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This assumes it was the bomb-planting that led to concessions for the suffragists. Violence usually prompts a violent counter-response, or at least for the "adversary" to become more entrenched. Consensus is the answer, which is why the politics of accusation and anger creates a negative cycle perpetuating violence.

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This assumes it was the bomb-planting that led to concessions for the suffragists.

No, it doesn't.

It (correctly) notes that the bomb-planting didn't doom the movement. What it doesn't do is give credit to the bombings for advancing the movement (rayiner's short comment is mute on that aspect).

"if the suffragettes got justice without firing a shot, why can’t everyone else?"

We should indeed seek to get justice without firing a shot. I take exception to the implication that we should condone violence because there's supposedly no such thing as a bloodless revolution.

I'm not sure what your point is with the quote. That part of the comment is about how it can be problematic to misremember history.

And I don't think it is condoning violence to be unsurprised if some people involved in some movement resort to violence.

My point is if you want to defend blacklivesmatter, do so on the basis that they reject violence, not because some historical movement was also associated with violence.

But rayiner isn't making a defense of blacklivesmatter there, he is making a comparison to a present day movement that is largely nonviolent but has had some violence associated with it.

The argument isn't that other movements were violent so violence is fine, it is that falsely painting historical movements as pure creates the problem where the actions of an extreme few can be used to dismiss the work of the many.

Also, those "extreme few" could be undercover for a different party with a different agenda (e.g. secret police but not exclusive to that). Wouldn't be the first time.

If anyone wants to dismiss a movement because a few of its adherents are violent, that's obviously unjustified, because no one can control who agrees with them. Just like we can't condemn the entire anti-abortion movement because a few people bomb clinics. I think the more interesting and larger point is to reject violent tactics.

> If anyone wants to dismiss a movement because a few of its adherents are violent, that's obviously unjustified

Nevertheless, that's what the comment referred to. For you it's an obvious non-issue, but not objectively so, and they were referring to that issue.

If you find something else more interesting, make that point without twisting what someone else said. Otherwise that whole stuff about rejecting violence sounds kind of hollow.

> If anyone wants to dismiss a movement because a few of its adherents are violent, that's obviously unjustified, because no one can control who agrees with them.

Exactly. That was rayiner's point from the beginning, so I'm not sure what you were disagreeing with there.

I (perhaps mis-)read the subtext as being that violence is a historical, hence tolerable and perhaps even inextricable, part of reform movements. The literal point seemed obvious, so it didn't occur to me as a possible topic of discussion. In retrospect it's not obvious, as leaders of movements are regularly blamed for the shortcomings of a few followers.

Provoking a violent response by the system isn’t necessarily something to be avoided. Even people engage in non-violence often provoke violent responses.

Violent action makes people engaged in non-violent action seem reasonable when before they may have seemed extremist. MLK became someone the middle could deal with because they saw that the alternative would have been a violent insurrection. Same with ghandi.

I see, so this is the "trolling" theory of social justice. Are you saying Malcolm X and BLM act to bait the system into discrediting itself through violence? One would think if the system were violent enough, it could be be baited into overt violence through nonviolent means alone.

MLK chose places to protest where he knew the sheriff was likely to react with violence!

Exactly. So employing violent tactics should not be necessary.

So basically your takeaway from the fact that most of these successful social movements had a violent component to them is that social movements shouldn't be violent?

Most successful enterprises of any nature had elements of violence - "every fortune is built on a crime". I'm not questioning their success, just asking if we can do better.

It actually depends on whether the populace at large or the government in power are willing to maintain power through force.

If you’re dealing with a democracy and a populace like the US or the UK, there happens to be a limit of how much brutality they’re willing to stomach in defense of the system. In a lot of cases it’s much more than we’d like to admit.

If you’re dealing with an authoritarian government or a theocracy, that limit is much higher or non-existent.

What I am betting on is precisely that reluctance of the populace to stomach brutality. Whatever political victories are achieved through escalating violence are ultimately empty until a fundamental rejection of brutality is achieved.

It's actually John Boyd's theory of moral conflict as the most determinative level of warfare. Nonviolent tactitions very often organize to bait an oppressive system into violent over-reaction.

I'm aware of this, and it goes back even further to the New Testament. I'm questioning the part about employing violent tactics Alameda Malcolm X.

I'm not, because it is effective. Passive resistance is only effective to the degree that more powerful actors are conscientious.

Violence can certainly bring about short term gains for the perpetrators. I'm personally interested in changing the cycle of violence itself, more than replacing one violent actor by another.

Is there a specific area of interest here? Are you working on anything in particular?

I do have specifically marginalized groups of people who I try to help. But my most important project is being a decent human to those around me every day. It's not as easy as it sounds. It's second nature for all of us to pass on our past trauma and frustrations. In some ways it's easier to make a heroic and noble effort for some great cause than to put in the sustained effort every day to help the people around us. That's what I'm trying to do, certainly failing much of the time but trying to get back on my horse each time.

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