I was walking outside with my gf on a pedestrian crossing when a guy on a scooter didn’t feel like breaking and almost hit us when crossing the street. I’m a calm person but at the same time I can feel intense rage with stuff like this and my first thought is to kick the guy off his scooter and beat him to a pulp. This, of course, never happens and I can remain calm. I did a civil fuck you symbol to the guy to get my point across.
I was discussing my rage feelings with my girlfriend and we got into a rather heavy discussion about violence. So, I get called gay a lot because of the way I dress and act sometimes. Especially in my smaller hometown. I said to my gf that I could reach a point where I just beat the next guy calling me gay for being a homophobic shit. She could not agree with me on this and she got mad about it, and we had a debate on using violence (with gay people, minorities and Palestina vs Israel as examples being used). She could follow me on supporting armed resistance in Palestina but she could not accept gay people snapping and beating a homophobic guy, which I can totally understand. Eventually we agreed to disagree, sort of, and we let the topic rest.
Which made me wonder how you guys think about this. Is using violence against injustice acceptable? Is there a certain line for when you can use violence and when not? We socialists fight against injustice, and violence may be a part of that fight somewhere along the line. How should we view the use of violence?
Anger is you reacting to something inside of you. If somebody calls you gay just say that you’re not. If somebody drives past you on a scooter disrespectfully just understand that that’s a thing that happened. Your reaction is a reaction towards yourself. The problem with violence is that people answer violence with violence. The guy on the scooter might return the favor in a manner you wouldn’t appreciate. If people are calling you gay you might not look like the guy who’s about to beat somebody to a pulp. Maybe your like of the ability to assert yourself in a healthy manner is whats making you so angry.
This post isn’t about violence. It’s about your unresolved anger.
That might be a good point, thanks. Although I don’t think I have any anger issues or internal struggles. There’s just a second of rage but I never act on it. It’s just the one second followed by rational thoughts. The only time I have these thoughts is when I get confronted with people being assholes really. Being homophobic, being a dick in traffic, racism, being inconsiderate, littering etc. But then I would also talk to these people first, I’m in no way a violent person.