← Return to search results
Back to Prindle Institute

violence

Posted on

Fighting Fire with Fire

Last week, I saw Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another. While the film deserves its own article, I want to focus on one aspect of the film’s themes, and that is the use of violence in the service of political ideology. (Spoiler Alert: I talk about some details of the film that go beyond what trailers have shown.)

What is striking about the film is that it follows two very different types of people from distinct political ideologies. On the one hand, you have Bob Ferguson and Perfidia Beverly Hills, two radical revolutionaries who are a part of the French 75. They use violent tactics to resist the state and rescue captive immigrants. On the other hand, you have Col. Steven J. Lockjaw, a white supremacist military man who uses violent and oppressive tactics to hunt down his possible daughter and kill her to ensure entry into his white supremacist club, The Christmas Adventurers.

Both sets of people adhere to different ideological positions. But, one common point between the two is that each side acknowledges that violence is, in their minds, a justifiable means to bring about their preferred political ends. While the film highlights this similarity, it sets up the French 75 as the protagonists and state power embodied by Lockjaw as the antagonist.

Although One Battle After Another takes a relatively clear stance on whose violence is “better,” it also clearly communicates an uncomfortable truth about violence in general: violence can be used in service of just about anything. Save for the highly dedicated pacifist, no political ideology is immune to the use of violence.

To understand why most political ideologies are in some way violent, we need only ask a simple question: does the ideology accept that states are permitted to use coercion in order to enforce the law? When you accept that a legitimate state can sometimes use violence, your ideology must have provisions for violence. In order to purify one’s political ideology of all violence, one would need to reject state sanctioned coercion, which is fairly difficult to do at both a theoretical and practical level.

While violence can emerge from nearly all ideological corners, a recent presidential memorandum would have us believe otherwise. On September 25, President Trump released a memorandum on domestic terrorism and organized political violence. It mentions several instances of political violence-among them the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the attempted assassinations on President Trump, the murder of Brian Thompson, and an attempt to kill Brett Kavanaugh. It then goes on to outline several ideological themes that, according to the current administration, unify the motivations for political violence:

“Common threads animating this violent conduct include anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.”

Trump’s administration has framed the issue of political violence in the United States as primarily a problem of radical left-wing extremism. As it turns out, there is some research that supports the claim that left-wing violence has increased. However, the very same research also reveals something else: between the years 1994 and 2025, the majority of politically motivated violent attacks have come from the right. So, although left-wing violence may be rising more rapidly relative to right-wing violence in 2025, right-wing violence has long outpaced left-wing violence.

There are also several glaring omissions in Trump’s memorandum. For instance, he fails to mention the attempted violent insurrection on January 6th, the killing of Melissa Hortman in June of 2025, or the attack on Nancy and Paul Pelosi, which are just a few examples of right-wing extremism. He also omits political violence motivated by anti-Jewish or anti-Muslim sentiment, or by violence towards the LGBTQ+ community.

Given the flexible nature of violence, one might wish to simply argue that any ideologies that lead to violence should be abandoned. However, this position fails to recognize some difficult truths about violence.

First, we must constantly remember that modern political entities are violent by nature. It is why the police and military have weapons. It is why most modern nations invest money into defense budgets and one of the motivating reasons for why many international alliances are struck. It is why, in the U.S. in particular, we spend more money on our own military than any other nation. It is why nations come up with rules that regulate the ways in which states can legally use violent means to enforce rules. It is why a majority of U.S. states still have the death penalty. Any time power changes hands in the U.S., so too does the capacity to shift how the violent means are used. But no party in the U.S. has gotten rid of the means of violence, and it is hard to imagine anyone doing so in the near future.

The reason why violence and state power are commingled has been the subject of political philosophy, social contract theory, critical theory, sociology, and history for a long time. It is widely acknowledged that where there is a state, there follows state-backed violence. Indeed, one of the defining features of a state is that it makes rules and is allowed to enforce those rules using the force of violence. Whether one accepts a social contract theory that legitimizes state violence, or opposes its legitimacy on anarchist grounds, all can clearly see that the state’s supreme power comes from its ability to use the coercive threat of violence.

In addition to the strong bond between state power and violence, we must also acknowledge that it is difficult to eschew ideological positions that justify violence because most of us are committed to some version of the right to life and the right to self-defense. These two rights often come together. The right to life generally states that one has a moral right to their life, which at the very least demands that others not wrongfully take your life from you. From this one can derive the right to self-defense, which generally says that if another fails to respect your right to life, then you may do what is necessary to protect your own life, even if that means using violence.

Given the common belief that states are defined by their use of violence and the general commitment that many have towards the use of violence in self-defense cases, we cannot easily say that all violent ideologies must be abandoned. So, when we evaluate a “violent ideology,” the crucial question is not whether an ideology can justify violence, but under what conditions it does. Framing the issue this way forces us to examine our own ideological commitments and to acknowledge the fundamental seriousness of politics.

And this is precisely why Trump’s memorandum is troubling. His failure to recognize clearly demonstrated forms of right-wing political violence in his memorandum or in his public speeches gives us little reason to believe he genuinely cares about solving the problem of “violent ideologies.” Even more concerning is the way he frames the issue as a “war from within.” In harmony with this warlike rhetoric, Trump has responded accordingly: deploying the National Guard to U.S. cities, empowering police departments to collaborate with ICE, encouraging top military officials to use U.S. cities as training grounds, and routinely citing the insurrection act.

Trump is employing a rhetorical sleight of hand that demands scrutiny. In order to justify the increased militarization of law enforcement, he has selectively highlighted instances of political violence with ambiguous or left-leaning motives. At the same time he ignores, pardons, and uses violence motivated by right-wing beliefs with confidence. This selective framing not only distorts the reality of political violence in the U.S., it also actively makes it worse by deepening the divide between the left and the right.

While many ideologies have room for the use of violence, it is crucial that we do not conflate this point with the idea that all justifications of violence count for the same, or the idea that violence is to be celebrated and used flippantly. Violence is gravely serious and we have good reason to avoid resorting to it unless absolutely necessary. Violence violates bodily autonomy, and often leads to serious injury and death. Taking the life of another is at the top of the list of most immoral things one can do to another human, and for good reason. However, we cannot evaluate the justifications for the use of violence when we fail to acknowledge the fact that violence is used by a wide range of political ideologies.

Asking whether or not an ideology is violent will only ever answer part of our question about its moral value. If we accept the possibility that some violence is justifiable, but that it needs serious justification, knowing that an ideology is violent only tells you that you must scrutinize the ideology more closely. What we need to know next is why an ideology justifies the use of violence. This brings us swiftly one of life’s great moral quandaries: when, if ever, is violence justified?

Answering this question is no small feat, but there are a few principles we can start with to constrain the possible justifications for violence.

First, we can ask whether or not all non-violent means have been pursued. Given a commitment to the moral seriousness of violence, it is imperative to know whether non-violent means cannot bring about the same result. Famously, Martin Luther King advocated for civil disobedience using a similar logic; first exhaust all legal means at your disposal, and then after those routes have failed, engage in non-violent civil disobedience as a way to bring about change. This condition can constrain the use of violence in a similar way,  to only those cases where there are no non-violent means available.

Second, given the moral seriousness of violence and the risk of being wrong about one’s reason for using violence, violence should be kept to an absolute minimum, i.e., one should never use more violence than is necessary to fulfill the justified end of violence. If someone poses a moderate threat to you, but does not threaten your life, it would be wrong to use lethal force when non-lethal force would do. This follows from a commitment to the idea that violence requires justification in the first place. Given that not all violence produces the same amount of harm (e.g., sprained wrists, broken bones, and death are all outcomes of violence), one needs not only a justification for using violence in general, but also for the specific type of violence used.

Third, we should ask ourselves how an ideology frames violence in the first place. Does the ideology glorify violence or does it frame violence as a regrettable necessity? Does the ideology acknowledge the seriousness of violence or does it try to minimize it? Does the ideology dehumanize others? Or, does the ideology recognize the importance of a principle of moral equality? Does the ideology recognize a fundamental right to be protected from violence? The answers to these questions can tell us more about whether the violence is in the realm of justifiable.

While this list is not exhaustive, it outlines some ways we can think about violence that pull us beyond often unhelpful binaries. It is not as simple as saying we should simply reject all violent ideologies. Political ideologies need to address the question of violence and we need to grapple with the way that violence can arise from every direction of the political spectrum. Failure to acknowledge this is a failure to take the discussion about violence seriously.

Posted on

The Obligations of Players and Fans

Color photograph of a crowd of football fans, one of whom is dressed up like the Hulk

Recently, Cristiano Ronaldo slapped the phone out of a 14-year-old fan’s hand, as the kid tried to take a photo from the terraces. The kid’s phone was broken, he was apparently bruised, and the police are investigating this “assault.” Meanwhile, Charlotte Hornets forward Miles Bridges threw his mouthguard at an abusive fan, accidentally hitting a girl. And finally, Ronaldo’s fellow Manchester United player Marcus Rashford was also embroiled in some controversy after apparently swearing at a fan who had criticized his performance. Rashford denied swearing, claiming that he instead said “come over here and say it to my face,” which he acknowledged was silly.

These cases are a bit different – Ronaldo hit a child (though there is no suggestion he knew this was a child, and it was hardly violent), Bridges did something perhaps less violent but a bit more disgusting, and Rashford merely swore. How should we judge these sports stars? My inclination is that the Ronaldo and Bridges cases are fairly obvious: they shouldn’t have been violent, and it was obviously wrong to act in that way.* Rashford’s case raises more interesting questions.

In Rashford’s case (and Bridges’s), he was being berated by fans – this was not on-pitch or in the stadium (like it was for Bridges) – and those fans then reacted with complete indignation when he dared respond to them. And this raises a question: why can fans swear at players, as they so often do, yet when a player raises his middle finger it is (according to the same fans) an outrage?

Perhaps a good starting point is the concept of a role model. People often criticize the behavior of sports stars by saying that they should be exemplars – they should act in a way that encourages other people, especially kids, to behave correctly. If this is true, it explains why fans can, say, swear but players cannot.

But should players be seen as role models? Basketball player Charles Barkley – who had his run-ins with fans – famously said, in a Nike commercial: “I am not a role model… Parents should be role models. Just because I dunk a basketball, doesn’t mean I should raise your kids.” This hits on something very basic: his job is to play basketball, it is to throw a ball through some hoops, and that is what we admire him for. What does being a role model have to do with that?

Alas, this is an overly simplistic view of the role of sports in society. Sports clubs are socially important, and how they do – as well as how players behave – reflects on fans. As Alfred Archer and Benjamin Matheson have argued, sports stars are often representatives of their club or country; when they misbehave, this can bring collective shame on the whole club. When a player is embroiled in a scandal, when a player does something morally disgusting, this makes everyone connected with the club ashamed. And this means that players should be expected to behave in certain ways. (In some scenarios, this might apply to fans, too, such as if they engage in racist chanting – or the Tomahawk Chop – but generally it seems as though players are representatives, fans less so.)

So, an argument like this – though Archer and Matheson are not explicitly trying to argue that players are role models – can ground the idea that players have special obligations to behave appropriately. That said, it might not extend to all sorts of behavior. Perhaps players can be adulterers, who are moderately unpleasant to those around them, but it does mean that players have an extra obligation to not be morally awful: firstly, they should not be morally awful for the standard moral reasons, secondly, they should not be morally awful because it can bring shame on so many others.

I am partial to the idea that players do have certain obligations to behave appropriately, since they are not merely playing sport. Even so, this does not establish the perceived gap between how players should act and how fans should act.

Firstly, it’s far from clear that Rashford’s behavior rises to the level of being bad enough to bring shame on Manchester United. Secondly, we haven’t explored what obligations fans have. How should they behave toward players?

Start with the idea that fans are supposed to support a team. Support can range from cheering them on in the stadium to decking out your home in a variety of merchandise. But you can support someone while criticizing them: after all, if you support someone you want them to do well, and that can involve telling them when they’re doing badly. When it comes to sports fandom, that might even involve booing if a player doesn’t perform well.

But even if booing is okay, there are limits to this, too: criticism and displeasure is one thing, abuse another. As Baker Mayfield has reminded us, the player is doing their job. Mayfield wonders whether the fan would be so keen on booing, if he had things his way: “I would love to show up to somebody’s cubicle and just boo the shit out of them and watch them crumble.” Perhaps fans need to bear this in mind, even if booing is occasionally acceptable when a player really underperforms.

Yet even if criticizing a player is acceptable, this seems to cross a line when the player isn’t playing. To intrude at work is one thing, but when they’re headed home, or to the team bus, seems to be another. It is to treat the player as having no personal life, but having a personal life is something everybody has a right to.

This brings us back around to Charles Barkley’s complaint with being a role model. Yes, he’s an athlete and that is what we are meant to respect, where he’s wrong is in thinking this shields him from any non-sporting expectations. But he is right that he is a man with a life to live, and once we get far enough away from the basketball court, we shouldn’t have much interest in what he does with his life (so long as it isn’t too egregious!).

All of this is to say, slapping a kid’s phone out of his hand or throwing a mouthguard is bad, but so is abusing players. Perhaps the real problem in the Rashford incident isn’t that he failed to be a role model – he in fact is a role model who behaves admirably in the public sphere – the problem is that fans lose sight of how they should behave.

 

*Around a week after this incident, Ronaldo’s child died. We do not know what stresses Ronaldo was under that might change how we view this incident. His bereavement obviously changes our view of this situation.

Posted on

True Crime and Empathy

photograph of coroner and officer hovering over body

True crime is a prism through which we understand a myriad of social concerns, including race, gender, class, and mental illness. It’s an arena where the political is made personal, where structural inequalities are boiled down to or made manifest through individual acts of stunning violence. It’s also infinitely versatile in terms of form (podcast, documentary, online forum) and tone (prestigious, comic, sensational). There are many obvious pitfalls for the investigative journalists and television producers that peddle true crime stories. They might influence public opinion about a case, or even change the course of an investigation, as happened with both the podcast Serial and the hit show Making a Murderer. But what does the popularity of this genre teach us about empathy, and what ethical dilemmas are faced by its adherents?

Those adherents, as Rachel Monroe says in her 2019 book Savage Appetites: Four True Stories of Crime, Women, and Obsession, are overwhelmingly women (one 2019 study says that women make up about 85% of true crime aficionados). These women, as Monroe explains, “reinvented themselves, finding personal meaning through other people’s tragedies. They used [true crime] as a way to live out other kinds of lives, ones that were otherwise unavailable to them.” Monroe argues that those with an active interest in true crime (men and women alike) tend to identify with an archetypal figure; they can be the analytical detective who seeks justice within the judicial system, the battered victim, the avenging vigilante, or even the murderer.

We can even identify with the archetypal true-crime reporter. The success of the podcast Serial, Alice Bolin says, depends on how relatable the host is: “Like the figure of the detective in many mystery novels, the reporter stands in for the audience, mirroring and orchestrating our shifts in perspective, our cynicism and credulity, our theories, prejudices, frustrations, and breakthroughs.” This process of identification is the driving thrust behind true crime fandom. It isn’t enough to see the facts laid out, we want a narrative to project ourselves into, and the form that projection takes is rooted in our deepest needs and desires. Though the stereotype of true-crime fans is that of the addict, the passive consumer, it’s virtually impossible to get invested in crime without some element of it speaking to you.

In the world of true crime, the line between creator and consumer is tenuous at best. This is most evident in the Elisa Lam case, which was the subject of a recent Netflix documentary. Lam died tragically on the roof of a hotel after going off her medication, and a surprising number of people (many of whom are featured in the documentary) became obsessed with “uncovering the truth” behind her death. Internet sleuths constructed an elaborate web of conspiracy, positioning themselves as authorities over her story, while also consuming it voyeuristically. Some claimed she was the victim of supernatural forces, others harassed members of her family. This case exemplifies that identifying with the victim is not the same as showing empathy for the victim.

Narratives, more broadly, give us a sense of justice and stability. Kevin Balfe, the founder of the wildly popular true crime convention CrimeCon, explained to Time that “most of these stories represent what all great stories have. There’s a hero. There’s a villain. There’s usually a mystery. There’s oftentimes a traumatic event. There’s usually a resolution.” The question is whether or not immersing ourselves in such narratives can make us blind to reality, as the almost fairy-tale narrative structure described by Balfe suggests.

At the same time, it’s difficult to prove concretely that true crime reinforces negative stereotypes or stirs up undue fear of violence. How do you draw a straight line between a true crime documentary and a person’s heightened anxiety about serial killers, or their blind support for the judicial system? And such concerns can easily veer into baseless moralizing, which is especially troubling given how many true crime fans are women. Women’s interests are so often trivialized and policed, and any critique of true crime should take this into account. Anyone with critical thinking skills can love true crime as mere entertainment, without over-investing their identity into their favorite stories, and there is nothing inherently wrong with an interest in the macabre.

Content creators have obligations to research their stories thoroughly, and present the story without sensationalizing or cheapening tragedy. But those who consume true crime also have obligations to remain empathetic, and not massage a real tragedy into a more cohesive or alluring narrative. When we do this, it is an injustice to ourselves, to the messiness of reality, and most importantly, to the victims true crime fans are meant to care about.

Posted on

The Capitol Coup and the Rhetoric of Essentialist Exceptionalism

photograph of a burning tire with the feet of a crowd of protestors in the background

On January 6, 2021, a mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, disrupting Congress’s certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s electoral college win for a few hours. Law enforcmenet deployed tear gas in the Capitol Rotunda, and at least four people died; one woman was shot and killed. It was a deeply depressing spectacle that underscored two facts: that millions of Americans live in an alternative reality in which President Trump, the nemesis of shadowy, rootless “globalists” and other vaguely Semitic “swamp-dwellers,” won a second term in a landslide; and that Trump himself, pathologically fixated on his electoral loss, will gladly incite violence against his own government in order to cling to power.

Even as it was happening, media commentators registered their bewilderment that something like this was happening here, and not some other place — Iraq, maybe, or perhaps (as CNN’s Jake Tapper imagined) Bogotá. The by now well-worn cliché that it was something that might happen in a “banana republic” was trotted out. Echoing these sentiments, in his remarks on that day, President-elect Biden said that “the scenes of chaos at the Capitol do not reflect the true America.”

There is, I think, a deep connection between the commentators’ surprise and Biden’s rhetoric. Many people in this country seem to subscribe to a metaphysics of America, or of American political culture, that is essentialist in that it says that there is something that the culture essentially or truly is — that there are qualities which define America and without which America as we know it would not exist. Usually, the outlines of this conception of America’s essence are drawn by exclusion: by saying what America is not. Thus, Biden tells us that the “true” America is not whatever-it-is that the Capitol insurrection represents — probably that it is not violent or lawless. Other invocations of America’s essence have claimed that America is essentially liberal or conservative, or essentially tolerant. In general, we can say that American essentialism defines what America is in terms of what the one doing the defining thinks it ought to be. Frequently combined with this claim about America’s essence is the idea that this essence is exceptional; that America has a unique essence that distinguishes it from other countries. Thus, those who hold to American essentialism often define America not only by what it is not, but they suggest that what it is not is what other countries are. 

Put these two beliefs together — that America has an essence, and that this essence is unique — and you can readily explain why it should seem shocking or unbelievable that something like the Capitol coup occurred. If America is essentially not what, say, Iraq is — violent, lawless, prone to coup attempts — then what happened at the Capitol is almost unthinkable.

But American essentialist exceptionalism is doubly untrue. First, even if America’s political culture had an essence, it would be implausible to claim that this essence is peaceful or law-abiding. Since its founding, America has been the site of extreme political violence. Periods of relative peace have, if anything, been the exception, not the rule. Second, it is simply implausible to think that political cultures have essences. What makes this particular political culture American is simply that it is comprised of the political beliefs and practices of citizens of the United States, a particular political entity. Those beliefs and practices can (and have) changed dramatically over time and yet remain American. 

Defenders of the rhetoric of essentialist exceptionalism might call on Plato or Government-House utilitarians for support, arguing that even if untrue it is a “noble lie” that helps bind the political community together. On this view, saying that America is essentially good motivates its citizens to love it, thus making it more likely that they will help preserve it across time.

However, we must balance this benefit against the costs, which in my view are considerable. First, the exceptionalist aspect of American essentialist exceptionalism encourages Americans to view the political cultures and systems of other countries with unthinking disdain. That disdain was on full display in commentators’ casual invocation of Iraq, Ukraine, and other countries as examples of places where a Capitol coup would somehow be more appropriate. In fact, Americans likely have much to learn from the struggles of other democracies.

Second, the essentialist aspect of American essentialist exceptionalism may encourage complacency about America’s prospects: if America is essentially democratic, non-violent, tolerant, law-abiding, and so on, then the acts of individual political actors seem to matter less in the scheme of things — it just can’t happen here. Put another way: if in some sense we already are what we ought to be, then what’s the point in struggling to achieve our ideals? It is perhaps just this sort of complacency that was at play in the acts of the Republican congressmen and -women who chose to contest Biden’s electoral win, or the failure of the Capitol police to anticipate the possibility that Trump supporters might assault the building. Now the costs of that complacency are available for all to witness.

Third, the idea that there is a true America can easily be hijacked to serve nefarious political ends. Instead of arguing that American political culture is essentially tolerant, liberal, and democratic, some on the far right believe that it is essentially white, Christian, and patriarchal. Thus, the belief in American essentialism can motivate the exclusion of many members of actual American society as fundamentally “alien” to the culture.

The best course, then, is to jettison both our essentialism and our exceptionalism. There simply is no “true” America, and there are no qualities, good or bad, which define our political culture for all time. There are only the beliefs and practices of Americans in their roles as citizens, jurors, office-holders, and the like; and whether these beliefs and practices are, on the whole, good or bad depends upon the choices of each and all of us.

Posted on

Under Discussion: Right to Riot?

photograph of broken storefront window

This piece is part of an Under Discussion series. To read more about this week’s topic and see more pieces from this series visit Under Discussion: Law and Order.

The climactic moment of Spike Lee’s seminal 1989 film, “Do the Right Thing,” comes when its protagonist, Mookie, hurls a trash can through the window of a Bed-Stuy pizza parlor owned and operated by Italian Americans, setting off a frenzy of destruction that destroys the restaurant. It’s an action that seems inevitable, given the simmering hostility between the parlor’s owners and certain members of the majority African-American community that the film documents in brilliant and searing detail. Yet the title of the film tells us that what looks inevitable is actually a moral choice; the question we’re left with is whether Mookie did, after all, do the right thing. Is destroying private property a legitimate, or at least excusable, form of political expression?

Joe Biden recently articulated the standard argument for the negative answer to this question, saying that “rioting is not protesting…it’s wrong in every way…it divides instead of unites. [I]t destroys businesses [and] only hurts the working families that serve the community.” An American politician’s hostility to rioting must strike us as at least a little ironic, given that we celebrate political acts of property destruction as part of our national mythos — the Boston Tea Party being perhaps the most prominent example. This example alone also shows that it is a mistake to deny that rioting can be a form of political protest. When people destroy private property in order to express their political views, that is a form of protest. Still, it is a further question whether rioting-as-protest is justified or excused. 

A more sympathetic view of rioting can be found in Martin Luther King Jr.’s now-famous line that “rioting is the voice of the unheard.” There are many ways to interpret King’s remark, but I will try to extract two arguments that might be consistent with it. The first goes like this. To begin with, we cannot reasonably expect any community to live under conditions of oppression without resorting to destructive means as a way of expressing their discontent with the situation. By “oppression” I mean a condition in which agents of government and society commit injustices against a community in a persistent, widespread, and systematic fashion. If we cannot reasonably expect this, then those who do it are blameless, or at least less blameworthy than they would be were they under different conditions. In other words, on this reading King is saying that rioters are excused, or less blameworthy, because of the conditions in which they find themselves. Notice that this argument, if accepted, might have major implications for how the justice system ought to treat rioters. It does not, however, strictly contradict Biden’s claim that rioting is wrong: an excused act is, almost by definition, a wrongful one.

One problem with analogizing rioting to action under duress is that the reason we do not blame people who act under duress is because they are faced with a choice between a wrongful option and an option that isn’t reasonable from the point of view of their own well-being — for example, allowing themselves to die or become seriously injured, or allowing someone they love to suffer the same fate. It’s not clear that not destroying property is unreasonable in this sense for members of oppressed communities: while some members of the community literally face a choice between death or serious injury at the hands of government agents and violent protest, many do not. Furthermore, unlike in cases of duress, the choice of destructive protest does not ensure that the oppression will cease. For these reasons, it is unlikely that a case for mitigated blameworthiness due to duress can be made out for most protestors who are engaged in the destruction of property.

The second argument is more ambitious in that it purports to show that rioting is morally justified. The legal system that protects private property is a part of the same system that oppresses the community. So, to attack private property is to attack that system. Furthermore, as King claims, to attack the system at this point and with these means is the only option available to people living under conditions of oppression. Every person has a moral right to try to alter the oppressive conditions in which they live by morally legitimate means. Finally, if you have a right to do X, and Y is a necessary means to X, you have a right to do Y — Y is a morally legitimate means. Therefore, members of oppressed groups have a right to riot (in order to attack the system).

The weakest link in this argument, I think, is the claim that rioting is a means to attacking the system that oppresses the community. By this logic, attacking any part of the system is a reasonable means to attacking the parts of the system that do the work of oppression. But there are clearly parts of the system that are very far removed from the parts that, for example, oppress communities of color. Would it make sense to burn down National Park Service buildings as a means of relieving their oppression? It seems doubtful. But then it can be argued that attacking others’ private property is like attacking Park Service buildings.

One response to this objection is to claim that attacking private property is a form of political expression aimed at bringing attention to conditions of oppression, rather than a means of directly attacking the system. With that amendment, we enter into the empirical discussion of whether destroying private property is a reasonably adequate means of altering oppressive conditions. Is the kind of consciousness-raising that rioting accomplishes useful, or is it counter-productive? Here is where political scientists may be able to help us, and where philosophers must take a back seat.

We might also question how far the conclusion of the argument gets supporters of rioting. Even if it establishes that members of oppressed groups have a right to riot, having a right to do X does not necessarily make doing X right. What it is for me to have a right to do something is for others to have a duty not to interfere in my doing it, but that does not mean I ought to do it. For example, I may have the moral right to verbally castigate someone who has committed a minor wrong, but it does not necessarily follow that I ought to do that. And here is where Biden’s point about the effects of rioting are relevant. Perhaps members of oppressed groups have a right to riot, but the detrimental effects of rioting — the destruction of community businesses and livelihoods — make it something that no one ought to do. At the end of “Do the Right Thing,” with the pizza parlor in ruins, one cannot help but feel that the neighborhood has suffered a real loss; the loss of the parlor feels like a tragedy. Perhaps, then, we ought to say that Mookie had the right to do what he did, but that what he did was not right.

Posted on

It’s Just a Game: The Ethics of Tom Clancy’s Not-So-Elite Squad

image of man in military gear firing weapon

Video game company Ubisoft has recently received a fresh wave of backlash, this time for its latest mobile game app: Tom Clancy’s Elite Squad. The mechanics of the game are nothing revolutionary – tap here to make person X shoot person Y – and has received a number of poor reviews for its heavy-handed monetization and boring gameplay. The problem is not so much the style of game, as it is the backstory. Here is how the plot is described in the game’s introduction:

“The world is in an alarming state: wars, corruption and poverty have made it more unstable than ever. As the situation keeps worsening, anger is brewing. From between the cracks, a new threat has emerged to take advantage of escalating civil unrest. They are known as UMBRA: a faceless organization that wants to build a new world order. They claim to promote an egalitarian utopia to gain popular support, while behind the scenes, UMBRA organizes deadly terrorist attacks to generate even more chaos, and weaken governments, at the cost of many innocent lives. Simultaneously, they have been hacking social media to discredit world leaders and rally people to their cause. Under immense pressure, world leaders have come together to authorize a new international cross agency unit designed to combat UMBRA. It is clear, playing by the rules will not win this fight. The leader of this unconventional squad will need to recruit elite soldiers from every corner of the world, including the criminal underworld. As commander of this unprecedented squad, we need you to put an end to UMBRA’s campaign of chaos. Welcome to Tom Clancy’s Elite Squad.”

In addition to sounding like it was written by a middle-schooler who used a thesaurus for every word except “squad”, many critics have noted that the message of the game itself is a dangerous one, in that it appears to lend credence to right-wing conspiracy theories that protesters are somehow being controlled by evil members of the deep state. Additionally, it seems to advocate for violence against those protesters – after all, “playing by the rules will not win this fight” – who are villainized for, bizarrely, wanting to create an “egalitarian utopia”.

(You control the guys shooting the people waving the flag reading “freedom”)

It gets much worse: the symbol that Ubisoft chose to represent the antagonists bears a striking resemblance to that used by the Black Lives Matter movement. So close, in fact, that Ubisoft issued an apology, and promised to remove the symbol from the next update. Of course, the plot of protesters being secret terrorists remains central to the game.

Hanlon’s razor states to “never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” That being said, there might not be enough stupidity available to adequately explain Ubisoft’s choice of plot and imagery. It seems clear that not only was an apology warranted, but that significant changes to the game ought to be made. Outrage online has been widespread, and deserved.

But wait: why make such a big deal out of this? It is, after all, nothing more than a dumb mobile game from a franchise whose best days are likely long behind it. And it’s not like we haven’t had Tom Clancy’s work glorifying the military for decades already, in the forms of books, movies, and TV shows – featuring protagonists with jaw-droppingly original names like “Jack Ryan”, “John Clark”, and “Jack Ryan Jr.” – not to mention dozens of video games. These are works of fiction, though, and people are able to differentiate such works from reality. So really, we shouldn’t be bothered by the latest in a long line of predictable Tom Clancy-branded properties.

There is, I think, something to be said about the “it’s just a game” response. For instance, while research on the effects of violent video games on their players is ongoing, there is a good amount of evidence that long-term exposure to such games has no effect on levels of aggression, pro-social behavior, impulsivity, or cognition in general. So the thought that a mobile game in which one shoots protesters is going to have a direct impact on the number of people who are going out and shooting protesters – something that has become a real problem as of late – is too quick.

The relevant worry, then, is not so much that the game will be a direct cause of future violence, but rather that the fact that a company would create such a game, with such a premise, at this particular moment in time, helps to normalize a false and dangerous narrative of events that is very much taken seriously by some people.

Here, then, is a difference between Tom Clancy’s Elite Squad and the kinds of video games that have historically received moral outrage and are the subject of studies that mentioned above: those falling into the latter category do not tend to promote any kind of narrative that actively promotes a particular political agenda. Consider, for example, a violent videogame like Mortal Kombat (which was one of the games that sparked early congressional hearings into depictions of violence in video games in the early 1990s) that involves graphic acts of decapitation and pixelated blood. These acts are obviously so far removed from what are generally considered good societal values that it is easy to see how one could separate the acts promoted in the video game from those promoted in the real world. On the other hand, when a game tells you that protestors who wave a flag remarkably similar to that used by the Black Lives Matter movement are driven by ulterior motives, are “hacking social media”, and ought to be dealt with in any way possible – a message that seems to be condoned by right-wing media outlets – the lines between fantasy and reality become much less distinct.

In one sense, Tom Clancy’s Elite Squad is just a game. In another sense, it is a symbol of an uninformed and intolerant worldview that has potentially real and damaging consequences. With any luck, Ubisoft’s decisions will turn out to be the result of an enormous amount of stupidity, and not an equivalent amount of malice.

Posted on

Censoring “Gratuitous” Violence

black-and-white photograph of protestor taking photo of "White Silence is Violence" sign with phone

The video of George Floyd dying after nine long minutes by suffocation at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer is gruesome, sickening, and has prompted countless people to action. The officers responsible for his death have been arrested and charged. In response to protests, numerous state and local governments are instituting police reforms. Black people have been killed by police before. But given that this particular video of unambiguous violence perpetrated by police has been circulated so widely, is so appalling, and instigated such a fierce response, this example stands out.

From this fact, a rough argument may be sketched. Sharing videos of horrifying violence prompts positive social change, so let’s share more videos of horrifying violence. If such a video is helping to stop police violence, why not share other violent videos to help stop gang violence, war violence, and terrorist violence? In fact, why not share videos showing the effects of structural violence, videos of suicides due to social isolation and industrial accidents due to lack of regulation? Scrolling through Twitter or Facebook, one might see a video of a cute baby taking her first steps, then a video of a terrorist execution, then a video of a bunch of newborn puppies, and a video of a young man sticking a gun in his mouth and pulling the trigger. Even if you think it is good that the Floyd video was widely shared, you probably don’t support turning your morning scroll through social media into such a traumatic experience. To understand this apparent contradiction in instinct, let us consider how violent content is treated on social media today and the arguments for and against censoring it on these platforms and in general.

First, we need to consider what “violent content” is and how it is understood by social media companies. While there may be an intuitive sense that violent content only includes uses of force for the purpose of causing harm, social media companies take a more expansive view. Twitter, for example, includes under the category of “graphic violence,” accidents and any “serious physical harm.” But, these companies also tend to distinguish between what Twitter calls “graphic violence” and “gratuitous gore,” as though there is some amount of violence or gore that is not in some way “gratuitous” to our experience of the world.

While graphic violence may include “bodily fluids including blood, feces, semen,” and is only hidden behind a “sensitive media” label and blur, “gratuitous” gore, which includes dismemberment, mutilation, burned human remains, and exposed internal organs and bones, is banned completely. But what exactly is the meaningful difference between these two categories? For example, a decapitation would certainly count as gratuitous gore and would be extremely off-putting. But, the video of Floyd being killed is merely graphic violence, even though it can easily be just as off-putting, if not more so. In fact, while a decapitation may be quick and relatively painless, Floyd died slowly of suffocation. Why is one “gratuitous” and not the other? Why is one censored and not the other?

From the start, companies can have two kinds of motivations for doing anything: moral ones and amoral ones. Either they do something because it is right or thoughts of right and wrong simply don’t factor into their decision. Twitter presents a moral argument for their censorship. They say that “We prohibit gratuitous gore content because research has shown that repeated exposure to violent content online may negatively impact an individual’s wellbeing.” Twitter does not make clear what they mean by well-being but if they mean an immediate sensation of feeling good or ill, their argument is trivially true. Only a sadist really enjoys the suffering of others and has their immediate well-being improved by viewing it.

And there might be a legitimate basis for Twitter’s claim. There is some evidence that regular viewing of violence can be desensitizing, though “regular viewing” here means in excess of two hours every day and none of the science is settled. But, there is also an obvious profit motive for Twitter’s censorship—if you associate negative feelings with your use of Twitter, you are unlikely to use it as frequently, and fewer users means less ad revenue. Regardless of the morality of this censorship, Twitter is motivated to censor for the sake of profits. So then, what are the moral reasons that could support this sort of censorship?

To answer this question, let’s first consider the odd bunch of people who do seek out violent content, taboo gratuitous gore in particular, to watch. One particularly popular community of these people was the Reddit group r/watchpeople die, which had over 400,000 members before it was banned. At that size, it is difficult to chalk the membership of that group up to just sadists, sociopaths, and other such extraordinarily deviant people. In fact, the moderators and power users of this subreddit were pretty much normal people, some married, plenty having friends. They didn’t fit the stereotype of obsessive death and gore watchers.

In fact, Rule #3 of the subreddit (as shown in this Wayback Machine archive of the subreddit’s homepage on September 20, 2018, shortly before its quarantine) included this expectation, bolded by the mods to highlight it: “Be respectful of the dead! This is important. Human beings have lost their lives. This subject matter is not to be taken lightly.” The subreddit also described itself as “a community for documenting and observing the disturbing reality of death” and as “not intended to be a shock or gore subreddit.” Finally, they referenced two famous philosophical ideas: “Memento mori,” the Latin Stoic maxim to always remember one’s inevitable death, and “Maranasati,” a similar idea in Buddhism. Gratuitous gore is often referred to online as “gore porn” as the basis for viewing it is thought to come from a similar place as the animalistic urge to view other kinds of pornography. However, in light of the seemingly principled basis for this community, it is tough to say that all viewing of gratuitous gore is pornographic.

Sue Tait, a lecturer in the field of mass communications at the University of Canterbury, elaborates on this idea in her article, “Pornographies of Violence? Internet Spectatorship on Body Horror.” She considers four different ways people in these sorts of communities interact with gratuitous gore. She refers to these as four kinds of gazes viewers have:

“I identify a range of spectatorship positions [viewers] take up, including: an amoral gaze, whereby the suffering subject becomes a source of stimulation and pleasure; a vulnerable gaze, where viewers experience harm from graphic imagery; an entitled gaze, where viewers frame their looking through anti-censorship discourses; and a responsive gaze, whereby looking is a precedent to action.”

To contextualize these gazes, let’s consider some examples from before. The amoral gaze would be the one taken up by the sadists. The vulnerable gaze is the one Twitter worries about its viewers having-they worry people will associate the “hurt” they feel at viewing gratuitous gore with the site itself and stop using it. The r/watchpeopledie community’s focus on “documenting and observing the disturbing reality of death” would be an example of the entitled gaze. And last but not least, the responsive gaze would be the one taken up by those who were prompted to action by the video of Floyd’s death and any one who would be prompted to similar action by similar, but gorier, content, like many on r/watchpeopledie were.

With the idea of these different kinds of gazes in mind, we can now construct a variety of arguments for and against the censorship of violent content.

According to virtue ethics, we might support censorship of gratuitous gore if it seems that regular exposure to gratuitous gore encourages vices in viewers. For example, if conclusive research comes out showing that exposure to violent media causes people to be more aggressive, cruel, or unempathetic, that would be a reason to support censoring gratuitous gore, the most extreme form of violent media. (In particular, we might worry about how this media influences the character of children whose morals are viewed as being particularly malleable.) This would be particularly true if a community encouraged people to take up an amoral gaze.

On the other hand, we might oppose the censorship of gratuitous gore if it seems that same exposure promotes virtue, rather than vice, in the viewers. If viewers take up a responsive gaze, rather than an amoral one, people may be encouraged to be more compassionate. As Stalin is reported to have said, “If only one man dies of hunger, that is a tragedy. If millions die, that’s only statistics.” Seeing the “disturbing reality of death,” over and over again, be it by hunger or by violence, might prevent people from losing touch with the horror of various kinds of violence and actually work to take action as they did with police violence after seeing the video of Floyd’s murder.

Immanuel Kant, the father of deontology — morals based on duties — made a creative argument against the abuse of animals that could be used to justify the censorship of gratuitous gore. While Kant did not believe animals had rights, or even any kind of consciousness, he still opposed sadistic animal abuse saying, “If any acts of animals are analogous to human acts and spring from the same principles, we have duties towards the animals because thus we cultivate the corresponding duties towards human beings.” In short, we shouldn’t abuse animals pointlessly lest we become able to do the same to people. In the same way, if repeated exposure to gratuitous gore hampers the cultivation of our duties toward people (as would be the case upon taking up the amoral gaze), such as not to murder them, then censorship of gratuitous gore would be justified.

But, deontology can also be used to oppose the censorship of gratuitous gore. Those who take up an entitled gaze might argue that we have a duty to uphold free speech or that we even have a duty to “document” deaths, for various purposes. People might also have a duty to bear witness to the reality of death for some further end as according to the maxim “Memento mori.”

Finally, we can give consequentialist arguments for and against censorship. If, on the whole, the viewing of gratuitous gore leads to more people doing harm to each other, then it should be censored. If not, if, according to the responsive gaze, people’s viewing leads to great social change, then it absolutely should not be censored.

This argument is especially powerful in an affluent nation like the United States. If you are an American, and if you are just a little lucky, you will have to see only a few people die, you will only attend a handful of funerals, and those funerals you do attend will recognize the deaths of people who we think were more or less supposed to die, that is, the elderly. But, Americans are an exception and though we can hide from death for most of our lives, the world is not a happy place where only those who have lived long lives, or who get unlucky with serious diseases like cancer, have to die. All sorts of horrible causes of death, from childbirth, infectious disease, war, and industrial accidents, are still very common in the Global South. You can find a particularly horrifying intersection of all of these in the Democratic Republic of the Congo where resource conflict has led to widespread poverty, civil war, and unsafe mining operations. But, some combination of these horrors can be found in most areas of the world.

We are terribly desensitized to all these horrors as these deaths are reduced to mere numbers. Few Americans have seen the effects of poverty, war, and sickness in these far away places. And, as they say “out of sight, out of mind.” If only a small portion of people take up the responsive gaze and stand up against these atrocities, and actually manage to remedy some of them, that would be an enormous consequentialist benefit that outweighs all the temporary harm it does to the “well-being” of comfortably, relatively wealthy (on the world scale), American viewers.

Overall, a violent video is not moral or immoral in isolation. Rather, the viewing of violent videos may be moral or immoral depending on the context. The morality of censoring gratuitous gore and other violent content may also depend on human nature. If most people, most of the time take on an amoral gaze or vulnerable gaze when viewing violent media, then by most accounts, censorship is justified. But, if people are basically good, then they might mostly take on the responsive gaze and untold benefits would result from ending the censorship of violent content. While it very well may be that some or all violent content deserves censorship, we ought to examine our reasons for censoring it. We ought to consider whether that censorship has a true moral basis or whether viewing violence is just uncomfortable, forcing us to reflect on the horrors of the world in a way from which we are usually, blissfully, isolated.

Posted on

Banned Books: Why the Restricted Section Is Where Learning Happens

photograph of caution tape around library book shelves

The books included on high school reading lists have not been discussed nearly as widely as the books not included on those very lists. For years teachers and parents have debated which texts students should be able to read, and what parameters should be utilized to determine whether a text is appropriate for a certain age group. However, this debate has moved far beyond whether books are appropriate and has begun to explore how this form of censorship affects students. An article published in The New York Times discusses the banned books of 2016 and how their banned status reveals important facets of the current American psyche. In fact, the author states that the most prominent themes associated with the banned books of 2016 related to gender, LGBTQIA+ issues, and religious diversity, all of which were themes heavily discussed during the election year.

James LaRue, the director of the Office for International Freedom, illustrates his experience receiving reports from concerned parents who worry about the appropriateness of certain texts in their children’s school libraries. However, LaRue does not agree with this method of parenting and states, “They are completely attached to the skull of the child and it goes all the way up through high school, just trying to preserve enough innocence, even though one year later they will be old enough to marry or serve in the military.” This point is echoed by author Mario Tamaki who expresses that deeming books as inappropriate marginalizes groups of individuals and can adversely hurt students who relate to their characters. He states, “We worry about what it means to define certain content, such as LGBTQ content, as being inappropriate for young readers, which implicitly defines readers who do relate to this content, who share these experiences, as not normal, when really they are part of the diversity of young people’s lives.”

Both of these individuals relay their concern for the influence of banning books on young readers and this point is reiterated by Common Sense Media a non-profit organization which seeks to provide education to families concerning the promotion of safe media for children. Despite their specialization in appropriate media for children they encourage parents with the article, “Why Your Kid Should Read Banned Books,” which outlines how the most highly regarded pieces of literature were at some point banned in mainstream society. However, their banned status says nothing of the important messages held between those pages. They make the statement, “At Common Sense Media, we think reading banned books offers families a chance to celebrate reading and promote open access to ideas, both which are key to raising a lifelong reader.” This organization’s support for encouraging  a conversation regarding censorship and the importance of standing up for principles of freedom and choice is a critical facet of this continued debate.

On the other side of this debate are concerns of not only violence, language, and substance abuse, but questions about how explicit stories of suicide and self harm may influence young readers who are depressed or suicidal themselves. This concern was heightened due to literature such as the popular young adult book Thirteen Reasons Why, which revolves around a teenage girl’s suicide. Author Jay Asher has been outspoken regarding why censorship of his book specifically is harmful to teenagers. In an interview he describes knowing that his book would be controversial: “I knew it was going to be pulled from libraries and contested at schools. But the thing about my book is that a lot of people stumble upon it, but when it’s not on shelves, people can’t do that. Libraries, to me, are safe spaces, and if young readers can’t explore the themes in my book there, where can they?” Asher acknowledges that it is nearly impossible to create a book which will be appropriate for all readers. He outlines his experience talking to a student who was overwhelmed by the contents of the story. The student decided to refrain from finishing the remainder of the book until she felt completely comfortable, effectively self-censoring.

These attitudes towards censorship reveal troubling social implications when considering which books are chosen for exemption from libraries, as an article published in The Atlantic describes. There is a clear separation themes of violence and fantasy in comparison to the highly-censored themes referencing race or sexuality, which reveals a larger issue of the struggles of minority authors getting children’s books published. According to The Atlantic, “this means the industry serves those who benefit from the status quo, which is why most scholars see children’s literature as a conservative force in American society.” The author reinforces the ideas discussed by adults concerned about the limited access to a broad range of ideas in children’s literature, and concludes by stating,“This shared sensibility is grounded in respect for young readers, which doesn’t mean providing them with unfettered access to everything on the library shelves. Instead it means that librarians, teachers, and parents curate children’s choices with the goals of inspiring rather than obscuring new ideas.”

Posted on

The Moral Messages of Violence in Media

This article has a set of discussion questions tailored for classroom use. Click here to download them. To see a full list of articles with discussion questions and other resources, visit our “Educational Resources” page.

Season two of the The Handmaid’s Tale returns with darker themes and more overt torture and sexual violence directed at the majority female cast. The dystopian drama depicts the practical consequences of misogynistic theocracy that takes power in the face of environmental collapse and widespread infertility, set in an eerily similar near-future America.

The violence in The Handmaid’s Tale is often compared to another hulking series, Game of Thrones. Both use liberal amounts of violence against women to keep their plot moving, but to different effect:

“The Handmaid’s Tale isn’t glamorizing atrocities against women, exactly, or sanitizing them in the way that Game of Thrones or other prestige dramas might sanitize rape. The brutality is the point—the show wants us to experience the logical extension of institutionalized misogyny and theocratic governance.”

Indeed:

“In shows like True Detective and Game of Thrones, the focus on female debasement is often criticized precisely because female suffering is positioned as entertainment. What happens on The Handmaid’s Tale is different, as violence against women plays out as a kind of morality tale.”

Visceral scenes in books, TV, and movies are a way of conveying the lived experiences and realities that audiences might struggle to relate to. In speculative fiction like The Handmaid’s Tale, showing in detail what would result from misogynist value systems and authoritarian, theocratic regimes can bring home how horrible the lives of the oppressed would be.

Art helps us to relate to experiences and realities that are different from our own, and can have a positive moral impact for this reason. People that read more novels have been shown to have greater emotional intelligence. However, when the perspectives and experiences are particularly graphic and violent, or run the risk of normalizing or sanitizing the persecution or rate of violence against an oppressed group, this raises questions about the ethics of continuing to portray the experiences of violence in detail.

Should we need to experience the pain of others to have their suffering be morally salient to us?

Legislators who become more feminist when they have daughters occupy an interesting dialectical space. While it is a positive step — of course, it is good to adopt policies that recognize the fundamental equality of people — the fact that they had to care for a daughter in order to tap into the moral reality is more than a bit distressing.

A further complication is the notion that there may just be an epistemically unbridgeable gap between communities that rely on one another for support regarding their experiences. It may just not always be possible to fully grasp another person’s everyday reality. It would be a great misfortune to discover immovable obstacles might bar someone from fully sympathizing with another person and experiencing the appropriate moral emotions regarding their plight.

Moral emotions such as sympathy, indignation, care, and regret play different roles of significance depending on the ethical theory you favor. Consequentialist views such as utilitarianism focus not so much on the emotional or motivational landscape that leads to action, but rather the result of our behaviors. If you make people have a better life out of indifference or kindness, it amounts to the same thing from an ethical perspective for utilitarians. Other views on morality heavily favor the emotions; care ethics and feminist views focus on our relationships to one another and tending to our roles appropriately. A behavior done out of sympathy would have a different moral assessment than the same behavior done out of indifference.

Given these considerations, we could reflect on art that attempts to bring pain and suffering into view in different ways. If the value in question is one of developing the appropriate moral response to suffering, we may ask: is this really necessary? (Isn’t this a case where we should really be able to get to the moral emotions on our own, as in the case of the legislators realizing women are people only when they’ve faced a daughter of their own?) Or, are there countervailing concerns, such as those raised in the discourse around the sexual violence in Game of Thrones? (Is this violence normalizing an already troubling reality?)

There are rich and nuanced questions regarding the consumption of art that includes graphic and detailed violence against marginalized groups. It puts pressure on how we conceive of our moral burdens in relating to one another, and how we experience the messages media sends us.

Posted on

Does the Right to Self-Defense Give Us a Right to Guns?

Image of a person putting a handgun into a gun safe.

The survivors of the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School shooting have made themselves heard since February 14, most recently at the March For Our Lives rally in Washington DC. Almost all of these teenagers fervently support gun control, but a few of them see things differently. In an interview on The Daily Show a few days before the rally, Stoneman student Josh Belenke spoke up for gun owners. His view is that there’s a “God-given right to self-defense” that shouldn’t be taken away.

Nobody’s really talking about taking guns away entirely, but what about it? Must we make guns available because people have a right to self-defense? How strong is the self-defense defense of gun rights?

Continue reading “Does the Right to Self-Defense Give Us a Right to Guns?”

Posted on

Opinion: Rethinking Our Massacre Problem

An image taken from a Parkland shooting vigil

Another day, another massacre. By now, the sequence of events is all too familiar. First, the initial reports of a mass shooting in some locale where people are accustomed to feeling safe. A high school (the latest one in Parkland, Florida), a church, an outdoor concert, a movie theater, a dance club, an elementary school, a mall, a Christmas party. Then the horror stories—eyewitness reports, audio and video from phones. Then the number of victims. A brief information blackout, and then the facts about the man (always a man) who rained terror and ended lives with an arsenal of guns.

Continue reading “Opinion: Rethinking Our Massacre Problem”

Posted on

Are Chance the Rapper and Vic Mensa What Chicago Needs?

The city of Chicago is one of the most beautiful cities in the country. With its iconic skyline and bustling downtown area, Chicago’s allure is only rivaled by a small number of other cities. Even though the city boasts magnificent landscapes and atmosphere, the city is plagued by violence. According to the Chicago Tribune, in 2016, Chicago had 745 homicides and over 4,000 shooting victims. Per The New York Times, the majority of the shootings were gang-related. In 2017, the homicide number dropped to 644 homicides. Although that is somewhat of an improvement, the number of homicides is too high.

Continue reading “Are Chance the Rapper and Vic Mensa What Chicago Needs?”

Posted on

Seeking Responsibility in the Deaths over Designer Sneakers

A large collection of Air Jordans sneakers in glass boxes.

It seemed as though everybody wanted to “be like Mike.” Children and adults alike aspired to leap from the free throw and dunk with their tongue hanging out or win six NBA Championship titles. But for those who weren’t 6’6” and drafted by the Chicago Bulls, like most people, they had to buy Michael Jordan’s shoes if they wanted to be like him. With the rise of sneaker culture came a violent side-effect: the fact that people are willing to harm and even kill others for a pair of coveted Jordan sneakers.

Continue reading “Seeking Responsibility in the Deaths over Designer Sneakers”

Posted on

Scotland May Ban Spanking. Should the United States?

A stereograph of a woman spanking her child.

An October 19, 2017 article in The Scotsman reported that the Scottish Government plans to implement proposals that would “remove the defence of “justifiable assault” from Scottish law, which can currently be used by parents who use corporal punishment on their children. Late last year, France also instituted a law banning the spanking of children. This made it the 52nd country to do so.

The United States is not on that list of countries. According to an NBC News report from 2014, corporal punishment is legal in all 50 US states. State statutes generally indicate that the physical punishment must be “reasonable” or “not excessive.” In addition, 19 states still allow corporal punishment in schools, as of 2014. Public opinion in the United States also widely supports spanking. The NBC News report cited a 2013 Harris Poll which found that 81 percent of Americans say “parents spanking their children is sometimes appropriate.”

Continue reading “Scotland May Ban Spanking. Should the United States?”

Posted on

The Social Norms Behind Fighting in Hockey

Two hockey players fighting on the ice rink.

Hockey season has started, and with it the annual debate about the role of fighting. Watching sports is a vicarious and visceral experience, and many fans love the fights and the fighters. Players with marginal skills but big fists are folk heroes. Some fans worry that fighting detracts from the skill and grace of the sport, and drives away new or casual fans. Almost everyone is concerned about player safety.

Continue reading “The Social Norms Behind Fighting in Hockey”

Posted on

Please Don’t Punch the Nazis

Neo-Nazis at the Charlottesville rally

I’m not sure what to call the August 11 fascist cosplay in Charlotte VA. Ridicule and mockery seem out of place when discussing an event where organizers called for, and followed through with, the execution of other human beings. Whatever that display of vileness is called, the leaders are afraid to show their faces in public.  Richard Spencer, the punched-face of Neo-Nazism is reportedly afraid to leave his home for fear of, well, being punched. He whinges, “I have never felt like the government or police were against me. There has never been a situation in my life when I’ve felt this way.” He has not found common ground with Black Lives Matter, The Anti-Defamation League or any other group he wants to eradicate from the earth.  He feels oppressed because the police are not sufficiently protecting and assisting his efforts to foment genocide.

Continue reading “Please Don’t Punch the Nazis”

Posted on

The Berkeley Protests, Shock Jocks and Free Speech

On the evening of February 1st, 2017, protestors burst through lines of zip-tied metal fencing to flood a building at the University of California, Berkley.   Some protesters wore masks, and others threw red paint on members of the College Republicans.  Windows were smashed and fires were started.  This chaos was caused by disapproval on the part of many Berkeley students to the invited speaking engagement of Milo Yiannopoulos, a controversial conservative commentator and technology editor for Breitbart.

Continue reading “The Berkeley Protests, Shock Jocks and Free Speech”

Posted on

The Ethics of Taking to the Streets and Punching Nazis

The days since the inauguration of President Trump have been filled with demonstrations and protest. The inauguration itself was viewed significantly less than those prior, and what may have been the largest protest in our history followed the next day. It is noteworthy that while over three million people gathered in the Women’s March nationally, it was “peaceful,” with no arrests at the main locus of the protests in Washington, D.C., or at the sister marches in Los Angeles and New York City.

Continue reading “The Ethics of Taking to the Streets and Punching Nazis”

Posted on

Has Your Newsfeed Hurt Your Mental Health?

Within the past few years, it has become even easier to put up videos on social media instantaneously. So many of those that go viral depict something violent, such as the many horrible instances of police brutality that have made the news this year alone. Though often shocking, disturbing, and tragic, these videos do serve as evidence in cases of violence, and sharing them on Facebook can help spread awareness against the crimes committed in them.

Continue reading “Has Your Newsfeed Hurt Your Mental Health?”

Posted on

Negotiating with Terrorists in Colombia

The thought of allowing a terrorist group who has committed human rights violations such as the murder, kidnappings and displacement of thousands to create their own political party, let alone be integrated into society, is terrifying. Immediately you get a bad taste in your mouth. But if it means ending a 50-year-old conflict, is it worth the risk?  After several failed negotiations throughout the years, the Colombian government is closer than ever to ending its ongoing civil conflict with its two top guerrilla organizations, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN).  The negotiations include land reform, the elimination of the drug trade, amnesty for combatants, and political participation through new political parties.

Continue reading “Negotiating with Terrorists in Colombia”

Posted on

Riots at the Rally

An election season that was already dramatic enough has recently become even more interesting with the rash of violence that has been breaking out at rallies for colorful Republican frontrunner Donald Trump. There has been much debate about whether Trump is to blame for these riots. Here is a brief recap of the recent violence that has occurred on the Trump campaign trail:

Continue reading “Riots at the Rally”