Is it really so difficult to not use violence or threaten to use violence in response to ridicule?

[Humanist_Activist]

I ask this in all seriousness considering the responses that have been discussed about both Charlie Hebdo and other incidences. It seems that to some people on this board actually think violence is a proper, expected and/or predictable response to someones speech towards them or one of their sacred cows. Here's a big fat clue, its not. Is there a huge rash of fist fights that I'm not aware of, that people get into? I've been in one actual fight, and I certainly didn't start it, and I lost badly. I was 16 years old then, 20 years ago, haven't been in a fight, or even close to one since.

I got over entertaining revenge fantasies after my teenage years, I grew up. If someone ridicules me today, it either rolls off my back or I respond in kind, but I certainly would never use violence unless I was threatened with imminent harm, or people around me are. This seems to be common sense to me, my rights to respond to whatever you do ends at your nose, to put it both literally and metaphorically.

I think people are confusing their feelings with their reactions, feelings you sometimes have very little control over, but your reactions you do have control over. When someone makes fun of your mom, it is perfectly normal to feel white hot rage about that, you may even want to clock the asshole who said the offensive thing. What isn't normal is you actually punching the asshole, and you don't need to justify your feelings by reacting badly.

[marym625]

1. Excellent

Well said. K&R!

[glasshouses]

2. There's some people that need a punch in the nose

I lose no sleep when it happens to them

[branford]

12. Just don't complaint when other people believe

you or those you care about also need a punch in the nose, and have no compunctions about carrying out such violence.

In fact, such an attitude is often the reason why police are so rough with otherwise generally peaceful protesters, regardless of the issue being protested. They know much of the public will simply not care about the "dirty hippies" and similar individuals, and that believe they probably could use a punch in the nose for their unpopular statements or the inconvenience they cause.

[butterfly77]

3. That's what this country was built on..

Haven't you heard from the bible belt or the teabaggers, they have been doing it every since they knew that a black man was going to be the President, and he has more threats than any other.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent" Isaac Asimov

Or, in some cases, the first refuge.

[MohRokTah]

5. Ridicule back.

Use your freedom of speech to rile up those around you to join in on the ridiculing back!

[Warren Stupidity]

6. The spectacle of the left aligning itself with right wing islamic fundamentalists is appalling.

The combination of the demands that religious thought be immune from ridicule and the craven amoral opportunism of recasting islamic jihad as some sort of class war struggle is stunning.

These fuckers want to put their women in burkas, kill homosexuals, and impose a 13th century legal code on the territories they control. They are nasty right wing religious nutjobs, and when they get in power they make life horrible for everyone. And their religion is part of the problem and deserves all the scorn, mocking, satire, and ridicule it gets.

[Pooka Fey]

9. +1

[leftynyc]

27. +1000

[cpwm17]

44. That's a straw man.

Liberals don't support right-wing hateful behavior, either by the religious or by those that see the world in black-and-white.

There are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world and that great majority aren't out to harm the world. They aren't all of one mind either. Blanket, racist (yes, racist) condemnations of Muslims is the right-wing SOP.

Religion isn't the cause of most evil in this world. That god-damned sniper in that new movie murdered far more innocents during the world's worst crime this century, the Iraq War, than those Muslims did in France. Muslims were the target of that war even though they were completely innocent.

Your hateful, blanket, condemnation of all Muslims is just plain bigotry. I agree that religion sucks, but our ignorant, selfish, racist jingoism sucks much more.

[Warren Stupidity]

45. "Your hateful, blanket, condemnation of all Muslims is just plain bigotry"

And there it is yet again.

[Fred Sanders]

55. Truth hurts.

[Warren Stupidity]

62. How would you know?

But feel free to point to exactly where I said anything even close to a "condemnation of all Muslims".

I'll wait.

[Fred Sanders]

64. Post # 6? I would know because..those are your thoughts, such as they are, right?

[Warren Stupidity]

65. Yes that is a post of mine. Very good. Now where did I condemn all muslims?

[Fred Sanders]

67. See post # 6. Last line is fairly clear.

[Warren Stupidity]

68. Oh Fred, you've got nothing, again. It is so sad.

[Fred Sanders]

70. Well, I have post #6, and since you asked.....

[hifiguy]

50. Well said, Warren.

Well said indeed. They are a threat to everything that can be called civilization and deserve every bit of scorn and mockery that can be directed at them.

[Fred Sanders]

52. And the right aligning itself with Christian eliminationists and extremists is equally alarming.

Most religions have a lot of blood on their hands due to extremists that sully the name of their religion.

[LanternWaste]

54. Wish I could see some of that alleged left alignment with fundamentalism.

Wish I could see some of that alleged left alignment with fundamentalism. However, as I am unable to wish a thing into view, I have to remain content with seeing only what is.

[Warren Stupidity]

63. There is interesting research in developing alternate sensory pathways for people

who have ocular damage.

Neural Correlates of Sensory Substitution in Vestibular
Pathways following Complete Vestibular Loss
Soroush G. Sadeghi,1 Lloyd B. Minor,2 and Kathleen E. Cullen1
1
Department of Physiology, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec H3G 1Y6, Canada, and 2
Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Johns
Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland 21205
Sensory substitution is the term typically used in reference to sensory prosthetic devices designed to replace input from one defective
modality with input from another modality. Such devices allow an alternative encoding of sensory information that is no longer directly
provided by the defective modality in a purposeful and goal-directed manner. The behavioral recovery that follows complete vestibular
loss is impressive and has long been thought to take advantage of a natural form of sensory substitution in which head motion information
is no longer provided by vestibular inputs, but instead by extravestibular inputs such as proprioceptive and motor efference copy
signals. Here we examined the neuronal correlates of this behavioral recovery after complete vestibular loss in alert behaving monkeys
(Macaca mulatta). We show for the first time that extravestibular inputs substitute for the vestibular inputs to stabilize gaze at the level
of single neurons in the vestibulo-ocular reflex premotor circuitry. The summed weighting of neck proprioceptive and efference copy
information was sufficient to explain simultaneously observed behavioral improvements in gaze stability. Furthermore, by altering
correspondence between intended and actual head movement we revealed a fourfold increase in the weight of neck motor efference copy
signals consistent with the enhanced behavioral recovery observed when head movements are voluntary versus unexpected. Thus,
together our results provide direct evidence that the substitution by extravestibular inputs in vestibular pathways provides a neural
correlate for the improvements in gaze stability that are observed following the total loss of vestibular inputs.

http://www.jneurosci.org/content/32/42/14685.full.pdf

Tasting the Light: Device Lets the Blind "See" with Their Tongues
Neuroscientist Paul Bach-y-Rita hypothesized in the 1960s that "we see with our brains not our eyes." Now, a new device trades on that thinking and aims to partially restore the experience of vision for the blind and visually impaired by relying on the nerves on the tongue's surface to send light signals to the brain.

Legal blindness is defined by U.S. law as vision that is 20/200 or worse, or has a field of view that is less than 20 degrees in diameter. The condition afflicts more than one million Americans over the age of 40, according to the National Institutes of Health. Adult vision loss costs the country about $51.4 billion per year.

About two million optic nerves are required to transmit visual signals from the retina—the portion of the eye where light information is decoded or translated into nerve pulses—to the brain's primary visual cortex. With BrainPort, the device being developed by neuroscientists at Middleton, Wisc.–based Wicab, Inc. (a company co-founded by the late Back-y-Rita), visual data are collected through a small digital video camera about 1.5 centimeters in diameter that sits in the center of a pair of sunglasses worn by the user. Bypassing the eyes, the data are transmitted to a handheld base unit, which is a little larger than a cell phone. This unit houses such features as zoom control, light settings and shock intensity levels as well as a central processing unit (CPU), which converts the digital signal into electrical pulses—replacing the function of the retina.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/device-lets-blind-see-with-tongues/

Hope that helps.

[smirkymonkey]

66. +1000

[msongs]

7. fear based religions need enforcer bullies an d thugs to keep people in line nt

[daleo]

21. Well said.

[hifiguy]

51. Indeed they do.

And they are never short of tiny-minded goons volunteering for the job.

[The2ndWheel]

8. Why isn't an actual punch "normal"?

It's one of many potential natural responses to stimulation. It's not something that usually happens, because of the whole fight or flight thing. Few people actually want a confrontation. If you're going out of your way to ridicule someone about something though, you take your chances. Maybe they walk away. Maybe they hit you. Maybe they go get a gun.

[Pooka Fey]

11. Normal like raping a pretty girl in a short dress, because it's a natural response to stimulation?

and also because she's taking a chance by wearing such a provocative outfit? "Normal" is why we have the LAW and the JUSTICE system.

I guess if I tell my abusive alcoholic husband that he needs to sober up, I'm going out of my way for a confrontation and I'm taking my chances. Hell yeah I am.

Blech.

Why are you on DU, pray? Oh I see, it's your 6,666th post. You're Satan.

[The2ndWheel]

13. Yeah, life sucks

Plus I'm not talking about rape or alcoholic abuse. I'm talking about going out of your way to ridicule someone, which is a bit different.

Yes, human law and justice is not always sufficient enough to stop bad shit from happening. Life fucking sucks. America wouldn't exist without theft and murder. European countries wouldn't be where they are today had they not gone out into the world and taken what they wanted from other people, with no care to the thoughts of others.

You can't stop random crap from happening. We can keep trying to do our best to fix these things, but whatever it is that we're doing isn't enough yet. Clearly.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

14. I don't believe that's what the poster meant.

This happened nearly thirty years ago and I remember it like it happened yesterday. My friend who was a competitive bodybuilder used to date pre operative transgendered females. Some were quite attractive but that's neither here nor there. Daytona Beach is/was a small town in many ways so a lot of people knew of him. Seeing a "mini Arnold" on the beach is noticeable. Any way, me,him, and his girlfriend (she was a genetic girl) at the time, were walking on the beach. You can drive on Daytona Beach in many areas but the speed limit is ten miles per hour. This genius in a Jeep hollers at my friend "muscleman faggot". My friend chased him down because the traffic stopped and put his hand on his throat and said "don't you ever call me that again."

Would I have done the same thing, don't know, but I certainly don't think he was Satan.

[gratuitous]

10. Or in response to violence?

A lot of the people getting killed in Nigeria and having their churches burned are members of EYN. Their response has been not to use violence or threaten to use violence. Support from their spiritual brothers and sisters in the United States has been a discussion of offering themselves as substitute hostages for the kidnapped hostages.

But, since that doesn't make things blow up reel gud, it doesn't make a lot of headlines.

[alcibiades_mystery]

15. That bullying thread is an absolute trainwreck

Great post.

[beam me up scottie]

60. Yeah, it was pretty disgusting.

I had to get out of there.

[hrmjustin]

16. Violence is never proper.

[dissentient]

17. Yea, violence is the refuge of the idiot and of the religious fanatic

I don't get the making excuses for it either. It's about as far from liberal values and acting civilized in a society as you can get.

Some religious fanatics got mad because someone made fun of their prophet or religion. So? Boo hoo. Just because you are deeply religious does not give you any special rights or protection from others making fun of your religion. It is called freedom.

And just because they find it offensive does not give them any kind of excuse to riot and act like crazed barbarians, and resort to violence. Period.

[Bluenorthwest]

18. The 'violence should be expected' folks of today have always expected LGBT people to endure endless

ridicule and attack, from politicians and from clergy. Rick Warren just 3 weeks before the Inaugural called gay relationships equal to incest, called us pedophiles and criminals. That's really insulting. Everyone of the people saying they could understand the violence watched and enjoyed Rick Warren at the Inaugural, none of them so much as boycotted it, no one wrote to Obama about denigration of others. What they did was mock LGBT DU members for not quietly accepting the insults.
It's not the heat, it's the hypocrisy.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

20. See #14

I wouldn't have countenanced my friend seriously harming that moron but I had no problem with him giving him a good scare. I'll bet he thought twice the next time he hurled a homophobic epithet but knowing the mind of a homophobe or any kind of hater he probably chose a more vulnerable target the next time.

I also think a lot of issues are getting conflated in this thread. As one of my buddies says "if you're going to call someone the f word you better be ready to throw your hands up."

[HereSince1628]

19. Depends on whether the ridicule rises to verbal abuse, I suppose.

Ridicule and mockery aren't all the same. It can range from mild chiding to the more serious and psychologically damaging.

Let's be honest suicides can follow from verbal bullying and shaming. Pushing a person into suicide with abusive ridicule is an awfully lot like murder but where the victim gets blamed for not being strong, for having a character flaw, for being too sensitive etc.

IMO, a person is as entitled to self-defense against damaging verbal abuse as they are to physical abuse.

I'm not a fan of violence, but I think I'd understand the motivation and give a kid a pass under justified self-defense if the kid acted impulsively and punched a verbal abuser in the mouth in immediate response.

[Humanist_Activist]

30. "A person is entitled to self-defense against damaging verbal abuse..." I'm sorry, that's fucking...

stupid.

Self defense? Since when is assault self defense?

If there's a history of harassment, hopefully there is a mechanism to resolve that where you go to school/work, you do NOT assault the person doing the harassing unless they are physically harming you.

[HereSince1628]

41. You are entitled to an opinion, I think we all are.

It's clear you think verbal abuse is a useful social skill because you just used name calling against me. I think that somewhat undermines your credibility in this exchange.

As I said above I am not in favor of violence. Indeed, I'm all for anger management, but I know it isn't perfect, and that within the legal framework of our society failure to manage anger is sometimes considered justified.

I wouldn't advocate in favor of violence even in response to a physical assault, but I think that a reasonable self-defense argument can be made for impulsive act that is triggered by verbal abuse.

Assault is considered offensive rather than defensive. Consequently, the nature your question seems ill-formed and unanswerable. Although it appears as a question, it denies the possibility of response.

Nonetheless, I submit to you that a planned act of violence in vengefullness isn't impulsive, is subject to thoughtful consideration and is mostly an intentional willful offensive (on edit aggressive might be better here) act. Which is why my opinion addresses impulsive acts in immediate response. Such an immediate response would be consistent with the manner in which human physiology can influence behavior through flight vs fight response.

The old street meme was "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me." It is a lesson plan that teaches children (primarily prepubescent children) to deny sensations of hurt they actually do feel, rather than being a lesson on how to manage such feelings. It's one of the powerful and early lessons in denial of emotions.

Forcing people to deny their psychological hurts and to live in a hostile environment while being ashamed of their honestly felt psychological hurts seems something of working man's stone-soup recipe for cPTSD, or worse.

[Mariana]

43. HA did not call you a name.

HA said your statement was fucking stupid. That's not calling you a name.

I think that somewhat undermines your credibility in this exchange.

[HereSince1628]

58. You use words you apparently don't really understand

Stupid references a personal attribute...meaning that it must be about a person

If you bother to go to a real dictionary you'll find that the primary meanings of stupid refers to slow thinking or demonstrations attributable to lack of attention, foolishness or carelessness.

[Humanist_Activist]

73. Uhm, stupid references the statement, reading comprehension is a useful skill. n/t

[MisterP]

22. nope, still not ponying up for Dieudonne's defense

[YankmeCrankme]

23. Is it really so difficult to not ridicule others? nt

[sibelian]

24. Is it really so difficult to be a grown-up and know yourself?

Is it really so difficult to know that you aren't what they say you are and leave it at that?

[Humanist_Activist]

25. Everyone ridicules someone else at least to some extent....

Hell, there are entire movements and religions that technically revolve around it, given people's varying degrees of sensitivity to differences of opinion.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

29. Respectfully, that's hopelessly naive ...

If someone calls a black guy the N word, a gay guy the F word, or a Mexican guy a beaner he should expect for the other guy to throw his hands up. Do I countenance violence in those situations, no, but I certainly understand how it can occur.

[Humanist_Activist]

31. And the person putting their hands up, throws the first punch, etc. lack self control...

and they are at fault for the physical altercation that follows.

[jberryhill]

33. That's what gives intelligent people the edge in cowing the less intelligent

As long as we keep things to "first punch" is the lawbreaker, then the verbally astute can keep the less verbally nimble in their place.

[ND-Dem]

48. Indeed.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

35. Of course but I still understand the impulse.

That's why I always treat everybody with respect. I treat everybody with respect because it's the right thing to do. It's also the safe thing to do.

[Inkfreak]

26. Is it difficult to believe not all humans are emotionally wired the same?

Not an excuse. Just s thought. We all experience and process things differently throughout our lives, yes? I used to have a short temper as a kid. Lost my cool alotta times. Not really acting out against others but it affected how I percieved a lot of things. I find I'm much more positive & easy going now.

[Humanist_Activist]

34. I would expect adults to behave like adults, as you said, you had a temper as a child...

and chilled out as you grew up, I was the same, I attribute that to maturity/experience.

[Inkfreak]

42. I think we pretty much agree.

But if this is in reference to that girl fight video, they were rather young still. I know 17ish (i think that's how old they were) is still rather childish in our society today. I don't think people "grow up" as fast as they used too. Imo. But I'm only 36..37 on Friday. I still feel like a kid, lol.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

28. No, it's not. Which is why 99.999999% of humanity do not.

At least once they get past grade school.

Remember that for all the media attention people who DO commit acts of violence get, they are highly atypical when you're examining the species as a whole.

[Humanist_Activist]

32. That's true, and in the case of the video posted about the girl getting beat up for bullying...

they are children, you don't expect them to have the emotional maturity to behave rationally, but I'm assuming most posters here are adults, but apparently quite a few of them stopped maturing around middle school.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

38. I only condone violence in the narrowest of circumstances.

That being said doesn't the system you set up give license to people to say the most horrible things to other people without fear of reprisal?

[Humanist_Activist]

39. Yes and no, yes in that people can say what they want except in cases such as...

as harassment or calls for intent of imminent bodily harm, etc. That's the no part.

Even then, in the case of harassment/bullying without physical incidence, we should leave it to authorities to deal with the problem, generally work/school rules. However, I will say that many of these institutions fall far short of the ideal.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

40. I understand the "whole sticks and stones" thing ...

I understand the "whole sticks and stones" thing but I also understand "spontaneous moral outrage'' as well.

[Warren Stupidity]

46. Um, that would imply that there are approximately 60 violent people on a planet of 6 Billion.

I think your estimate is several orders of magnitude off.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

47. Could be, I just whacked a bunch of 9s on there.

I didn't actually sit and count them. My point, barring the bad math, stands, though. For adults to resort to physical violence in response to verbal assaults is the exception, not the rule.

[Warren Stupidity]

72. So while thinking about that - and I get your point -

I was wondering what the actual proportion of, lets call them sociopaths, is.

My guess is somewhere between 10% and 0.1%, between 600,000,000 and 6,000,000 on a 6B population.

[WinkyDink]

36. Yes, it is, according to the Pope!

[Humanist_Activist]

37. Never would call the Pope a great moral character. n/t

[ND-Dem]

49. can you link what you're referring to? i hadn't heard that.

[Bluenorthwest]

53. He rejected 'turn the other cheek' and said if you insult his mother or his

religion he'd punch you. Then of course he insulted LGBT mothers, the mothers of LGBT and the religions of all of those groups for ten or fifteen minutes, because that's his job.

[ND-Dem]

57. i asked for a link. thanks in advance.

[tammywammy]

69. links

http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&source=android-browser&hl=en-US&q=pope+punch

[ND-Dem]

71. where's this part?

Then of course he insulted LGBT mothers, the mothers of LGBT and the religions of all of those groups for ten or fifteen minutes, because that's his job.

[Fred Sanders]

56. It was taken out of context by those that hate him to spin silk from a pig's ear.

[ND-Dem]

61. I find that's often the case; I also find those types rarely offer the evidence when asked to.

[MellowDem]

59. The Pope thinks it's normal...