violence
Tag: anger
Violence is justified in self-defense, it is unjustified in aggression. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of gray area between the terms.
When you see stories about violence, here are some questions I like to ask myself to work though media bias.
- Is the violence towards people, personal property, a corporation’s property, or towards no-one (such as blocking a highway, or hugging a tree). Is the story you are reading using the term violence in an attempt to conflate one level of violence with another?
- Is the violence towards a group that cannot change their identity (a certain race), or a group that can (a political ideology)? The end goal of violence towards a political ideology is suppression of that ideology. The end goal of violence towards a race is eradication of that race.
- What are the power dynamics of the violence? Is the violence enacted by a group that has traditionally been in power, or one that has traditionally been powerless.
- Is the violence the primary goal of an action, or an unfortunate side effect? (e.g. a looter taking advantage of a chaotic protest to break into a shop for their own gain)
To be clear, the answers to these questions don’t necessarily justify or condemn certain acts of violence, they are just important to think through when media conflates one form of violence with another.
