Fighting Fire with Fire

I've been thinking about what I said last night about how verbal attacks are not an appropriate or effective response to verbal attacks, and I noticed that that belief seems to conflict with the belief that physical attacks can be an appropriate response to physical attacks. Yet, I hold that, if one is physically attacked, one is justified in physically fighting back. How do I reconcile this? If it's not alright to "fight fire with fire" with verbal attacks, why would it be alright to "fight fire with fire" with physical attacks? Or, to put the question another way, if it's alright to "respond in kind" with physical attacks, why would it not be alright to "respond in kind" with verbal attacks?

My answer can ultimately be summed up in one word: Effectiveness. Countering verbal attacks with verbal attacks is not effective. Countering physical attacks with physical attacks is.

To claim that anything is "effective," one must establish what sort of effect one is trying to achieve. After all, throwing plates like frizbees may not be an effective way to stack them in a cupboard, but it can be an effective (and fun!) way to break them. Similarly, answering verbal attacks with more verbal attacks can be effective, if you're trying to start, prolong, or intensify a conflict. However, that is not the effect I want to achieve.

The effect that I most often want to achieve with regards to conflict is Resolution, though I will sometimes settle for Cessation. If there is a fight, I want it to stop, permanently, if possible, and as soon as possible. This counts for both kinds of conflict I'll be discussing this evening: verbal and physical.

As I have argued previously, verbal attacks do not help to resolve verbal conflicts. Verbal attacks tend to cause hurt feelings, which is more likely to result in backlash than in conflict resolution. Conversely, physical attacks can resolve, or at least end, physical conflicts by physically disabling combatants. Any person would stop making physical attacks once they're incapacitated, unconscious, or dead.

Of course, just because a method might be effective, that doesn't mean it's the best method. There may be multiple ways to accomplish a desired effect, some of which will be better than others. For example, responding to verbal attacks with physical attacks may end the verbal conflict, but only by replacing it with a physical conflict. That's not better. On the other hand, if one can replace a physical conflict with a verbal conflict, perhaps by talking sense to the attacker, that would be a step in the right direction, but that's not always possible. Those who have begun to resort to violence have, by an large, become unreasonable, so one should save their breath for the physical conflict.

Still, in the interest of morality and concern for the welfare of the human soul, it is preferable to resolve the physical conflict non-lethally, and even non-violently, if and when that's possible. If an attacker can be subdued without being killed, they may then be able to be reasoned with, or they can at least be brought to justice, which would be preferable to killing them. Yet, non-lethal and non-violent defense tools are sometimes less effective at eliminating threats than potentially lethal defense tools are. In a physical conflict in which lethal weapons are involved, it is essential to resolve to conflict as quickly as possible, and non-lethal methods don't always do the trick. In physical conflicts, there are sometimes only two options: kill or be killed.

In conclusion, I don't like guns any more than the next guy does. I (naively, perhaps) believe that we would all be safer if nobody  had guns or explosives or weapons of any kind; however, that's not the kind of world we live in. Bad people already have weapons, and they can make weapons, use everyday objects as weapons, and smuggle weapons in from other countries. We cannot eliminate weapons. Even if it would largely solve the problem of violent attacks, it's an impossible solution. A much easier solution is to give oneself the ability to respond in kind. Given that we cannot disarm all potential threats, we can at least arm ourselves with the tools we need to appropriately respond to those threats. Even in the best societies, verbal and physical conflicts will occasionally occur, so it's important to use the best, most effective methods to resolve those conflicts.