Violence isn’t merely symmetric—it’s asymmetric in a bad direction, since fascists are better than violence than you.
So “Violence is asymmetric in favor of violence” is a misinterpretation; Davis is making a claim about it being asymmetric in a bad direction, and also claiming that fascists are better at violence than “you”.
Ah, fair. I did not read or re-read his post carefully, appreciate pointing out the error.
I stand by my own claims, which I think are weaker. I am not quite sure about the claims Davis made since history is complex, but it’s definitely a stronger claim that I’d want to look into more.
Awhile, there was a thing about women who get cat-called pepper spraying the cat-caller. And there was an initial round on social media of “yeah! fight back!”
But a concern someone brought up in that discussion was “we’ve put _massive_ amounts of effort into punishing physical violence as a way to solve problems and as a tool it’s acceptable to use (generally, and in the domain of sexuality).
“If you move the battlefield back into the domain of violence, aggressive men (who are on average stronger) will be more likely to apply physical force, and even if locally you get to win some fights due to surprise, or social narratives being on your side… in the long run, it makes the world less safe for physically weaker people.”
(I think this domain is complicated there’s a lot of nuance left out of the above paragraph, but sort of gets across the idea)
Of course, I completely agree with this, especially this part:
“we’ve put massive amounts of effort into punishing physical violence as a way to solve problems and as a tool it’s acceptable to use (generally, and in the domain of sexuality).
Punishing physical violence. With more efficient violence. What we’ve done is brought a very large coalition into extremely precise agreement about who it’s acceptable to do violence to (“criminals” for short), who must do it, and how it must be done. Not only will uninvolved bystanders intervene to ensure these violent norms are followed, but we even have a class of professional violent bystanders (the police).
The sort of spontaneous lashing out that you brought up is exactly the kind of thing highly organized violence excels at suppressing. Lack of such violence, overall, tends to make life much worse for physically weaker non-criminals, even if it might let them get away with occasionally pepper-spraying a catcaller.
Okay, that’s a good point that updates my models a bit. I think my half-formed opinions had more to do with… I think mostly vigilante violence (i.e. the guy who punched the neo-Nazi on the street), which operates outside of the well defined coalition.
Lack of such violence, overall, tends to make life much worse for physically weaker non-criminals, even if it might let them get away with occasionally pepper-spraying a catcaller.
How does lack of violence make life worse for ‘physically weaker non-criminals’? Are you talking about ‘violence directed at those who use violence unacceptably’? (‘Meta-violence.’)
I think all this talk of ‘good’ is making things more confusing.
Davis said: Violence is asymmetric in favor of violence.
He said:
So “Violence is asymmetric in favor of violence” is a misinterpretation; Davis is making a claim about it being asymmetric in a bad direction, and also claiming that fascists are better at violence than “you”.
Ah, fair. I did not read or re-read his post carefully, appreciate pointing out the error.
I stand by my own claims, which I think are weaker. I am not quite sure about the claims Davis made since history is complex, but it’s definitely a stronger claim that I’d want to look into more.
A particular lens on this:
Awhile, there was a thing about women who get cat-called pepper spraying the cat-caller. And there was an initial round on social media of “yeah! fight back!”
But a concern someone brought up in that discussion was “we’ve put _massive_ amounts of effort into punishing physical violence as a way to solve problems and as a tool it’s acceptable to use (generally, and in the domain of sexuality).
“If you move the battlefield back into the domain of violence, aggressive men (who are on average stronger) will be more likely to apply physical force, and even if locally you get to win some fights due to surprise, or social narratives being on your side… in the long run, it makes the world less safe for physically weaker people.”
(I think this domain is complicated there’s a lot of nuance left out of the above paragraph, but sort of gets across the idea)
Of course, I completely agree with this, especially this part:
Punishing physical violence. With more efficient violence. What we’ve done is brought a very large coalition into extremely precise agreement about who it’s acceptable to do violence to (“criminals” for short), who must do it, and how it must be done. Not only will uninvolved bystanders intervene to ensure these violent norms are followed, but we even have a class of professional violent bystanders (the police).
The sort of spontaneous lashing out that you brought up is exactly the kind of thing highly organized violence excels at suppressing. Lack of such violence, overall, tends to make life much worse for physically weaker non-criminals, even if it might let them get away with occasionally pepper-spraying a catcaller.
Okay, that’s a good point that updates my models a bit. I think my half-formed opinions had more to do with… I think mostly vigilante violence (i.e. the guy who punched the neo-Nazi on the street), which operates outside of the well defined coalition.
That last sentence didn’t make sense:
How does lack of violence make life worse for ‘physically weaker non-criminals’? Are you talking about ‘violence directed at those who use violence unacceptably’? (‘Meta-violence.’)