While I was studying abroad in Ireland, I took a class called “Political Violence.” We covered theories about whether there is a way to stop political violence once it occurs. The final section of the course covered political violence in democracies. Every case study was of the United States. For my final paper in that class, I argued that, under specific conditions, political violence can help extend rights and liberties to marginalized groups through concessions secured via electoral power-sharing. However, no matter how much I wanted to be right, the evidence does not and probably will never support my claims. I wanted to believe that something else has to work because what we are doing now is not.
Evidence and research on violent protests in autocracies is mixed. Protests increase the risk of armed conflict when repressed by violent state actors. However, in autocracies, it is unlikely a peaceful protest will be perceived kindly. Democracies rely on deliberation and discourse to extend rights, liberties and tolerance. Nonviolent collective action is more successful in swaying public opinion, which is necessary to effectively vote and establish change.
The Civil Rights Protests were largely successful because they used nonviolent, direct actions that openly brought racial injustice to the surface. On the other hand, the Hard Hat Riots and the 1992 Los Angeles Riots led to government interference and a crackdown rather than political change.
Andrew Hozier-Byrne, also known as Hozier, said, “The trees deny themselves nothing that makes them grow, no rainfall, no sunshine, no blood upon the snow.” If the trees will not deny themselves blood to blossom, then can the people deny violence if it brings along justice?
This argument has become an aesthetic criterion for violence. As Nietzsche said, “If you kill a cockroach, you are a hero, if you kill a butterfly, you are evil. Morals have aesthetic criteria.” When we talk about violence as a form of protest, we apply an aesthetic to it. People kill murderers to prevent them from harming others, and so on, but from a moral standard, what’s the difference? Are we not creating guilty heroes? I have heard the argument that we have reached a point at which we will die without any political action. We will die if we do nothing, and our current government will kill us. We will die by violence of our own hand. But change cannot occur through retaliation of the same form as the oppression itself. In that case, nothing has changed except the perpetrator.
The current administration has waged violence against civilians, and the United States was founded on political violence that has grown into structural and institutional violence against minorities. Furthermore, I will also not deny that the expression of authoritarian attitudes from all political parties is both threatening and worrisome. The right, as it stands, commits more acts of political violence primarily against minorities, abortion providers and federal agents. From 2017 to 2020, Democrats were more likely to condone violence if it advanced their political goals. Republicans have now passed Democrats by a percentage point. The point of that study is not to place blame on a party or an ideology. It is to point out the subsequent evidence. Thirty-nine percent of Democrats and 41 percent of Republicans saw the other side as “downright evil,” and 16 percent of Democrats and 20 percent of Republicans said that their opponents were “like animals.” Dehumanizing your neighbors will not create unity or change.
Political tolerance does not foster violence – political intolerance does. The media warns of extremists and efforts to remove extremist speech. I want to point to James Gibson, an American psychologist, who says that while one can consider banning extremist speech, most of these conversations concern the most fundamental levels of speech. “In the case of the United States, for instance, even in the twenty-first century, 48 percent of the American people prefer that atheists be denied the right to hold a public demonstration…Only after ordinary people come to tolerate a range of even slightly unorthodox ideas should research then focus on tolerance of the views of the most extreme members of society,” he said.
Blood spilled is not progression, only a means of mere survival. We cannot progress when we are fighting for survival. Thus, violence will not foster change. I fear violence because it becomes a cycle. Our survival and livelihood, then, are in the hands of those with the power of change by wielding the stronger sword. We are not stronger than the institutions we build.
Violence is not compassionate. Love is compassionate. Understanding is compassionate. Education is compassionate. I would rather stare down the gun of someone ignorant than kill them for it.
As college students, we have the valuable opportunity to meet people of all walks of life. As one’s education increases, their political tolerance increases. This can be for many reasons, but I believe the most important is cognitive sophistication. We are able to deliberate, engage in analytical processing and look at policy and others’ beliefs abstractly. Our cognitive sophistication has been strongly shaped by our time here, and expecting every individual you interact with to hold the same level of thought is both privileged and unrealistic. Over time, our political networks have become more homogeneous. Evidence shows that in order to foster greater political tolerance, there needs to be dialogue between individuals who hold opposing views. I recognize the threat being pushed on certain groups. It is not the job of the threatened to fight for their rights while being targeted. It is the job of the privileged to fight for the rights of all because rights are human, and we are human.I urge you to talk to someone you disagree with and try to understand their position as a person, not as a political pawn.
Maya Holland `27 is a political science major with a concentration in policy studies.
