The mutual initiation of violence
The Principle of Human Respect states that violence always reduces happiness, harmony, and prosperity. Always.
But there is always a danger in making absolute claims.
No matter how hard we try to wrangle Reality, once we put it into words, locking it into a snapshot, there are going to be exceptions. That isn’t because the idea is bad, it’s because words are insufficient. In other words, the Principle can be wholly correct and also incomplete.
I’ve previously described the Principle of Human Respect as a puzzle piece, or a tool that works well as a general rule and is best paired with other peaceful ideas that work in your unique circumstance.
The clear exception to the Principle of human respect, as stated above, is the mutual initiation of violence between consenting people. Not only can that circumstance mean the moral initiation of violence it can also yield positive value for the participants. This is one of the reasons that I place consent upstream of this principle.
There have been many instances in my life where mutually agreed-upon violence has increased my happiness and the happiness of others. A dear friend from college and I, for example, spent many hours on a practice field at Lafayette College, wearing boxing gloves and mouthguards engaging in unsanctioned boxing matches. It was a great workout, a much-needed outlet, good old-fashioned fun, and undoubtedly a violent exercise as evidenced by my multiple nose surgeries (the boxing was only partially to blame).
The same consensual initiation of violence occurs in many sports. I mentioned Football in my conversation with Rusty Shackelford, for example, and so suggest a possible exception to the principle of human respect in the arena of play.
It is also true that there may be a diminishing of wealth in play. A workable definition of play is subject to each person’s unique life experience and circumstances. We couldn’t codify it without limiting happiness, harmony, and prosperity.
In truth, play comes in as many diverse forms as there are people.
This case of play and necessary acknowledgment that the initiation of violence can lead to greater happiness for observers and participants pokes a hole in the principal that requires a patch.
I would like to suggest a modification, then, to the Principle of Human Respect which would read that any “nonconsensual initiation of violence or diminishing of wealth, reduces, happiness, harmony, and prosperity.”
This also offers a fix to another problem of the principal as a tool to administer justice: It is much less complicated to determine the consent of involved individuals than it is to determine whether or not violence or diminishing of wealth has occurred, and that is less complicated than determining whether or not there has been a diminishing of happiness, harmony, and prosperity. We can continue to forge upstream toward truth, by forgetting the words and keeping the idea.
In administering justice, then, the necessary task prior to accountability is to determine whether or not consent was present when a dispute arises.
This is, of course, all playing with words – but that’s part of the point. We move closer to Value when we can clear language out of the way.
