A Philosophical Happy Hour on the concept of violence, both physical and cognitive.
When I was five years old, I was hit in the face with a croquet mallet, and not gently. It was an accident—the consequence of mutual carelessness between my brother and I while goofing around in the garage one evening, neither paying sufficient attention to where the other was. The blow put a hole in my cheek. Apparently, you could see my teeth through it. Though an accident, it was violent. As was the car crash I suffered at the age of seventeen (though that I escaped without a bruise). So too the time I ruptured my MCL; or when I was punched in the face (or the times I have performed that favor myself).
You can likely recount several similar experiences of violence in your own life—some lesser, some greater. None of us escapes life wholly unscathed by the violent. Anyone who has seen active combat has probably a different and deeper experience of the phenomenon. For some, it is an object of fear; for others, fascination. Is there an Aristotelian mean, a virtue, that we can develop in our attitude towards violence?
To answer this will require us to ask the question: what is violence?
Violence, Force, and Nature
In all the examples above, some event occurred in which one physical object imposed a force upon another: the croquet mallet on my cheek, the front of old Buick upon the back-right tire of my GMC truck, the ground upon my leg, and the fist upon the face. Only the last was exercised with an intent of violence. I certainly did not leap to the ground, from a stone wall, with the intent of considerable force being against to the inside of my knee joint, and yet this did far more damage to my body than did the last fist I took to the face.
Indeed, it seems that intent is rather incidental to what we must fundamentally mean by “violence”. Rather, it seems, by this term we mean this application of physical force contrary to the fitting disposition that a being has. My knee was not meant to bend that way, my face not meant to meet a croquet mallet. So too, eyes are not meant to see directly the sun, nor human skulls to bounce off concrete.
But is violence naught but physical force?
Language and Violence
“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” A singsong mantra of the childhood playground—but was it true? Or a lie we told to steel ourselves against the pain that was, indeed, felt at the receiving end of harsh words? (In addition to my accident-prone youth, I was a sensitive and awkward child—or, stated plainly, a nerd.)
Is it a metaphor to call speech “violent”? Is it suitable—or abused?
These are questions weightier than at first they might seem. That is: if language, too, has a nature, then might not some force be exercised upon it contrary to its proper disposition? Certainly, if language is more properly human than anything else we possess, it would seem important that we know how to use it, and how to defend against its abuses, just as we ought to have similar knowledge with the physical.
Violence and Justice
Finally, it is worth thinking—in line with these questions suggested above—whether there might be a just or righteous use of violence: both in the physical and in the use of language. Can we be righteously violent to another? Does intent re-enter our inquiry, here?
Join our conversation this Wednesday (27 August 2025, from 5:45-7:15+ pm ET) of your own will—we cannot force you!—and let us see how well we might understand violence without suffering it (today, at least).
philosophical happy hour
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Come join us for drinks (adult or otherwise) and a meaningful conversation. Open to the public! Held every Wednesday from 5:45–7:15pm ET.
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