Considering Which Type Of Violence Can Be Justified

Understanding and defining violence can be complex, but an important matter throughout the world. Defining violence can be very difficult because some parts of society may view an act of violence as justified while others may believe that it was unjustified. For example, a topic that is very critical today in the U.S is excessive force in law enforcement. Many perspectives shift regarding this topic. Perhaps the law enforcer was in danger and he had to use excessive force or maybe the law enforcer was abusing his or her power. Excessive force used by law enforcers can be defensible or inexcusable, but it is a common form of violence amongst black men that is unacceptable. In John Keane’s 10 rules for democratizing, he believes that these rules should be followed in order to prevent and protect the society from surplus violence. I believe these rules should be taken into consideration in law enforcement so that continuous incidents of excessive force can be prevented against anybody. Optimally, the meaning to John Keane’s position to “surplus violence” is that this kind of violence is practice and tolerated in a democracy against our own society. For instance, in the text, it is explained that “violence committed by law enforcers agents in the name of ‘law and order’ (Vogite 22). The death penalty is a controversial topic. Should the government have the right to take someone’s life away? Evidently, the death penalty is still practiced in some U.S. states. This is a clear example of surplus violence because the government authorizes this in the name of the law. Furthermore, Violence is a worldwide issue that needs to be addressed and fixed, but will there ever be any achievement in eliminating violence? No matter what part of the world you are in, there will always be violence: Structural violence, Institutional violence, and interpersonal violence. Structural violence is meant to be accepted by the people because it is essential in supporting the organizational patterns of a society. An example is the military and law enforcers. 

Second level of violence is Institutional which is created when a group, family, organization, government ects., harms the society or an individual as a whole in a physical or nonphysical manner which interacts and disrupt others. For instance, in educational public institutions an example is students getting discriminated against due to lower income position in the family. The third level of violence is interpersonal which involves violent acts physical or nonphysical toward individuals in their everyday life. Examples that are common to interpersonal violence are rape, domestic abuse, verbal abuse(bullying), etc. is According to the text the definition that approaches best comes from Iadiocola and Shupe which states that, “‘Violence is any action or structural arrangement that results in physical or nonphysical harm to one or more persons’” (Alvarez 15). Even though there are multiple definitions that describes violence, I agree that violence can be physical and nonphysical act and can result in harm no matter how big or small the act is. According to the text John Keane defines democracy, “‘as a set of institutions and as a way of life, is a nonviolent means of equally apportioning and publicly monitoring power within and among overlapping communities of people who live accordingly to a wide variety of morals’” (Voigt 22). In the United States, we practice democracy in which “we the people” choice the power of the government. In regards to violence, having a democracy attempts to avoid violence by giving us citizens the power to express our views. Yet, violence in a democracy can and will always take place. For instance, political violence is very critical in our democracy. Trump not only advocates racism, but he empowers it when he talks about immigrants in this country. The only difference between a democracy and violence is that it takes a democracy to decide on our government, while violence harms in a physical or nonphysical manner. I reiterate that democracy can practice violence by allowing racism or an unethical government in the direction that the United States has chosen.