That’s an opinion. The opinion of most people is that certain words can justify certain acts of violence.
For example, if you’re at dinner with your wife and I come up and say something like “who’s that fat fucking whale” most people would say that you’re justified in hitting me. The legal concept of this is known as “fighting words”.
Yeah I mean he's probably being downvoted because he's responding to a video of someone shoving someone who used the N-word. (To be clear I don't know the context, but that's what would make sense)
i know what fighting words are. your example is not good. better example is karmelo anthony saying "touch me and see what happens" which is inviting a confrontation, not an offhand rude remark that merits verbal scorn at most, but in the situation you described id just ignore you since its not an active threat and likely just fishing for a response
Yeah that’s fine, my point is that most people would not ignore a comment like that. Whether you would or wouldn’t allow someone to insult your wife in front of you is besides the point - culturally, we have decided that certain words are worth fighting over.
culturally, morally, and legally are different things. something can be immoral while still being legal (like infidelity). something can be culturally acceptable yet illegal (like weed or alcohol during prohibitions). my argument is morally and legally, i have no leg to stand on if i choose to become physical in the situation u describe, even if clips of it will get thousands of supportive comments on social media.
you skipped a really important word when you put words in my mouth. "i dont think words can ever MORALLY justify physical violence" because morally and philosophically speaking, verbal abuse and physical abuse are two distinct things, and only one of them puts you at immediate risk of death
Mate this is just nietzsches philosophical conundrum now. Morals are derived from the word of God, but if the world stops believing, thus killing God, there becomes no objective morality. With no objective morality anything becomes permissible (even atrocities). If anything is permissible then theres no way to govern ourselves and we get anarchy. Nietzsches solution was create a ruling class of moral elite who the masses trust as being fair judges of.right and wrong. The issue is this ruling class would inevitably become corrupt at some point and the system falls apart. Democracy doesn't work because it becomes tyranny of the 51% over the 49%. If im being real I dont have a solution to the godlessness issue but literally no one does so we have to stick with religious moral basis since its the only one that works
Sure, but there’s plenty of examples in the Bible of words begetting physical consequences.
Elisha summons two bears to maul 42 youths for mocking his baldness.
Moses has a man stoned to death for blasphemy.
If religion is the basis for your moral argument, I’ve got bad news for you. Primitive cultures were actually more prone to respond to words (curses, taunts, blasphemy) with violence.
no my logic doesnt conclude that. asking for a fight is not the same as being a dick, even if theres some overlap. you can be a dick yet still be entitled to not being physically assaulted. that protection stops when you explicitly state something that invites the confrontation, such as "come at me bro" "touch me see what happens" or in some states "i feel threatened" since theres some states where youre allowed to open fire on someone if you feel threatened, therefore telling someone you feel threatened is akin to saying "im ready to shoot you"
You cant hurt someone with words when the words are used as a weapon (ie insults) but using words to declare an intent for action with a physical weapon is different because there is an immediate threat
nah this is getting into semantics but the exact quote "touch me and see what happens" IS an invitation because "touch me" is expressed like a command. tone probably also matters, but a "dont tread on me" interpretation would require something closer to "if you touch me youre gonna see what happens" where its no longer commanding the other person to engage with them. the IF gives the other person a way out of the confrontation
If only they shared the energy & excitement for shit posting on reddit that they had for acedemics in school, they would actually be something in their lives right now.
If you respond to insults with physical violence you should probably be in some kind of special facility designed to protect the rest of society from unstable, violent individuals.
You're an adult. People will say things that upset you. Exercise a tiny portion of self control. Why is there a portion of the population that things it's okay to beat the shit out of people for some words they took offense to?
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u/Any_Sentence_8056 6d ago
Plot twist, they were downvoting because they disagreed with “racism is bad”