Violence: what can we do about it?

[tinfoilhat]

Religion *is* human kind; or more precisely, it's a pattern of human behaviour. It's not some kind of abstract perfect thing that would still exist, even if there were no humans.

 

One aspect of religious behaviour that leads to conflict, is certainty, and more often than not, religion encourages certainly. I'm right and anyone who sees things differently to me, is wrong...

 

Like politics then. Or football.

[Anna B]

Those borne from life's every day knocks, that push <few> people to riot, kill, torch, commit suicide, <insert other form of extreme behaviour>; that push <some> people to regular physical violence <be it against objects, spouses, strangers>; and that push <many> people to occasional physical violence, when they have taken some temporary leave of their senses under the influence of substance(s).

 

I didn't think I'd have to explain that one, tbh: it's as old as humanity itself

You can't solve Life™, and correlation is not causation (many people drink excessively through peer pressure alone, rather than to dull psychological problems).

You were clear, but I've not really seen this elitism (-after a fashion) around here.

 

The most violent drunkard I've ever met was PhD'd and truly (truly-truly) a genius, but with the psychological instability to go with it and a BIG taste for whisky. They did not mix well, every instance of going for a bevvy in town, or an outing at a restaurant, or a meal at his (we knew better than to return that favour at ours) was like riding a ticking time bomb of unknown fuse length, and I've lost count of how many times I defused fighting situations which he started, and collected him from the tank. No more info, and no names, because he's local and would be easy to ID.

 

It's highly anecdotal of course, but I've seen a fair few others over the years (particularly engineers, strangely) so although I fully got where you were coming from, I'll see your PhD'd or BSC'd Brits after a half-dozen pints, and I'll raise you PhD'd or BSC'd continentals who'd stop at the third pint (taking all night to drink them) and call it a night to begin with

 

Re; bold. As you say, 'Life's everyday knocks.' In other words stuff we all have to endure, but doesn't it interest you why some can cope and others can't?

I know people who fly off the handle at the slightest provocation and others who have the patience of a saint. The first type can be helped with things like neurolinguistic programing once they recognise the problem. Most behaviours can be changed.

 

And life's frustrations do seem to be getting worse, and I think a lot of that is down to the system failing. (Just as an example, try phoning Scottish Power sometime... )

[Cyclone]

T

You were clear, but I've not really seen this elitism (-after a fashion) around here.

 

The most violent drunkard I've ever met was PhD'd and truly (truly-truly) a genius, but with the psychological instability to go with it and a BIG taste for whisky. They did not mix well, every instance of going for a bevvy in town, or an outing at a restaurant, or a meal at his (we knew better than to return that favour at ours) was like riding a ticking time bomb of unknown fuse length, and I've lost count of how many times I defused fighting situations which he started, and collected him from the tank. No more info, and no names, because he's local and would be easy to ID.

 

It's highly anecdotal of course, but I've seen a fair few others over the years (particularly engineers, strangely) so although I fully got where you were coming from, I'll see your PhD'd or BSC'd Brits after a half-dozen pints, and I'll raise you PhD'd or BSC'd continentals who'd stop at the third pint (taking all night to drink them) and call it a night to begin with

 

I'm struggling to find any UK data, but this is US

 

http://www.apa.org/pi/ses/resources/publications/violence.aspx

 

And shows some correlation between socioeconomic status and the likelihood of being involved in violence.

 

---------- Post added 04-01-2018 at 08:22 ----------

 

Found something

 

The British Journal of Criminology, Volume 52, Issue 6, 1 November 2012

https://academic.oup.com/bjc/article-abstract/52/6/1192/347692

While low socio-economic status (SES) is generally accepted as a risk factor for violence

 

---------- Post added 04-01-2018 at 08:39 ----------

 

This goes into much more detail

http://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/71188/1/JRF_Final_Poverty_and_Crime_Review_May_2014.pdf

The relationship between poverty and violence holds across different sorts of violent crimes

including murder, assault and domestic violence (Kelly, 2000; Martinez, 1996; Parker, 1989;

Pridemore, 2011). This relationship is best supported by the evidence because unlike other

crimes, homicide and serious assault are more likely to be reported or known through for

example, hospital emergency admission (Hipp & Yates, 2011; Lee, 2000).**

 

This is a link specifically between poverty and violence, but educational level amongst those suffering poverty would tend to be low.

[Ridgewalk]

The left and right are battling it out in the media, its the rich against the poor; if you take either side you are prolonging the battle.

 

 

Well poverty, children doing without food, poor health care, is a form of violence, in my opinion, to take a neutral stand on this is turning a blind eye or a deaf ear to injustice and violence.

 

The rich on’the other hand regard taxation as robbery.

 

No time for bourgeois pacifism.

 

 

Violence to animals, speciesism, this animal provides me with food, this other animal is my best friend and almost human

[L00b]

Re; bold. As you say, 'Life's everyday knocks.' In other words stuff we all have to endure, but doesn't it interest you why some can cope and others can't?

Not really. I prefer to leave that to sociologists, psychiatrists, <etc.>

I know people who fly off the handle at the slightest provocation and others who have the patience of a saint. The first type can be helped with things like neurolinguistic programing once they recognise the problem. Most behaviours can be changed.

It may be selfish, or it may be respect for others, or perhaps a mix of both, but I've never been interested in changing others' behaviour. Only mine.

 

I'm happy enough to live by both the "do unto others as would be done unto you" (which I posted earlier) and the "my freedom stops where the freedom of another begins" mantras. Which can be summarised, to an extent, as "live and don't impinge others' lives negatively, and let live so long as they don't impinge my life negatively".

 

If everybody else did, you'd certainly have a hell of a lot less social friction and violence

And life's frustrations do seem to be getting worse, and I think a lot of that is down to the system failing.

That's a subjective world view, not an objective assessment, and which is moreover heavily influenced by the current stage of economic cycle (i.e. a few years after the worst economical crisis since 1929, and so more or less comparable to the socio-economic state of play in the mid- to late 1930s).

 

Relative to 'life' 100 or even 50 years ago, or 'life' outside much of the G20 group...everyone has got it easy enough, notwithstanding the GFC. Some more than others, no contest. That comment is not meant as an argument to just "let things be" and not improving 'life' still further: it's just infusing some perspective.

[Cyclone]

The problem with not changing others behaviour is that we've recognised that violence is causing harm to society, and that could include you or me (having violence done to us). It's all well and good doing unto others, but what if you're the one that is done unto...

That's why we have laws and punishments, to deter certain behaviour.

[L00b]

The problem with not changing others behaviour is that we've recognised that violence is causing harm to society, and that could include you or me (having violence done to us). It's all well and good doing unto others, but what if you're the one that is done unto...

That's why we have laws and punishments, to deter certain behaviour.

When I referred to not wanting to change others' behaviour, that was in reference to Anna's 'programming' suggestions, which reek of coercive, fascist- or communist-like regimenting (I'm not saying that is what Anna meant, or supports, but this is what the use of such terms evokes for me, things like the electroshock therapy of old).

 

The codification of normative group and individual behaviour through laws (which follow the evolution of societies' morality itself over time), which is what I understand you to refer to, is as old as humanity itself, and which I take for the baseline, as a given.

 

In that context, normative behaviour has always been shaped from birth according to these laws, undue violence has been subjected to punishment for centuries and longer, likewise the prescription that meeting violence with violence is OK when defending oneself, provided that it's not retaliatory or vengeful.

 

So, no need to turn the other cheek if I'm "the one done [adversely/violently] unto", and prison (coupled with education and rehabilitation) are meant to change correct the behaviour of violent culprits.

Edited January 4, 2018 by L00b

[Cyclone]

She referred to NLP, presumably to help people who have recognised themselves that they have a problem.

But the government does all sorts of things to change behaviour. Look at smoking for example, constant campaigns of education about the dangers, constantly increasing taxation, legislation to restrict the advertising, and so on.

And it works, the level of smoking has been falling for years.

It's not electroshock treatment, but it is a deliberate campaign to change the behaviour of the masses. Probably far more effective than electroshocking people anyway, that would just create mass resistance.

 

So from a societal level we are very much interested in changing other people's behaviour. We'd like it (I would anyway) if stabbings stopped. So if the government can educate, or coerce or otherwise change that behaviour (which only exists in a minority of people) then I'm more than happy to support that.

[L00b]

She referred to NLP, presumably to help people who have recognised themselves that they have a problem.

But the government does all sorts of things to change behaviour. Look at smoking for example, constant campaigns of education about the dangers, constantly increasing taxation, legislation to restrict the advertising, and so on.

And it works, the level of smoking has been falling for years.

It's not electroshock treatment, but it is a deliberate campaign to change the behaviour of the masses. Probably far more effective than electroshocking people anyway, that would just create mass resistance.

Again, that is simply an instance of the government enacting laws and measures that codify society's own evolution: society as a whole (well, enough of it) has to decide that smoking is not an acceptable pastime anymore in the first place, for the government to garner sufficient political capital/support to enact the rules which curb it.

 

The opposite (change at the government's initiative: the government deciding of its own motion that people shouldn't smoke anymore, and introducing relevant rules to change behaviours -pragmatically, in a gradual way to prevent backlash-) is authoritarianism, any which way you look at it.

 

Benevolent as it may be. But authoritarianism all the same, and to be resisted (IMHO), the same way people would resist rule by a benevolent dictator.

So from a societal level we are very much interested in changing other people's behaviour.

Only to the extent that such changes benefits society as a whole and objectively.

 

It's a fine line between changing behaviours in the common interest, and changing behaviours in self-interest (economic, political, <etc.>)

 

Case in point: recent 'programming' of (a statistically-relevant share of the-) population about 'immigration'. AKA propaganda, in older and darker times.

 

We can all see where that recently lead us...again

We'd like it (I would anyway) if stabbings stopped. So if the government can educate, or coerce or otherwise change that behaviour (which only exists in a minority of people) then I'm more than happy to support that.

The government has always been doing that, and still is, and likely always will (until and unless 'Precog' )

 

Because -as I posted before- to be human is to be fallible, notwithstanding any amount of education, coercion, modelling, <etc.>: maybe infallible 99.99% of one's time on Earth...but then that 0.01% instance happens to be a stabbing.

 

Anna asked what ('more') can be done about violence generally, as if some quick(er) fixes were available around the corner. The take-away point of my contributions is: nothing 'more' ; society is working away at minimising violence, the same it always has through the ages since man was man and first grabbed a club to beat another with; and every individual member of that society bears his or her own responsibility to all other members under the moral code (laws, including criminal laws for the violence part) of that society.

Edited January 5, 2018 by L00b

[Cyclone]

Again, that is simply an instance of the government enacting laws and measures that codify society's own evolution: society as a whole (well, enough of it) has to decide that smoking is not an acceptable pastime anymore in the first place, for the government to garner sufficient political capital/support to enact the rules which curb it.

I disagree, it was the other way around. The government was driving the social change, not the social change driving the government.

 

The opposite (change at the government's initiative: the government deciding of its own motion that people shouldn't smoke anymore, and introducing relevant rules to change behaviours -pragmatically, in a gradual way to prevent backlash-) is authoritarianism, any which way you look at it.

Social engineering is something practised by most governments. It's not authoritarianism as such because they never stop someone doing the thing. They just make it less convenient, or make it more costly, in order to cause an overall behavioural shift.

 

Benevolent as it may be. But authoritarianism all the same, and to be resisted (IMHO), the same way people would resist rule by a benevolent dictator.

You might as well argue against female emancipation through the mechanism of education then. Because education was the authoritarian means through which women were empowered to demand equal rights.

 

It's a fine line between changing behaviours in the common interest, and changing behaviours in self-interest (economic, political, <etc.>)

 

Case in point: recent 'programming' of (a statistically-relevant share of the-) population about 'immigration'. AKA propaganda, in older and darker times.

Absolutely, sections of the government are prepared to use propaganda to get their own way.