RE: How Good Communities Are Destroyed And Lessons Learned From It

Trying to silence others who are critical thinkers is a form of violence.

I'm not as familiar with that definition as I try to use the dictionary definition:

vi·o·lence
noun
behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something.

While also thinking about non-violent communication's definition of violent language.

I most often think of violence as an action against a physical body, not virtual one online or one that deals with someone's emotions or points of view or ability to share their opinion. I define abusing power as abusing power, not as violence. Violence may be a mechanism someone uses in order to abuse and maintain their power, but I don't see them as the same thing.

You use language like "fighting and trying to crush people" but these are just metaphors. There's no physical crushing or fighting going on and looking at it this way, IMO, escalates the fears, negative emotions, and drama unnecessarily. You're a good writer, so I'm surprised you use language so freely like this, unless your intention is get these emotions stirred up in others beyond what may be justified by the actual actions taking place.

I'm all for bad actors being exposed, in a respectful, constructive manner. I've also seen a few ridiculous witch hunts which attack individuals personally and make all kinds of claims about someone else's intentions and motives which, to me, is essentially an impossible thing to prove. You say things like "full of vitriol, hate and anger," but can you recognize those are judgements you're making about someone else and you have no actual evidence (other than their words and actions) to know what emotions and thoughts they are actually thinking? From a non-violent communication perspective, that's jackal language. NVC defines that as "violent language" though, again, I don't use violence so loosely. They describe violence as a tragic expression of an unmet need.

Either way, thanks for responding and helping me better understand your view of violence. From that perspective, it's a really violent, scary world.