Podcast- Aino, Jess, Julia

The discussion revolves around the ethics of self-defense and violence in liberatory movements. The participants refer to the philosophy of Fanon, who believed that violence is necessary for achieving liberation. They also discuss the concept of justified violence, such as self-defense and fighting for justice. The examples of the Battle of Algiers and the movie Waiting for the Barbarians are analyzed in relation to the question of whether violence can be justified as a form of revenge or resistance. The participants explore the complexities of violence, including its connection to personal identity and the potential for mental resistance as an alternative. They question whether violence is truly justified if it doesn't bring about meaningful change in the present. The discussion also touches upon the idea of justice and whether inflicting harm on those who have harmed you can be considered justice. Welcome to Philosophy for the Girly Youth. We're here today with Aino, Jess, and Julia. So in today's episode, we're talking about the ethics of self-defense and violence in liberatory movements. So we're going to start off talking about Fanon, who is a big philosopher that we're looking at in this topic. So Aino, you want to start off with that? Yeah. So in our class, we have discussed a lot of Fanon's texts, one being by the way of conclusion. And related to this topic, I think Fanon's core philosophy about the necessity of violence is very connected to this. And how he sees in conflicts like the Battle of Algiers, for example, in conflicts like that, violence is a necessity. And he didn't only see it as a way of self-defense and resistance, but also a way to get back significance for yourself and for your people, your identity, agency, and dignity, and finally achieve liberation through this violence. And this is very connected to a lot of things, like the Battle of Algiers. Does this necessity of violence relate in any way to something you read, Jess? Yeah, so this kind of reminded me of the text that we read called Terrorism and Morality. It talks about a lot of different topics relating to terrorism and how it can be like, in some cases people think that it's morally wrong in every single case, and in other cases people think there are exceptions to it because of what you kind of talked about, like how using violence as a way of getting justice is pretty important at times in history. So one idea we talked about was the justice war theory in this. So it was like, no attacks on non-military targets and people, which is the principle of discrimination, and also proportionally, or like reasonably achieved through military and political means, which is part of the principle of proportionality. So basically, in this type of violence, it should be on people who aren't directly involved in the military, or it should not be on people who are not directly involved in the military, and also should be in somewhat reasonable way of this idea of an eye for an eye, and not going beyond what the harm was done to the person doing the terrorism, if that makes sense. And it's kind of also related to the battle of Algiers, which we kind of went into a little bit, and how part of this resistance group targeted people that we saw as innocent civilians, but other people define it, especially they talked about in this terrorism and morality text, how they could have been described as, even though they're just civilians, they're still contributing to the economy, they're still living in this place, even if it's not necessarily their choice. So there's kind of this question of who is really innocent, and who is in some way justified to be victims of violence, which is really interesting, so I don't know if you had anything to say. This actually leads me to some of what I was thinking about, about the movie Waiting for the Barbarians. So one thing that really stuck with me was how at the end of the movie we see the nomads riding in on horses to attack the town, and it made me wonder if that was morally just. I feel like in our discussion in class, we all kind of agreed that violence as a necessity for self-defense is morally just because it's either you or them, and you're just defending yourself from something that they are doing to you first. But I was wondering, is it fair if someone harmed you, but you're now healthy, you're now strong, is it morally just for you to get revenge and inflict the same amount of harm and the same amount of pain on them through violence because they did it to you? So, do you guys have any thoughts about that? Yeah, for sure. I think this relates to the movie Battle of Algiers that I previously mentioned before. And how kind of the question of were the brutal acts of the FLN, the organizations that Algerians were in, the liberation movement, were they justified even if they were very brutal and like terrorism? Were they justified because they were kind of the underdogs at the moment, they were the oppressed people in this French colony? And the movie in general is very interesting. Some context about it, it was filmed in the same city that the actual war happened, and it was the same citizens and people that really lived there and lived through these events, because the film was filmed only a few years after the actual war happened. And the only real actor in the movie was the military leader, the general, and he was actually serving in French military too before this movie was filmed. So I think that's very interesting also. He was playing his own role in the same city he was playing it in real life. And that's like, I don't know how it went in the filming situation, but I think that would have been very complicated on how they can face each other and film this scene when this really happened to themselves. And kind of like thinking of was the violence they performed necessary? Because at first we saw in the movie they performed like peaceful protest, they did disobedience, they made strikes, but when the oppressive power got more and more oppressive and powerful in the city they were in, they got the whole military in that place, also the Algerian violence got radicalized. And I think that's very interesting how, like, was that necessary, kind of? And was it like proportional, was it justified? Yeah, I also want to go back to Julia's point of like, you know, if a group is like, not necessarily they were the ones impacted, or they were impacted in the past and now they're healthier or stronger or doing better, I think it's also a very generational thing, or I was kind of thinking about La Hyène, I think that's how you pronounce it, the French movie that we watched, which I really enjoyed. And it kind of relates to that, and like, the main characters, Vince, Sayid, and Hubert, mostly Vince who owned the gun that we saw in the movie, and he is the one who is very interested in his work, getting back at the French police forces that were oppressing him and his community. And even though he wasn't necessarily directly involved, it was more of their friend who was taken by the police, I believe, he still wanted to have direct confrontation with them. So it's like generational, familial, all of these three main characters had some personal connection to having family members or friends who were harmed by this group. So even if it wasn't directly them, and even if they were maybe a little bit stronger, or had a little bit more power than the people before them or the people that they know now, there's still reason for them to be upset and angry and wanting to take action, even if it's pretty violent at times. So I think in some way it is justified, even though some of these philosophers we read were like, no violence is justified at all. So I think that's kind of interesting. What do you guys think about, can any violence be justified? Or does it matter if it's to yourself personally or if it's just someone that you care about? Or does the cause of the violence matter? If it's for the greater cause of something that is important to you value-wise, does that justify the violence? I think that it doesn't need to be personally you that the violence was inflicted upon. I think that if you are using violence to defend somebody else, then that is justified, but yeah. I question whether if, and in Lahine, I think that they definitely were still being oppressed, and I think that that violence to fight for what they believe in and fight for their movement was justified, but I think that if something happened in the past and now, I missed parts of Waiting for the Barbarians because I was upset for part of it, but thinking about that, I question kind of like, because then the nomads were doing fine, it seemed like, while there wasn't peace, there wasn't any ongoing, there wasn't that much ongoing interaction between the townspeople and them, but maybe I missed part of it. But my question is, if something happened in the past, is it, like I don't necessarily think that, like based on the writing of some of the philosophers we read, I question whether violence is justified as a form of revenge when it's not actually going to make any change in the present moment. If, like it's not, because then that's not exactly self-defense anymore, that's more so revenge. So what do you guys think about that? I think that's a really interesting question. Like, a lot of the examples that we saw didn't necessarily make direct change, like especially in Battle of Algiers, or even like La Haine, like we don't really see the ending of it necessarily, but it's more, I think it's more like mentally resisting or mentally like fighting back against oppressive powers that are like the really powerful things that we see, especially like end of Battle of Algiers, like five years after this resistance movement happened, like there's still people who are deciding to resist in a different way. And also just like, that kind of ties back into Fanon's writing and how he thinks like violence, or even just like resistance in general, is like literally an identity, like relating to your personal identity. I think it's like, I don't know if it necessarily matters like the time that's happening, but it's kind of complicated when you think about it in that way. And also thinking about how resistance doesn't have to necessarily just be violence, it can also be mentally. And I think that was like kind of what shook these different powers, like the French or these other, yeah, groups. Yeah, going back to what Julia said about the justification of violence, even though if it doesn't achieve anything new in the future, that made me think of like justice in general and how, what does justice even mean? Like if your people and your group has been oppressed or violated, is it justice to do the exact thing to that group that violated you? Is that justice or is it not enough? Is justice even something you can achieve in life? If you have like experiences of wrongdoing because it leaves such scars to you and your whole group and identity. And like kind of in Laheim, where the young people justified for this violence because they have been through the kind of the same thing. And I don't know, just a thought. And these materials we have talked about kind of formed this question in my mind that do the values and outcomes of resistance outweigh like the cost of human life? And does it matter, because they have already been the ones in oppression and in the resistance side, like because they didn't start it, does that justify them taking human lives? What do you guys think? That's a really interesting question. And it kind of also goes back to, I mean all of these things are connected, but it definitely goes back to Fanon in my mind, because he kind of talks about like violence is pretty necessary. And the same with the text we read about self-defense from that prologue, also related, how obviously with violence comes this cost of human lives that you were talking about, but sometimes that's even necessary to make change and to resist and to have a successful resistance to this type of oppressive government. And even though obviously you want to avoid as much of that as possible, it's still sometimes even necessary, like fundamentally, of being in this world and being oppressed. And that comes with that mentality and that identity that it's worth it in some way to the people who are fighting and these groups that it doesn't matter, I will risk my own life if it means that my community can have this type of freedom or this power. So I thought that was kind of related. Yeah, I agree with that. And I also think it's about, let's say you choose to not resist with violence, and maybe you try a different form of resistance, or you just don't resist at all. And it's like you save some lives, but if they're oppressing you, that oppression is just going to continue. So then more people in your community might die in the future, and that's still lives being lost. And I don't think any human lives matter more than others. If people are still going to die as a result of it, I feel like it is justified to use violence to resist, to prevent more death in the future. And also just value of life, and I'm forgetting a term, but just how much you enjoy life and what the conditions are in your life. I think there's kind of a question of the value of life, I guess. I feel like there's a word that I'm forgetting. But it's like, I think it's worth it to, if someone's oppressing you, to use violence. Maybe some people die in the process of ending that oppression, but then the lives of everyone who had been oppressed would be so much better. And the value of their lives and their experiences would be... Not that the value of their lives is greater, but they would be able to enjoy their lives more. So I think if there are people willing to risk their lives to fight for that, and if lives are lost on the other side because they were oppressing them and they fought back, I think that that is justified to improve people's experiences of life for the next however long amount of time. Another thing that I wanted to mention that I found really interesting was the prologue from Self-Defense. So I remember that initially reading this, the story about Rodney King felt very out of nowhere after they were talking about historical torture methods. And I was a little bit confused at first. But I actually think that this kind of sharper contrast between these two stories really captures the reader's attention. And makes you work, at least made me work to think about how these are connected. And then I guess the story about the quotes, the more you defend yourself, the more you'll suffer. The more certain you are to die. And also to resist is to be defeated. We talked about this in class, but it really made me question if resistance, do you think resistance holds value even if you know that you'll not be successful? Yep. Back to that thing about resistance as a part of identity that I think one of you guys mentioned. I think that a lot of resistance, even if you yourself are not successful, then you can still help contribute to the cause for people after you to continue. And a lot of time in the end it will be successful. But let's say that genuinely it didn't do anything. You resisted and you still, I guess, failed. You still died in the end. And is there value in that? I think that's a great question. And I think definitely yes. Because as I see it, it's like for the principle. It's like you resist stuff also for yourself, not only for the future and your life in the future. You resisted for your life right now because you don't want to be in that oppression. You don't want to submit to the oppressed situation you're in. I don't think you can even find content in life so fulfillingly if you don't fight for what fundamentally feels right to you. Kind of on a different note, relating back to our text on self-defense, I was thinking about L'Chaim again and how Vince Said and Hubert, we talked about in class how they all viewed violence differently. And there's one specific scene that I was thinking about when they were using the gun that they had found at the beginning against a group of men that were trying to hurt them in an alleyway at night when they were downtown in Paris. And also Hubert using his gun on the police officer in the final scene, after the officer used his own to accidentally shoot Vince, even though Hubert knows that he himself would die from the same police officer, but he still decides to use the gun. And it's very related to a quote from the self-defense, which is about how, let me find it. Toledo, you wrote it down. The more you defend yourself, the more you'll suffer, the more certain you are to die. So I thought that was very heavily related. And just the idea that the more a person tries to defend themselves, the more that they suffer themselves is just really interesting to think about. And it definitely relates to some of the other texts and things that we talked about in this class. Not directly related to that, but we read Hippolyte. That is more about the current events in the world. And kind of what Jess said about the cycle of suffering, and that made me think of the cycle of violence in general. And we had a discussion about this in class, about the protest on college campuses, about the Israel-Gaza conflict going on right now, and how the violence that happens in Israel and Gaza makes people at colleges protest, and these protests create also new violence. So that kind of creates like a cycle of this violence and this suffering, because on the campuses when people protest, because they see these protests as the way to fight for the greater cause, even if they make people uncomfortable or make them feel unsafe, they feel like it's the right thing to do, because that's the fundamental value for them. Because it's like a conflict within a conflict, it's not even directly... It's like people talking about a conflict, and conflict and violence coming from that, which was really interesting. And there's like, what is the line with too much pressure for the resistance movement when it turns upside down, when it turns like you're oppressive. You turn to be the oppressive one. Yeah, I think that's a really good point, and actually something that I hadn't really thought about before. But I think that's where we have to wrap this up. Thank you for listening, and we'll see you next week in our podcast, Philosophy for the Girlies. Thank you. Bye.