Acceptable Level of Violence: It Depends
I went to Army Staff College 2005-06 and because we were DEEP into Iraq and Afghanistan, studying counterterrorism in theory and practice was just about the only thing on anyone’s mind. We all read about the Soviet experience in Afghanistan. We studied the origins of Islam-based terrorism. Some of us went deeper and read about Algeria and even Northern Ireland.
I remember reading an article where a British officer was quoted as saying they would win the war against the IRA when the people of Belfast had settled at an “acceptable level of violence”. I had never heard the term before, and it stuck with me. Terror is no longer terror when the level of violence becomes commonplace or even ordinary. When “acts of terror” were no longer considered “terror” and were normalized, the war was won.
I try to use that term, “acceptable level of violence”, as I pay attention to the news every day. Where are we as the United States, the greatest country on Earth, in the level of violence we are willing to accept on a daily basis? This isn’t a matter of terrorism; this is a matter of everyday life. We live in a violent society whether you want to admit it or not. But how we react to that violence is what has me curious. I have only been able to come to one conclusion.
It Depends
Americans are very selective in which violence they support based on the victim OR based on the person leveling the violence. In other words, if we like the person on the receiving end of the violence, we are against it. If we support the person inflicting the violence, we support it. If we don’t like the victim, we support the violence. If we don’t like the perpetrator, we don’t support the violence. Make no mistake, though, Americans support violence.
Some of this is based on demographics. Race, sex, sexual preference, wealth, political leaning, immigration status, and age all seem to play distinct roles in who, how, and when Americans support violence or not. A lot of it is based on plain old ignorance. And all of this back and forth should put people into a crisis of conscience, but that doesn’t seem to be happening either. You would think, in this highly civilized nation, violence would be acceptable in only the MOST dire circumstances.
But it’s not.
The problem used to be the high school kid in the Che Guevara t-shirt who thought it was cool or didn’t know history or was just generally a dumbass. That’s not the problem anymore. This isn’t idealistic violence or “damn the man” mentality. And it isn’t sitting with 17-year-olds. These are grownups with advanced education and financial stability.
An outgoing US Congressman threatened violence against all white people because of the Penny court decision. This is an elected official. A representative of Black Lives Matter weighed even more explicit threats against the same people for the same reason. Representative Nancy Mace was physically attacked outside the Capital because someone didn’t agree with her efforts to ban biological men from use of women’s bathrooms. A businessman was ASSASSINATED by a disgruntled and mentally unstable man and people are CHEERING.
There have been a number of women and children sexually assaulted and murdered by illegal immigrants. District attorneys and judges are still giving probation or releasing these individuals pending trial. There have been riots in response to police violence BEFORE a trial is conducted. Conversely, when individuals levy violence to protect themselves, their family, and their property they are made to be the criminals.
For fuck sake, people CHEERED when someone tried to assassinate President Trump. Twice. None of this makes sense.
That’s why I landed on It Depends.
The loudest people making the most noise and the boldest statements are the ones LEAST likely to suffer or levy violence themselves. Suburban moms who are cheering on Luigi Mangione would NEVER do what he did, but they will post on social media to support him as a murder. Representative Jamaal Bowman would NEVER be the one to inflict violence on white people after the Daniel Penny verdict, but he would encourage other blacks to do it from behind his private security team.
The limousine liberals in their gated communities who are cheering against Representative Nancy Mace don’t want men sharing bathrooms with their daughters either, but they are happy someone attacked her for saying it. The people who encouraged, downplayed, and financed riots that destroyed businesses and people’s lives are the same people that don’t care about gang violence in the SAME CITIES.
Because It Depends.
The sad part is, so many of us actually know violence. There are plenty of us like Daniel Penny who will step in to levy violence on behalf of those that can’t protect themselves. Literally an entire generation of veterans who are willing. This isn’t a flagrant or reckless group of people who go around randomly attacking people. If we were, it would be on the news daily. We know violence and we know it intimately. We’ve seen it up close and personal. We have literally “Fucked Around and Found Out” in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last twenty years. We know the impact it makes on not only the person who suffers the violence, but also on the person who inflicts it. We are not violent, we simply know how to be.
This is why we, as the United States, struggle with violence in our very developed country. The people who know violence try to avoid it. The people who don’t, love to promote it. The so-called news media thrive off it. Our entertainment media make billions off it. We seem to pick and choose which violence is good and which isn’t. It’s shameful and baffling.
This is why you won’t see a decrease in violence in the United States anytime soon. This is why we will likely never reach that elusive Acceptable Level of Violence the Brits were looking for so Belfast could assume a level of normalcy. We will continue to struggle as a nation while our selective acceptance and support of violence continues. No one is immune in this, me included.
But we need to do better. As a nation and as a society. We need to take a look at how WE feel about violence. The default has to be it is unacceptable and only after consideration do we determine if that violence was justified.
What we cannot do is witness violence and tell ourselves “It Depends”.