Well this exploded while I wasn't watching it. Of course my sads was ignored, but the debate turned into a wildfire
It kinda' didn't. Discussion moved past it pretty quickly, and it was a good 6-7 hours ago since anything was said on the subject. That said...
Violence DOES preclude that, and I think that is absolutely wonderful. Because ANYONE can be violent. ANYONE can define their own "good" with violence.
Better yet, others can then be violent to THEM. Its a self-balancing system.
... violence can't define a good. It can't really "define" anything, because it's inherently and immutable deconstructive. It's breaking things, not making them. At
best, it's things that need to be broken (and occasionally, that need legitimately exists), but you cannot create through violence, only (at best) through what comes
after it. Confusion over that is one of the reasons the states' justice system is so bloody buggered -- punishment is seen as a goal in itself.
And no, what construes the good is a separate issue from th'fact that violence cannot contribute to it. The issue with violence and justice, whatever justice is defined as, is that violence
removes the possibility of action (possibly action that is precluding
other, positive, action, yes, but again, the violent act
itself is negative). Regardless of what justice is seen to be, violent action cannot contribute to it. It's pretty much literally impossible. You cannot create via destruction. You can break something and then rearrange it into something else, but it's the act of rearranging that makes the new thing, not the act of breaking. Even whatever is left after being broken is defined by its existence afterwards, not the act that breaks it. Violence is occasionally a tool used to prepare for creation -- and has merit precisely to the extent that it does and no further -- but it cannot, itself, create.
... in any case, just action -- justice -- is no more a ridiculous concept than right action or good action. Close enough to synonymous that the distinction borders irrelevant. It's not defined by people in positions of power, it's defined by the system it's framed within -- and those in power only have a limited capability to decide that system. The individual has more control over how they frame the world (which system they operate within) around them than pretty much anything short of their base physical construction, for all that they almost always exercise that control to a limited extent. The concept that justice can only flow from the powers that be is faintly ridiculous.