Hi How would you respond if you were a pacifist, and you had a friend who saw it as ok to hit you if you hit him back, thus becoming equal? I'm not in this position, but I was as a teenager. My best mate used to be pretty 'hitty' but 'allowing' me to hit him back. I did at first but my pacifism slowly got better developed until I reached a point of not wanting to be violent to anyone, especially not my best friend, even if they were 'allowing' it, even encouraging it. We never seriously hurt each other, but when I told him I didn't want to keep this up, he said "so what, I can just attack you and you wont do anything back?" or something along those lines. I just said "I'd rather you didn't" and he pretty much stopped being violent to me too. I met up with him this weekend for the first time in ages and he reminded of this time, and asked what I'd have done if he hadn't eased off the violence, but I don't really know. What would you do?
It's not real violence though, it's more like sport. Me and my friends punch each other too, and fuck around like that. But, I would never get into a real fight or anything.
yea i always fight my mates playfully i would never hit any1 unless in self defense or the defence of sum1 else is that pacifist?
Well yeah I guess there are varying degrees of pacifism I would never hit anyone at all but I guess it might depend on the circumstances if more suffering would happen because I didn't hit them than if I did if ya know what I mean
No that is not pasifism. Pasifist can never use violence to anything. And whatcomes fooling around with your friends i think you can hit and kick people when it's a game But there are many "non-violent" ways to deffend yourself like Budo sports. I practise Aikdo wich is propably one of the most non violent ways to deffend your self. In Aikido or in any Budo sport you don't hit or kick the opponent you only try to get him in the ground take a grab from him.
I've been a pacifist since grade 3 (it's a long story, I won't get into it...). From where I stand, I would never use violence of any kind to get what I want, or to force someone else to do what I want. It's not right, and is pretty mean-spirited if you ask me. But as far as messing around with your friends goes...why not? Don't all you guys do that anyway?
My problem with it (messing around with friends) was (and is) any sort of violence just affects my state of mind, even 'messing around with friends'
Your friend is dominating you. He is hitting you to show you he can beat the crap out of you anytime he wants and then "Allows" you to hit him back.
Well 'is' is the wrong word as this thing is from my childhood, I've only seen this guy about twice in the past year. I don't think this would really apply anyway, I am (and was) a pretty big bloke, and while the friend I mentioned wasn't pathetically small, I doubt he would ever think he could 'beat the crap out of me'
This does not change my assessment in the least. Violence is either an act of aggression or an act of self defense. Since he seemed to like to hit you unprovoked, that puts his violence solidly into the aggression category. I am sure you liked this fellow, I am sure he is not a horrible human being and he has probably outgrown it, but that does not change the fact that you friend was a passive aggressive bully.
As I said in the original post, I told him I wanted to end this strange ritual and he acceded, this thread is theoretical
