quote:I would consider suspending a violent retaliation like this, but I wouldn't otherwise punish him. The bully would get far worse.
I'd also share the worst punishment of all for the kid who was filming this on his phone and goading everyone on.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:This is not my experience. Rather,when I find out exactly what happened, usually both children are very much at fault, rather than one being the primary aggressor.
Perhaps what PSI meant was that one child either decides consciously or sort of just happens to (through deciding not to behave themselves, maybe) to start something, and then the other child decides not to behave properly either-that is by ignoring the incitement, getting a parent, etc. And then suddenly you've got two or more kids that are at fault even though one was clearly the instigator.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
I frequently see cases where one child does something annoying (often without malice or intent, sometimes out of careless, and sometimes because they're being a snot), another child over-reacts, then the first child over-reacts to that, the second child reacts to that, etc..
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
There is a quasi non violent approach that could work in these situations if you're tough enough.
I was a teenager working my first ever job. Another guy (much older than me and just as big) had been picking on me verbally pretty much all day. Finally I snapped and said something back to him. I can't remember what but it must have been nasty because he punched me hard and square in the jaw. In a split second, several things went through my mind.
1. I'm going to pound him into dust.
2. If I hit him back, I will probably be fired and I don't really want to get fired from my very first job.
3. Oddly enough, that punch didn't hurt at all. Weird.
So in this tiny fraction of a second, I hatched a plan. Get HIM fired.
I got right up in his face and just screamed at him "hit me again!" and he did, right in the gut. Still no pain.
"Come on you (expletive deleted) hit me!"
I think he got four or five good shots in while I never so much as touched him before someone stepped in and broke us up and we both got sent home.
The next day I got called in to chat with the manager. We talked for a bit before he let me continue in my duties. I never saw the other guy again. I earned a little respect from my coworkers after that. They all seemed to think I was one tough, crazy as hell SOB for actually encouraging him to hit me so many times. Little did they know I was just a scared kid running on adrenalin with strong pacifist leanings. Posts: 891 | Registered: Feb 2010
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posted
I cant recomend this method at all, I am trained and experianced and actually know how to hit, the vast majority of martially trained people dont act like the man you describe but it is better to not let someone who who really knows how to hurt people keep hitting you. You may be surprised how many people have spent countless hours perfecting how to throw a body straight down on thier head as opposed to the neck or back, if I were willing to attack someone while they didnt fight back it would not go as well for them as it did for you.
Posts: 2302 | Registered: Aug 2008
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posted
I think non-physical retaliation is much more satisfying, at least when my life isn't on the line. I'd much rather press charges than press my fist into the other guy's face.
Having said that, I can't imagine asking for more beating!
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posted
But to assume that your life is not in peril is quite literally betting with your life, I have family who would be bereaved by my passing while a person who killed me could walk free for the rest of his life. Pacifism may prevent you from initiating violence but do not die to protect a silly ideal while your heart still beats, listen to your basic mammal and fight back.
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posted
It can be pretty clear cut - for instance, a single punch thrown in the heat of the moment. This is in my experience the thing that is most likely to happen. I'm not going to go all Ender on a guy for something like that.
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posted
I agree with you AchillesHeel in perilous situations but at no point did I feel my life was in peril. His punch was so ineffective that I immediately lost all fear of him.
Posts: 891 | Registered: Feb 2010
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posted
One punch is enough to kill you, with some skill or bad luck or whatever. Temple, throat, septum, etc. Not that it's common or anything, but "just take it" is not a good plan.
As to dying for your ideals...depends on how much you believe in them.
Posts: 6683 | Registered: Jun 2005
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quote:Originally posted by PSI Teleport: *laugh at Dobbie*
School policy seems to have been born from lazy parenting, the kind where punishing everyone in the room is the best way to deal with every squabble.
Sadly, school policies are often born of lawyers who, if the policy isn't absolutely consistent - if there is any room for subjective judgment - will sue already cash-strapped schools.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
Tom, I consider a silly ideal to be one that benefits no one but allows horrible people to thrive and dominate others. I can appreciate and compliment men like Ghandi but I cant endorse how they allowed violence to control them and anyone else they influenced, Ghandi accomplished much with his hunger strike but then again no one was beating him to death while he starved.
I find it prudent to treat any threat as one that could result in exorbitant damage intended or not, I dont mean to kill anyone that ever touches me but I would rather detain and disable any attacker than see my own blood pool on the ground again.
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posted
AchillesHeel, that's a pretty unfair and unreasonable examination of Gandhi to put it mildly. He would hardly have suggested a hunger strike in response to someone beating him to death, and if someone started beating him to death, would've tried to flee-unless he had decided before hand to risk death in specific pursuit of a higher cause.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:Tom, I consider a silly ideal to be one that benefits no one but allows horrible people to thrive and dominate others. I can appreciate and compliment men like Ghandi but I cant endorse how they allowed violence to control them and anyone else they influenced, Ghandi accomplished much with his hunger strike but then again no one was beating him to death while he starved.
Just sitting there and starving while someone beats you to death would probably be a pretty silly ideal, but that sounds markedly different from .. uh, how .. gandhi would have hypothetically managed that hypothetical scenario, so
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posted
I mean to say that his views and non-violent protests dont always add up to pacifism being the best solution, he is simply the most notable pacifist I know of and used him as an example because for whatever reason there was no threat of imminent violence while he endangered himself. Pacifism doesnt make much sense when your head is bleeding and someone in front of you is holding a stick, if you can peacefully protest and help people that is very noble indeed but dont pretend that being a better person can protect you.
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posted
Did such a situation never come up with Gandhi at all? Did he make any kind of statement as to what you WERE supposed to do in that situation?
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posted
I am no Gandhi expert, but I seem to recall one of his closest allies or leaders or assistants or whatever you want to call him saying that Gandhi's strategy was completely based on a lack of guns and people trained in their use. Had he had the guns and the people, he would have used them.
But I could be completely wrong.
Posts: 891 | Registered: Feb 2010
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posted
Ghandi did not believe that the nonviolent, pacifist response was always appropriate. What he did believe was that it was the best response to his current situation.
And it certainly was effective in his situation, in part because the British as a whole were basically decent people who wanted to continue thinking of themselves as decent people.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
Haven't found the quote I was looking for yet but did find this interesting one:
However, Gandhi realised that this level of nonviolence required incredible faith and courage, which he believed everyone did not possess. He therefore advised that everyone need not keep to nonviolence, especially if it were used as a cover for cowardice:
"Gandhi guarded against attracting to his satyagraha movement those who feared to take up arms or felt themselves incapable of resistance. 'I do believe,' he wrote, 'that where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence.'"
Posts: 891 | Registered: Feb 2010
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posted
There is a great interview with casey up on youtube. For some stupid reason it has been flagged as inappropriate so I wont link it but do a search and you should find it. Really good stuff.
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quote:Louis Fisher, Gandhi’s biographer asked him: “You mean that the Jews should have committed collective suicide?”
Gandhi responded, “Yes, that would have been heroism.”
quote:...suffering voluntarily undergone will bring [Jews] an inner strength and joy... if the Jewish mind could be prepared for voluntary suffering, even the massacre I have imagined could be turned into a day of thanksgiving..to the godfearing death has no terror. It is a joyful sleep to be followed by a waking that would be all the more refreshing for the long sleep.
Then on British and French policy, in an open letter to their publics:
quote:“I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity. You will invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions...
“If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourselves, man, woman and child to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them.”
I suggest that this is, indeed, silly.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
Dying for your ideals is not silly. It sends a very clear message. You can not make any choice for me. I will choose my actions, even if it means my death, you have no power over me.
Or to quote Braveheart, "You may take our lives, but you will never take our freedom!" and "Every man dies. Not every man really lives."
Or to put it another way, "A man who won't die for something is not fit to live." Martin Luther King Jr.
If you don't hold the ideal of pacifism over your own safety, that means you are with the majority of humanity. But it doesn't matter which ideal is in question. If you believe strongly enough in anything then death is a fair trade for not betraying your ideals.
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