It’s so weird how my public education really stressed that non-violence was the best way to get things done but only gave two extremely cherry-picked examples versus the entirety of human history. Super duper weird.
Violence was the only thing that stopped me from being bullied my entire childhood. Teachers didn’t care. Other parents didn’t care. Principals didn’t care. Just the same old “Just ignore them and they’ll go away”. Okay, I’ll just ignore them putting their hands around my throat and choking me, I’ll get right the fuck on that.
The first time I ever defended myself physically while being literally strangled during gym class, I cold cocked the guy in the temple enough to drop him to the ground and let go. I got suspended. The person literally trying to do irreparable harm to me got no punishment at all. Right in the middle of a football field in gym class in front of 20 other students and two teachers.
Its seems all the peaceful movements had a violent counterpart going on at the same time, which made the peaceful version appealing to the ruling class.
If there is a non-violent solution to a problem, that should always be preferred and is also IMO the best way in the grand scheme of things. And if there is not, it might be also worth considering if the problem to be solved is actually a problem in the first place. But a few problems are left where violence might be the only solution.
Also “the best” doesn’t mean “the most effective”. Many many problems can be solved pretty effectively with a violent act. Or the violence is the simplest approach. But it wouldn’t be the best.
“effective” is a binary measure; pretty much absolute. “best” typically implies “optimum” or “efficient”, so a trade-off, because a one-sided effect is typically not optimal. And as I said: sometimes the effective solutions is the optimal one. But I think that’s the exception.
It’s so weird how my public education really stressed that non-violence was the best way to get things done but only gave two extremely cherry-picked examples versus the entirety of human history. Super duper weird.
Ghisline Maxwell’s dad published our textbooks
Violence was the only thing that stopped me from being bullied my entire childhood. Teachers didn’t care. Other parents didn’t care. Principals didn’t care. Just the same old “Just ignore them and they’ll go away”. Okay, I’ll just ignore them putting their hands around my throat and choking me, I’ll get right the fuck on that.
The first time I ever defended myself physically while being literally strangled during gym class, I cold cocked the guy in the temple enough to drop him to the ground and let go. I got suspended. The person literally trying to do irreparable harm to me got no punishment at all. Right in the middle of a football field in gym class in front of 20 other students and two teachers.
I got suspended for “fighting back”.
They also tended to avoid teaching too much about people like Malcolm X or Fred Hampton. Had to learn about them on my own.
Its seems all the peaceful movements had a violent counterpart going on at the same time, which made the peaceful version appealing to the ruling class.
Though both Malcolm X and MLK were assassinated because ultimately they didn’t want either.
I feel like you might be mixing two things here.
If there is a non-violent solution to a problem, that should always be preferred and is also IMO the best way in the grand scheme of things. And if there is not, it might be also worth considering if the problem to be solved is actually a problem in the first place. But a few problems are left where violence might be the only solution.
Also “the best” doesn’t mean “the most effective”. Many many problems can be solved pretty effectively with a violent act. Or the violence is the simplest approach. But it wouldn’t be the best.
Without defining what “the best” and “most effective” mean for you, your entire comment is a bit of a non sequitur.
“effective” is a binary measure; pretty much absolute. “best” typically implies “optimum” or “efficient”, so a trade-off, because a one-sided effect is typically not optimal. And as I said: sometimes the effective solutions is the optimal one. But I think that’s the exception.