Journal AceJohnny's Journal: Moral evolution of our reaction to violence 1
There are three stages in the reaction to violence:
1) "Strike your enemy seven times as hard as he strikes you." The basic idea is to discourage violence by warning you that the revenge will be much worse. It has the huge flaw of encouraging violence escalation, and turning a percieved slight into a full-scale war (as illustrated in this text).
2) "An eye for an eye" (Code of Hammurabi, Law of Talion) This tries to fix the escalation of violence. Problem is, we humans are imperfect, and will perceive intent where there was none, and easily fall back to the vendetta stage.
3) "Turn the other cheek" (Jesus, Gandhi) This tries to completely defuse the cycle of violence. Some people perceive it as a sign of "weakness".
Culturally, I think we still haven't learnt our lesson from that guy who got nailed (literally) for suggesting we be nice to each other, for a change. We morally remain at the second stage.
Disagree (Score:2)
Plenty, plenty peeps who are quite happy with stage 1. In fact, I'd go so far as to say group 2 is just barely in the minority on this one.