Can we talk about female violence? I need to get my response straight

Before you accuse me of sophistry, do ensure that your position differs meaningfully from mine...

Well that's the thing. We stage a coup, form a non-violent dictatorship, but then to maintain our authority we would need to employ coercion...

It is thus that we would become the very evil we fought against.

But that is the responsibility of power ultimately: to do evil well. Evil in barrel-making is both inevitable and necessary, so the wise ruler(s) use it strategically and work to minimize it.

"I personally think that it is absolutely correct to assume that what is defined as 'evil' and what isn't is defined through the eyes of the powerful."

But we must not forget that much of what is shared in terms of morality is also that which is most intuitive to humans, things we begin to get an inkling of around ages 3-4, even without explicit instruction.

That's the very thing- what is acceptable is not so much imposed by the powerful as conceded to by them, and taken advantage of where possible.

I see you like to conflate positions to extremes and if they do not stand up then the whole premise is invalid. Well as I am sure you are aware apart from the philosophical first certainty one can do that with every argument the human mind could care to frame.

Which brings us neatly to what needs to be injected into any practical application of thought, namely wisdom. If you are cooking and you love garlic, making a spag big with 95% garlic would make a pretty unpalatable meal. It would not however entirely invalidate the concept of spaghetti bolognaise as a tasty meal for many people.

You came here selfishly looking for philosophical constructs to incorporate. Again I implore you to dial back the sophistry down from 11 and remember that in philosophy wisdom bears a woman's name. Having a capable brain is like having an incredibly powerful engine, with no car frame or wheels. All it does when you use it is make noise and doesn't go anywhere.

I'm glad you got something from the TED talk though.

Heh, I like how he defines evil in a way that precludes one's being a non-evil political figure, or even a non-evil industrial magnate. Leaving the super-normal folk aside for now, he indeed makes evil inevitable by defining it fundamentally as "intentional" harm to another.

Aside from even that, it raises this familiar-but-dangerous fallacy:
that if the right "barrel-makers" rose to power, then they could change the system and make it ^"right and good".

because I think he was on the right track in the first place. If we are to speak of evil, then we must admit that evil and power are inextricable, that one produces the other, and that moreover, the very people who are powerful or who become powerful, are and become what he refers to as "dispositionally"-evil.

There is no escaping it. It's the nature of the meta-barrel. The only way to overcome it is to simply stake out some principles and goals, and work to minimize the inevitable internal and external "evil".

This is also why so-called "centrism" is just more of the same.

Well watch the talk the title is meant to attention grab.

"Psychology of evil" is a questionable term, IMO. Indeed, "evil" itself is not a useful notion in my view. It's merely condemnation used to self-righteously hand-wave the complexity of human behavior and human value-systems.

But yes, clearly both structural and individual factors are at play when considering crime or violent behavior or what-have-you.

at the appeal to Mumsnet

In that view, the dramatized violence serves as both diverting and cathartic. Putting them opposite each other for convenience:* on one end of the spectrum are blockbuster action movies like Transformers or Fast and Furious, which are, so to speak, all flash, and things like the TV serial Dexter or the movie Carrie, which feature violence for the sake of slaking our bloodlust in the face of injustice, or something like that.

*Disclaimer: I have not seen any of these movies or shows, and am going off stills I've glimpsed, and synopses and commentary I've read.

We'll its a start. Another crucial component is emotional management. There is this perception that anger, fear and frustration are negative and people tend to absorb unconsciously the notion that they themselves are unacceptable because of those feelings. Some people will repress anger thus becoming depression, others will be prone to violent outbursts in response.

Neither is particularly healthy either for the individual or society, so I think we could do more to teach children to accept their feelings and be able to experience those feelings and find positive ways to work through them. When we talk about violent people we have this idea that there are a few bad apples ruining it for the rest of us, when in some ways it's the barrel that's rotten and that is where we should look to affect the most significant change.

I am not saying for a second we shouldn't expect people who have crossed the line to be culpable, and society should protect itself from dangerous elements, but in addition to this we need to take a broad brush view of the conditions under which negative actions take place.

Consider this TED talk, you may be aware of the prison experiment where random volunteers were assigned prisoner/guard roles and it wasn't long before those with authority were abusing this talk is by the guy who run that experiment. Whilst it's not explicitly about what is under discussion here it is illustrative of my environment point, and also where I get the bad barrel vs bad apple analogy from:

www.ted.com/talks/philip_zimbardo_on_the_psychology_of_evil

Buffy is "warrior" violent not "street" violent though; her violence comes from training and rational decision making, not as a stress handling device.

Yeah, Buffy put it better

That's Slayers for ya.

Mont, if you want posts deleted, hit "Report" on the post and request it from MNHQ.

1. Reduce exposure to heavy metals in the general population, in part by regulating the supply-side evenly throughout the world.

1. Tolerate "rough-housing" in children, but make clear that it should be limited to play and should not bleed into conflict-resolution.

1. Sequester habitually and impulsively-violent individuals away from society in special contained units (or at least invest in providing them extensive psychiatric care).

That's just some ballparking, I don't really know what I'm talking about. I suspect none of us should be let anywhere near the levers of policy, if you know what I mean.

P.S. Could someone delete a couple of those GIF-posts? That multi-post was the result of some board error.

Montmorency1 ok now we appear to have had the climax to your prolonged bout of mental masturbation out of the way, I just thought I'd chime in on something you said I agree with:

"I am not saying that violence is inevitable or unchangeable"

Care to weigh in what progress can be made in this area? As I have already stated changes to environment are key. Do you agree and if so what changes would you suggest? If not what other measures in your view can be taken.

You think I can't match you in wallowing? Harrumph

Actually, I've spoken pretty-much definitively on that issue earlier with reference to female violence in romantic relationships. Whether or not you disagree with the points I raised - and if you do, I'll do the favor of not attributing that to malice or stupidity - you must admit that I covered the subject extensively, and that the subject falls under the ambit of "female violence in the context of patriarchy".

As for the Solange/JayZ incident itself, I have no idea what that is about as I don't follow celebrity news. I know just enough about JayZ to note that he does in fact have 100 problems , but otherwise I'm happy to assume that it was a typical celebrity thing, two overprivileged chuckleheads either staging a spat for publicity or otherwise some pointless disagreement that no one would take note of were the participants not famous.

Anyway, it's rather audacious of you to complain that I've killed the thread when you yourself have abdicated reasoned discussion in favor of complaining about this or that or thumbing your nose at me. Try contributing something other than snark, as it seems to be your primary output these days.

I'm still here because I'm hoping that you'll exhaust yourself with all your windbaggery and the thread will move on to the interesting discussion it was before you hijacked it with your irrelevant, boring de-railing Montmorency.

Nothing you have posted has shed any light on the original subject of the thread, which is female violence in the context of patriarchy, sparked by the Solange JayZ event.

You've almost killed what was in fact a really interesting thread. Which I suspect was your intention.

"I do posit that violent acts toward other humans are not a subset of violence but a category of their own. Human brains develop mirror neurons which make other humans a special.class of other being in which I see.myself reflected in the other in a way incomparable with other things in the world."

That humans are processed specially in human brains actually tells us nothing about whether violence is innate in itself, only the obvious observation that context makes a difference in behavior. Just think once again of the abusive partner who is nothing but charm and good will in public.

There is no plausible rationale for considering interpersonal violence as a different category from other violence.