My friend wants to punch their aggressor, so they tell me. They think about running into him on the street and punching him on the face. Between the two of us, I’m definitely the pacifist and I would always want a world without violent solutions, but, in this case, I wholeheartedly support their desire to simply punch him in the face.
You see, they ended up hurting themselves days after their incident, weeks later they got the courage to finally look for legal counsel, then their family withdrew support for the supposed well-being of not my friend. To make matters worse, the same night the little bit of power my friend could’ve had was denied, they had an encounter with their aggressor. They didn’t punch his face, they left for home shaking.
Should I tell my friend to not think about punching their aggressor’s face? Should I deny them their small coping mechanism? I’m the pacifist, but my fantasies would not be of simply punching him in the face. I would go low, very low, lower than him, in creative and cruel ways that make me actually sick by just considering them in passage, but that wouldn’t be more terrible than the actual reality so many people have to endure because of people like him.
Stop judging the words of those suffering under the boot when that’s the only power they really have, their only solace. We are mostly not David, we are Don Quixote.
Who TF you think you are to "deny" him anything? Lol Maybe get off your high horse and realize you're just an opinion. Just live your life bro.
Pretty sure the "should I deny him x" part is rhetorical. Obviously they cannot force their friend to stop fantasizing, they're asking whether denouncing ideation of violence is always the correct route, and then saying they don't believe it is.
Thanks for trying to clarify my view, but, for your peace of mind, just try to ignore aggressive comments like this.