Posted by Scott on September 4th, 2009 — Posted in Violence Prevention
I created this blog to inspire us all to exercise compassion in an effort to reduce and hopefully eliminate offensive violence and protect ourselves and others. We want to stop offensive violence such as murder, rape, assault, battery and kidnapping. I have pointed out before that the desire for revenge causes many of those acts of violence. People literally beat and sometimes murder each other as revenge; not in defense but rather for revenge.
I think if we can remember to forgive it can help us avoid revengeful violence. For instance, if we forgive the violent criminal we can determine the most effective and efficient way to deal with him to protect the rest of us without having our judgment clouded and our decisions perverted by a dangerous, destructive desire for revenge. We can forgive a murderer, and still incarcerate the murderer out of compassion rather than revenge. If we forgive and refuse to seek revenge, our desire to protect people and prevent violence will not have to compete with a desire for revenge.
So in this post I have decided to provide a handful of quotes that I like about forgiveness:
“Many people are afraid to forgive because they feel they must remember the wrong or they will not learn from it. The opposite is true. Through forgiveness, the wrong is released from its emotional stranglehold on us so that we can learn from it. Through the power and intelligence of the heart, the release of forgiveness brings expanded intelligence to work with the situation more effectively.”
~ David McArthur & Bruce McArthur
“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.”
~ Lewis B. Smedes
“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.”
~ Thomas S. Szasz
“We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us.”
~ Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“”Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.”
~ Jesus
“Never does the human soul appear so strong as when it foregoes revenge, and dares to forgive an injury.”
~ Edwin Hubbell Chapin
“A more glorious victory cannot be gained over another man than this, that when the injury began on his part, the kindness should begin on ours.”
~ Tillotson
“Take forgiveness. Two levels here. One level: forgiveness means you shouldn’t develop feelings of revenge. Because revenge harms the other person, therefore it is a form of violence. With violence, there is usually counterviolence. This generates even more violence—the problem never goes away. So that is one level. Another level: forgiveness means you should try not to develop feelings of anger toward your enemy. Anger doesn’t solve the problem. Anger only brings uncomfortable feelings to yourself. Anger destroys your own peace of mind. Your happy mood never comes, not while anger remains. I think that’s the main reason why we should forgive. With calm mind, more peaceful mind, more healthy body. An agitated mind spoils our health, very harmful for body. This is my feeling.”
~ The Dalai Lama
“Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much.”
~ Oscar Wilde
“We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon each other our follies.”
~ Voltaire
“Anger makes you smaller, while forgiveness forces you to grow beyond what you were.”
~ Cherie Carter-Scott
“Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?”
~ Abraham Lincoln
“To err is human; to forgive, divine.”
~ Alexander Pope
“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.”
~ Buddha
“Forgiveness is choosing to love. It is the first skill of self-giving love.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
What do you think? Please also post any other quotes about forgiveness that you like!
4 Comments »
Posted by Scott on April 25th, 2008 — Posted in Violence Prevention
I think a lot of violent conflicts happen as a result of pseudo-toughness. That is especially the case in regards to fights between young people and poor or blue-collar people. People trying to be tough will start and get into fights and violent conflicts. For example, I assume most bar brawls and schoolyard fights happen because the people involved want to be or seem tough. In their desperate attempt at toughness, they attack others when they would be better off minding their own business, and they fight when it would be wiser to walk away. To explore the issue more fully, I have written and posted an article about destructive pseudo-toughness at my philosophy forums. Check it out: Causes of Self-Destructive Attempts at Toughness
Of course, not all violence and victimization is caused by people try to be tough. I think the other main cause is the desire for financial profit. For example, I assume the desire for profit is the foremost motivation of robbery and corporate crime.
What do you think?
7 Comments »
Posted by Scott on April 22nd, 2008 — Posted in Violence Prevention
Today, I want to mention what I see as the most important elements of violent crime reduction.
Education - I have said before that I believe that most of the young, violent gangbangers on the streets would choose to give that life up to become an educated professional, such as a medical doctor, if they saw it as viable. I believe lack of education leads to habitual antisocial behavior including violent crime. In contrast, education gives people self-esteem and hopefulness. Education gives people skills, credentials, and good jobs, which means they have something to lose by engaging in violent crime.
Poverty Alleviation - Children raised in poverty have a notoriously higher tendency to engage in violent crime and other antisocial behavior. Poor people tend to commit violent crime more than more affluent people, and poorer neighborhoods tend to have higher crime rates. Reducing poverty will reduce violent crime. Additionally, to be non-poor, I believe a person needs complete healthcare coverage, which means that the person has access to any needed psychological or psychiatric care. By eliminating poverty and ensuring people have access to healthcare, people would get help for psychological problems when those problems may otherwise cause the person to commit violent crime.
Legalizing Victimless Crimes - Society wastes a lot of resources on non-violent, victimless crimes. Those resources could otherwise go towards preventing and stopping violent crime and victimization. For example, all the massive amounts of money and prison space put towards enforcing the prohibition on marijuana could instead be put towards preventing and stopping violent crimes such as murder, rape, robbery and battery.
What do you think? What else do you see as essential to violent crime reduction?
14 Comments »
Posted by Scott on April 2nd, 2008 — Posted in Violence Prevention
When children grow up in poor and violent neighborhoods, it greatly increases the odds that they will turn commit violent crime in their life. For one, these places have bad role models and other damaging influences. Also, living around crime and poverty encourages kids to join violent gangs. Worse yet, cities and poor neighborhoods tend to have the worst schools. All of those factors help create a cycle of violence.
On a societal level, I think we can greatly prevent violence by getting kids out of bad neighborhoods and out of the inner-cities. Let’s get the kids away from crime and poverty, and let’s put the kids into good schools. That way, they will learn less destructive habits and will get a good education from a respected school, which will set them up to become law-abiding professionals as opposed to poor, uneducated thugs.
How do we get children out of the inner-cities and out of bad neighborhoods? We can do it by putting children into high-quality boarding schools in better areas, which we can do with student loans and grants. Alternatively, we can get entire families out of poor or violent neighborhoods, which we can do by building affordable homes in affluent neighborhoods with low crime. The first option works best with kids whose parent(s) will not take care of them properly. The second option works well with parent(s) who will take care of their kids as best they can but just need a little assistance to get themselves and their children out of the bad neighborhoods. The second option may also require that we find well-paying jobs for the parents, which itself may require that the parents get more education first. Additionally, the parents may need loans to pay the upfront costs of getting out of bad neighborhoods.
Whatever we do, we must stop the cycle of violence to prevent violence and put an end to violent crime.
What do you think?
1 Comment »
Posted by Scott on March 31st, 2008 — Posted in Violence Prevention
On this blog, I have posted a lot about vengeance lately. Namely, I have wanted to find ways to discourage people from engaging in vengeance. Today, I remembered a great movie that explores the destructiveness of vengeance: Changing Lanes
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Changing Lanes stars Ben Affleck and Samuel L. Jackson. After getting in an accident on the highway, the two characters enter into a vengefully destructive spiral of revenge after revenge, fueled by the personal problems, anger and frustration the men feel from living in a stressful, competitive world.
I would not call it the best movie ever, but I like it a lot. Thinking back on it now in regards to the commonness and destructiveness of vengeance, I think the movie portrays its theme excellently. I highly recommend you watch it if you have not already.
To prevent violence and stop violent crime, I believe we need to dissuade people from vengeance because I believe most acts of offensive violence stem from anger and vengefulness. We all often become blinded by strong emotions such as anger, but we have to try to control them instead of letting them lead us to destructiveness. Thinking back, I realize the incredible value of the compelling lesson in Changing Lanes about the destructiveness of vengeance.
Do you know any other good movies, books, shows or stories that address the self-destructive nature of vengefulness?
1 Comment »
Posted by Scott on March 25th, 2008 — Posted in Violence Prevention
When I went to grade school, I do not remember the school offering any type of violence prevention class. I also have not heard of grade schools offering those classes on a regular basis for the general student population.
I would like to see more schools offer violence prevention classes, and I would like to see the parents and the schools encourage students to take the violence prevention classes.
With kids who have committed acts of violence, I would suggest considering forcing them into the violence prevention classes as opposed to jail or fines. Violence prevention classes would hopefully help rehabilitate those violent kids so that they do not end up hurting other people and do not end up getting themselves sent to prison later in life.
For the other kids, I personally would not want them forced into violence prevention classes–or forced into any classes for that matter–because I do not want to forcibly indoctrinate kids regardless of the supposed social benefits. But I would still support persuasively encouraging the students to sign up for violence prevention classes. If the classes are run well, then the kids would want to take them. So the goal would be to make the violence prevention classes interesting and helpful to the kids so much so that the kids choose to take the classes and learn from them.
I do not have any particular type of violence prevention in mind. I would like to see a broad range of violence prevention topics offered to students. For example, the classes could address how to resolve conflicts without violence, how to avoid conflicts in the first place, and how to avoid dangerous situations. For another example, the classes could have the students research the harmful effects of violence and research different social movements for peace throughout history.
What do you think? Do you know if many schools offer classes like that? Would you like the schools to offer classes like that? Do you think the students would want to take them?
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Posted by Scott on March 23rd, 2008 — Posted in Violence Prevention
I apologize if any of you do not like that I have posted so much about vengeance over the last week. This topic has taken hold of my thoughts lately. I now realize that we cannot stop people from violently attacking each other unless we eliminate the social acceptance of vengeful violence, by which I mean people causing harm to others purely as revenge or moral punishment and not as a form of defense (e.g. stopping and incarcerating a rapist to protect others in society) or rectification (e.g. making a vandal pay for the costs to repair a window that he broke).
I have discussed vengeance to try to find effective ways to dissuade people from indulging in vengeance. Mainly, I want to know why so many people feel so open to indulging in vengeance, and I want to know how to best dissuade people from it. I now think that many people who commit vengeful acts of violence do it because they feel it makes them stronger and more potent.
Some people defend vengeful violence and many other forms of interpersonal victimization because they mistakenly conflate compassion and weakness. I believe that is why some people defend anger, discompassion, and hatred and the violent attacks caused by those emotions and mind-states.
Nonetheless, I generally see compassion as a sign of strength. Generally, I think anger, discompassion and hatred are symptoms of weakness. I created a thread in the philosophy forums to discuss it: Are anger, discompassion and hatred symptoms of weakness?
Feel free to discuss the topic here or there. Please do post your thoughts.
Perhaps we can convince people to choose compassion over vengeance by teaching them that vengeance is the resort of the weak and that compassion is the more powerful tool of the strong. What do you think?
Also, if you haven’t already, check out the other recent posts about vengeance:
Wise Quotes about Vengeance and Revenge
Vengeance, Payback, Revenge
How do you feel about vengeance?
3 Comments »
Posted by Scott on March 22nd, 2008 — Posted in Violence Prevention
A few days ago, I made a post asking readers to suggest ways to dissuade people from their indulging their desire for vengeance. Today I want to post some of the wisest quotes I have come across about vengeance and revenge:
“Revenge has no more quenching effect on emotions than salt water has on thirst.”
~ Walter Weckler
“Revenge is often like biting a dog because the dog bit you.”
~ Austin O’Malley
“Those who plot the destruction of others often perish in the attempt.”
~Thomas Moore
“Vengeance taken will often tear the heart and torment the conscience.”
~ Arthur Schopenhauer
“He who seeks vengeance must dig two graves: one for his enemy and one for himself.”
~ Chinese Proverb
“It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell.”
~ William Tecumseh Sherman
“Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies - or else? The chain reaction of evil - hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars - must be broken, or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.”
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.”
~ Jesus of Nazareth
“Holding onto anger is like grasping onto a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else. You are the one who gets burned.”
~ Gotama Buddha
“You cannot get ahead while you are getting even.”
~ Dick Armey
“In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior.”
~ Francis Bacon
It is “more noble to forgive, and more manly to despise, than to revenge an Injury.”
~ Benjamin Franklin
“Revenge is always the weak pleasure of a little and narrow mind.”
~ Juvenal (Decimus Junius Juvenal)
“Little, vicious minds abound with anger and revenge, and are incapable of feeling the pleasure of forgiving their enemies.”
~ Earl of Chesterfield
“Hatred is the coward’s revenge for being intimidated.”
~ George Bernard Shaw
“An eye for an eye would make the whole world blind.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“Revenge is a confession of pain.”
~ Latin Proverb
“There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness.”
~ Josh Billings
“Nothing is more costly, nothing is more sterile, than vengeance.”
~ Winston Churchill
“Something of vengeance I had tasted for the first time; as aromatic wine it seemed, on swallowing, warm and racy: its after-flavor, metallic and corroding, gave me a sensation as if I had been poisoned.”
~ Charlotte Bronte
If you have other similar quotes about vengeance and revenge, please post them! If I made a mistake attributing any of these quotes, please correct me.
What quote in this post is your favorite? Which one do you think is most convincing at dissuading people from indulging in revenge?
2 Comments »
Posted by Scott on March 19th, 2008 — Posted in Violence Prevention
I have made quite a few blogs about my support for abolishing prisons and of reforming violent offenders in more compassionate environments. I have explained both the fiscal benefits and the social benefits, namely that preventing crime and rehabilitating offenders helps protect potential victims.
However, after having discussed prison reform with people, and after receiving people’s replies to my post about executing child rapists, I realize the real issue to many people.
They seek vengeance.
Such people support the harshness of prison and the murderousness of execution not because they want to protect other people but because they want vengeance. They support vengeance in and of itself.
Regardless of whether vengeance will protect people or prevent violence, they want vengeance.
I can understand the feelings of anger and hate that can make a person want to get vengeance. We can also call it payback or revenge, but whatever we call it I understand the feeling. However, I have previously taken it for granted that other people realize the dangerousness of letting themselves act on the petty desire for vengeance. When emotions like anger overtake us, we often make stupid and even regrettable decisions because we lose control so to speak. But we generally know that. At the time, emotions can cloud our less-primitive judgment, but otherwise we know of the foolishness of acting out of those petty emotions. But some people do not seem to realize that point in regards to vengeance. Why? Why do so many people support vengeance–not only in times of severe anger but also in more typical states?
Why do these people think they have some “moral right” to vengeance? What does it even mean to have such a moral right?
Why does vengeance trump compassion for so many people? I am not a religious man, but I have accepted many of the secular teachings of Jesus, such as when he said love your neighbor and when he said let he who has not sinned cast the first stone. Whether because of Jesus or not, I figured most people supported those ideas.
By all means, I support protecting innocent people. I support the defensive use of violence and force, including forcing people to repay others to whom they have caused damages. But why do so many people support causing harm to people simply for the sake of vengeance? Why do they want to cause vengeful harm to people not to protect others but just to get payback or revenge?
More importantly, how can those of us who do not support vengeance convince those that do to stop? Like I said, I took it for granted that people had accepted compassion and rejected vengeance.
I do not know how to respond to people who believe they have some so-called “moral right” to vengeance. I do not know how to dissuade people from the “eye for an eye” code of conduct. I do not know how to convince people not to slap the man who has slapped them. I do not know how to convince people not to murder the man who has murdered one of their family members.
So I ask you in all seriousness: How do you dissuade people from vengeance? What do you see as the flaws in the philosophy of an eye for an eye? How can we convince people not to make policy choices based on vengeance? Do you have any statistics or research that shows the self-harmfulness of vengeance? If so, please post them! Do you have any quotes or advice from the world’s wisest teachers such as the ones I mentioned by Jesus? If so, please post them!
Even if you do not fully oppose vengeance, please post comments about what you see as the best arguments against vengeance. This blog will not succeed at preventing violence unless I can figure out how to prevent vengeful violence. In fact, I would venture to say that most people who commit offensive violence commit it out of a desire for vengeance. What do you think?
2 Comments »
Posted by Scott on January 25th, 2008 — Posted in Violence Prevention
I just read an inspiring news story about high-school students who pledged to prevent violence. Some members of the student government at Hoover High School in Glendale made two large posters supporting peace and violence prevention. Other students wrote messages and pledges of peace and nonviolence on the posters.
In these times with a younger generation that sometimes seems socio-politically apathetic, a story like this encourages me. Many students who may have never given much thought to the idea of nonviolence may now have violence prevention on their minds. That can lead to an actual reduction in violence.
What do you think?
1 Comment »
