balance?
Now, do those same rules apply to current dictators or people in the process of becoming dictators even if the taboo is still strong there?
Are you comparing Iran to Hitler?! That does not make sense whatsoever.
If you mean 'At some point, you have to step in and make the change by force. Like we did with Hitler'.
I will say: Yes, at some point it is justified to step in. But, there must be a realistic chance that you will make things better, and low chance that you will make things much, much worse. International consensus would be highly desirable, as well.
In case of Iran: How sure are you that you can make a positive change in Iran by bombing only? If you kill (directly or indirectly, e.g. starvation/ruined water supplies) much more Iranians than Iranians killed themselves (like we did with Saddam), are you really helping?
I don't think there is a will (and maybe not even a capability) for boots on the ground. So, you are just hoping that the new regime would be a better one. Not many positive historical examples there.
Last, but not least: There are serious escalation dangers. What if China/Russia provided Iran with targeting data and/or missiles (not that Iran does not have their own) and Iran hit/sunk a carrier and some destroyers? Are you now in war with China/Russia? At what moment do you cross that line? Will you retreat with the tail between you legs, like from Afghanistan? Or will Israel decide to toss a nuke or two?
The idealism of helping the poor protesters is a noble one, but the road to hell is paved by good intentions.
The Khomeini government is not going to just say "oh, you're right" and change. Neither will the Kim or Putin governments. Sometimes - sadly - violence is the least worst answer.