Well, first, it's not clear at all to me (or the law for that matter), that the threat of violence isn't itself violence. The threat of violence is assault.
This is a valid point. If you want to start considering non-physical violence, then you can probably add to the list of animals and species that participate in it. Even to a similar level that humans do.
Thirdly, humans are emotional as well as rational creatures, and the threat of violence frequently provokes anger and violence as a responce, so if you are bluffing the threat of violence you better be prepared for the escalation that is likely to result.
This is why I don't bluff violence
But yes, you're correct. However......I sometimes wonder if mental stability is a factor when you're talking about people resorting to violence when faced with overwhelming force. Doesn't seem like a rational choice.
No they don't. But they have to be willing to do these things, which a pacifist by definition is not. They also have to have reputation for being willing to commit violence, which a pacifist won't have. And the fact of the matter is that, people don't always surrender when faced with a threat even when resistance has no hope of success and makes the situation worse.
Well....I'm not sure this is quite as cut and dry as this. They have to be *willing* to use force...and it's that reputation for willingness (as a group) to commit violence that gives police the reputation for violence that gives authority to the threat, and leads to many people choosing not to resist.
There are likely cultural differences as well though. I hear of far more incidents in the US of people resisting the police, to the point of having shootouts etc. than I have in my own country. But, again, cultural differences.
There are many police who go their entire careers without discharging their firearms a single time. And there are police who discharge their firearms in a single incident, and are messed up for life as a result. I'm pretty sure it takes a certain kind of person to take a life, and not be an emotional mess as a result.
Some will. But don't bet on 'flight' in the 'fight or flight' instinct. Humans are very poor runners and can't hide very well. As a species we are built to fight and kill, and we are very good at it. Nothing else in nature has a natural instinct to pick up a stick and hit things with it. Nothing else in nature can take that stick, or a rock, or a spear, or a gun, and instinctually use it to hit a target and with practice to hit it with accuracy rivaling that of a purpose built machine.
Sure, it's called 'morality'. But if pacifism is to mean anything, it must be a distinction between itself the near universal assertion by all societies that violence is a last resort. Banshee
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I won't contest that there is violence in human societies. That's obvious. My only point would be that organized violence isn't restricted to homo sapiens.
We know that other species such as chimps and ants practice it, on large scale. Scientists have also observed chimps procuring weapons to use either against each other, or against prey that they desire to kill. Now, those weapons might not be anything more advanced than using a rock to hit another animal, a heavy stick to use as a club, or in some areas of africa, sharp spears/sticks....but they *do* do it.
Ants don't use weapons that way....but they don't need to, as their mandibles can rip antennae, limbs, and heads off their opponents. Humans need weapons, because, physically, I don't think we can really rip other humans part limb from limb, the way other predators can.
The more that animal behaviourists study other species the more they learn that we're special....but also, that we're not nearly so different as we'd like to think.
Banshee
