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Permalink Reply by Barry Clemson on February 28, 2011 at 9:53am

Of course violence leads to violence.

 

On the interpersonal level (as Gandhi pointed out), there are three possible responses to violence: submission, violence or nonviolence. At least in north American society, nonviolence is the least likely response to violence and violence is the most likely response. The vicious cycle dynamic of a feud is well known to most of us: i.e., a little violence evokes violence in return which invokes more violence and the violence just keeps escalating until both sides are mostly dead. Our media/entertainment industry (and even many churches) glorify this dynamic as the proper and many way to respond to violence. The theologian Walter Wink calls this mindset the Myth of Redemptive Violence.

 

On the larger level (e.g., nations or unions vs corporations), history is very clear; when one side uses violence, the other side almost always responds with violence. This general rule has been increasingly challenged within the last fifty years, i.e., there have been many examples of grass-roots movements using nonviolence against violent and corrupt governments, often successfully.

 

Thus we have the "law" or principle that:

 

"violence begets violence and nonviolence begets nonviolence"

Permalink Reply by Tamera Drozd on March 4, 2011 at 5:03pm

Yes violence leads to violence ... does ambivalence lead to ambivalence? When we repeatedly hear of violence on the news we become 'desensitized' by it and ambivalent towards a solution UNLESS something is different about the violence.