To quote flippanarchy,

I’m a hard-line pacifist. Not because I feel compelled by any authority, but because every time in my life that I’ve done violence to someone, no matter how well deserved, I felt like a total piece of shit afterward. It has driven me to find new philosophies, new ways of living, to understand why I feel this way and how I can avoid hurting people. Even if it means I have to eat shit sometimes.

I’d like to think there’s a way for good people to live free without violence, but I don’t think the reality of the situation will permit it. I may not be cut out for violence, and I’d rather not see it come to that, but I also won’t stand in the way if other victims of the oppressive system we live under rise up in violent revolt. It would only be the natural consequences of what the elites have done, and it’d be their problem to handle.

Counterinsurgency: Start a definitional debate about violence to disperse your enemy.

Seen this first hand what damage this can have, but I get why it is a thing (you don’t want politics turn into gang violence).

Hot take: Shouting no violence, while standing next to a brick-holding comrade is tactically compatible.

It’s the same thing as “turn the other cheek”

I tend to agree with Peter Gelderloos opinion that non violence protects the state

I’m not violence neutral, I’m anti-violence. Defensive violence is 10000% necessary as long as military of any kind exist. As long as there are military, there is the capacity to create the world we are living in now through a combination of aggression and survival. When there can’t be military because there would be no point of forming one, only then would non-violence make sense to me.

I think violence is way more effective in people’s imaginations than it is in reality. Even where it is effective, the ends resemble the means in unintended ways. It inherently promotes hierarchy and control, because it’s a way of solving problems that more than any other does not require listening to or understanding the people you are dealing with.

All of that doesn’t mean violence can never be a good decision, but it’s very strongly biased towards being a bad decision, and people are much too fixated on it and sabotage their own efforts by appraising its utility too highly, especially if their goals are opposed to authoritarian dominance.

Depends on what or who the violence is applied to. I’m generally okay with violence towards things and generally not okay with (big amounts of) violence towards people. I believe the state and the capital depends on physical things to function and so we can attack them without attacking people, but i get why it’s probably more efficient to target people.

Here’s your friendly reminder that nonviolence still allows for self protection. If someone is performing violence on you or someone you love, being nonviolent doesn’t mean you just sit there and go “it’d be wrong for me to use violence to protect myself/my loved ones”. Fighting back is acceptable.

I personally think that non-violence can only work small scale

I say the State only speaks one language

Inaction is violence

In France violence is legally defined as harming people. Burning a Tesla shop is technically not violence, so it’s perfectly fine 🔥

Non-violence at best accomplishes one thing: make injustice public, force society to talk about it and position itself on a topic. It won’t be enough to convice, unless you are a victim of publicized harsh violence (think blood is spellt, people get into a coma, or worse). Like all strategies revolutionaries will have, none should be discarded and they are all complementary. What matters is that everyone acts collectively and pushes in the same direction

Nonviolence is properly seen as a tool or tactic, rather than some absolute principle. There are cases when a nonviolent approach is suitable for a particular situation. But the issue is when you assume that conclusion before you even begin evaluating the situation. And that goes both ways, you shouldn’t automatically assume that violent tactics will be the most effective or suitable.

Fighting the powers that be is a huge undertaking so you gotta have your eye on the ball. Decisions should be based on tactical effectiveness rather than one’s own proclivity or aversion towards violence.

Non violence till it become necessary to be violent