Hotu Matua

Maybe it is fair to say that, while physical violence is always involved at some point in all cases of psychological violence, psychological violence as a sort of direct violence excercised by A on B exists. And now let's see if psychological violence can also become phsychological coercion. Kidnapping provides a good example. Kidnapping is a kind of physical violence which can only achieve its ends through psychological violence against a third party. If a criminal kidnaps my girlfriend and tells me "You give me half million dollars or your girlfriend dies", the kidnappers are trying to get hold of my money (my property) by means of harming one of my values (what this girlfrend represents to me). The kidnapper knows that I will suffer mentally, even if none of my hairs and no property of mine is being touched or held. They know that it is my mental suffering what will make me look for a way to sell my house and pay the ransom, or risk my life going to rescue her. But let's suppose that the criminals blew it and kidnapped the wrong girl. Let's suppose they happen to have kidnapped a girl who is just my classmate. A classmate with whom I share no important values, and for whom I am FAR from feeling love. Things now would take a totally different course. I would not be in pain, just slightly distressed or sad. I won't try to rescue her and risk my life, and I won't ask for loans, sell my house to pay half a million bucks. I will just call the police and let them do their job. If the criminals are caught, fine. It they are not and the girl is killed, too bad, but so be it. Why? Because I wouldn't be experiencing pain. The kidnappers will have harmed the girl, but they won't have harmed my mind. The criminals will have failed, because they were not able to produce me enough mental pain, enough psychological coercion. The physical coercion against the girl, in this second case, was not accompanied by psychological coercion against me ( as she didn't represent a high value to me ) and failed to produced the intended result.

Why physical force directed against Dagny would represent any pain to John? It is Dagny's body, not John's body. Dagny's body is not John's property. John is connected only mentally to Dagny. She represents a value for him. John cannot claim any property right on any single hair or cell of Dagny's body. If Ferris had brought a dog to the room and torture it, John Galt wouldn't have been in pain. It has nothing to do with the physical force per se. It has to do what the meaning that the person against whom the physical force is being exercised has for John Galt. What is being damaged here is a value. Isn't this psychological violence?

Mmm... I do not agree with your first proposition and I consider the second one irrelevant. MENTAL STATES Pain has a subjective as well as an objective component. As neurosciences make progress, we are starting to be able to detect, see, map, measure these things. Denying an objective component of pain would put them in the realm of the mystical. Pain is like rain, hail, thunderstorms. It is part of physical reality as well. Now, how the pain is experienced by a particular man in a particular moment? That is the subjective part. That subjective mental state is beyond my responsibility. I am wondering whether it is possible to hinder another's man pursuit of his values without resorting to a gun. I wonder if it can be done by just invading his senses suddenly and deliberately: telling him something, showing him something that puts him in pain. I wonder whethe,r even if he can manage to escape that situation after some hours, days or weeks, it can be said that I violated his rights during that time. DESPISE OF ISLAM You despise Islam. That's fine. I also despise it. But we both do not draw cartoons of Mohammed for a Muslim audience. Their pain or rage does not help our long-term interests and values. Does it? I don't know about you, but I like porn from time to time. I think it's fine. But I do not courier Hustler magazines to the nuns of a convent. The horror/pain/rage of the nuns would not help me in any way, neither I conceive a man who can say that such an act helped him to obtain or keep his values. Your continued life is not a deliberate infliction of pain to Muslims. My ocassional enjoyment of pornograhpy is not a deliberate infliction of pain to nuns. We do not inflict pain by existing but by acting, by trespassing other's vital space without their permission and stimulating its nervous system in a way we know will deviate them from their pursuit of values.

No, no no! It goes beyond hypnosis and NLP! Picture John Galt tied to the bed and the generator, about to get the electric shocks. Now picture John Galt inside a last-generation MRI machine that can show changes in brain cortex derived from the pain he is about to experience. The torture starts, and you get the typical pattern of pain in the cortex. Then the bad guys stop the electric shocks, The brain pattern get back to normal. And now the bad guys bring Dagny to the room and start hurting her in front of John Galt, in a way I won't describe here. What would be the pattern shown in John Galt's brain if he had to witness Dagny's suffering? Wouldn't we have an objective demostration of Johns Galt pain, elicited by witnessing his must beloved person suffer? Pain and suffering have a subjective as well as an objective component. You will be never able to experience John Galt's pain for Dagny, but you will certainly be able to SEE, wihout any doubt, a brain activity pattern consistent with pain, and with deep pain. You will then say that John is being tortured. That his brain (and, through neurohormonal mechanisms his whole body) is being hurt, injured, against his will, even if the generator has broken. The electrochemical shocks are being produced by the sight of an scene, deliberately produced by Ferris and his crew. That phychological torture represents an EVIL by itself, indepently of the fact that John Galt is tied to the bed and cannot escape. The evil goes beyond the restriction of Galt's freedom to move. It goes to the damage made to his values. I don't know I have made my case, but I think physchological violence exists. I still don't mean that psychological coercion exists. That would take further analysis.

Yeah, we are maybe getting closer to the point. Maybe all acts of coercion are acts of violence, but not all acts of violence are acts of coercion. And those acts of violence that are not act of coercion belong to the realm of personal morality. We still should make moral judgements on them, but we could not ask the government to use physical force as a form of "retaliation", as my rights were not violated.

Maybe we should first define if there is such a thing as psychological violence, and then, if it exists, wonder if there is such a thing as psychological coercion. I have been mixing the two things. We can easily talk about physical coercion because 1) we know that physical violence exist and we can find objective evidence of it (wounds, property loss, days in jail, etc.) 2) we know that physical violence can be imposed against your will (e.g. we can easily determine you got your wound because you practice karate or boxing) To be able to talk about psychologial coercion, we would need to 1) determine whether physhological violence exist, and objective evidences for it (odd behaviour? low performance at work? sexual disfunction? depression?) 2) determine whether this kind of violence can be imposed against your will (i.e. whether you cannot escape from the situation, at least for a temporarily)

I agree, Grames. There is no coercion and no deception involved. But there is a deliberate generation of pain in other human being. Does mental suffering have a physical, neurophysiological base? Sure it does. Beyond some level, it could be detected in a imaging test, or measuring neurotrasmitters. It is not like accidentally stepping on someone's toes. It is deliberately stepping on someone's toes. Sure, in my example I never touched the Muslim's toes, but I touched their brains, their hypotalamus, whatever section of the brain cortex involved. I spoiled their morning, or at least one hour of their lives. If I steal one dollar from your pocket, I will be damaging your property even if it is just one dollar: I am violating a right. If I step on your big toe, I will be damaging your body even if it is just one big toe: I am violating a right. And then, what about spoiling one your mornings by showing you a cartoon making ridicule of your mother, causing you rage, nausea, horror? Am I not damaging your mind and your life, even if it is for one single hour of a single morning? Am I not violating a right? Specificaly, the right to live and pursuit your hapiness free from interference? Is my interference OK if it is small? Is it OK if I just give you a little bit of trouble, put a little obstacle in your way, as long as it is little enough?

Or take this, which is also very common: Someone sues you for having committed a crime that you did not commit. The guy suing you publish all kind of lies in newspapers, and in TV shows, to "destroy your reputation". You go to court and you win. The bad guy has to pay the cost of your lawyer and all expenses related to the legal process. But beyond that, do you have the right to ask for a compensation for the "damage" to your reputation? (for this excercise, suppose you did not suffer other indiret economic losses. Suppose you are just under suspicion by anyone else in your community, and you are not trusted anymore). Is the "victim" entitled to request the " bad guy" to go back to the TV show and repent in public, or publish a note in the newspapers acknowledging his error? Or could this "bad guy" state that, other than paying the costs of the legal process, he has no obligation to make any public statement, as anyone on Earth can publicly tell lies about anyone else, as long as no physical force is involved? Should you be able to sue someone for taking a photo of you, and photoshopping it so that it appears as if you are cheating your wife, or stealing something, and then publish it in your Internet community? In the end, is your reputation really yours (your property) or is reputation something that belong to the psyche of others (the image that people in contact with you make of yourself for themselves)?

Thanks everyone for your insights and answers. Some of you have accepted that it would be wrong to do this bullying, lieing, or manipulation of feelings and information, although not necessarily violating anyone rights but it is wrong nevertheless. Bourcet says "sure they are abusing me, but..." Is a man who repeatidely insults or bully other man "abusing" him? Or is this a sort of self-abuse (meaning the person who insults is the one that is harming its own mind and character) If this is the case, then the Law could not use force to retaliate, as this would be a self-inflicted harm. But if my insults or bullying or lies or hidding of information does harm other people, then the Law could be expected to retaliate. Am I right? But then, how could I prove objectively that I was hurt? By means of a psychological test? We know that psyhologists can make judgements on psychic harm being caused on people. If I decide to walked naked on the street, and the police arrests me, no one could make a case accusing me of having harmed their minds or violated their rights. Could they?. I have the right to walk naked, and they have the right to think or feel whathever their minds want to think or feel. Some will laugh, some will think I am insane and go back quickly to their own business, some will be amused and take a photo of me, some will be horrified... even some would be sexually aroused (why not?) So, with so many different effects on so many different people, on what charge should I be arrested? If I publish a cartoon depicting Mohammed raping a girl in a Turkish newspaper, and many Muslim believers feel rage and horror, can they accuse me of having hurted them mentally? A neutral, non-Muslim observer could say that devote Muslim believers cannot easily escape from their mindset and just abandon their beliefs and feelings toward whom they consider a prophet of God. Some would argue that they are not really free to escape that horror, at least not within the timeframe of seconds or minutes needed to take a look at the cartoon and react to them. They will be in pain, and I deliberately provoked that. I invaded their intimate personal space, their mental horizon of events, as they never expected to find that cartoon that day in the newspaper and they could not have avoided that. What do you think?

Let's picture the scene of Braveheart, when the brave leader is addressing its army to fight the English, and shouts: They may take our lives, but they can't take our freedom!! That is the context of my question. Is it up to us to let someone hurt our mind? Is this a matter of choice? Is it really possible for an adult man to hurt other adult man's mind without the victim's consent? Can a man initiate physchological violence without a preliminary physical violence? Let's take a person that deliberately HIDES information that would ease the sorrow or grief of other person (e.g., not telling that her beloved one is alive, and not dead). Let's take a government that deliberately HIDES information from the public, or DISTORT information, causing alarm or panic among the public, and support for its policies . Or let's take this more frequent situation: a person is ostracized by the rest of his colleagues at work, say because of his race, religion, sexual preference, or whatever. They decide to bully him, mock at him, and put him under stress though a myriad of small actions, each of which does not constitute by itself an act of physical violence. Certainly, he could quit and look for another job where he finds people that shares his values and can have a more cooperative attitude. But getting another job may be very difficult in many circumstnaces, so that this man will have to ENDURE this social situation for a while, say, some months. During that period, would you say that these unfriendly colleagues are exerting PSYCHOLOGICAL violence against him? Are these man's rights being violated?

Hi everyone. I am new to Objectivism and I am eagerly reading as much as I can from Ayn Rand's writings and several essays from ARI and TAS websites. I have a question concerning coercion. English is my second language, so I may make some mistakes in grammar or spelling. We all know that no man should initiate force against any other man, and this is commonly associated with physical force. But, is there something like psychological coercion or violence? Can a man inflict damage to other man's mind without his consent? I am thinking, for example, in a man or group that denies access to information that is vital for the survival or development of other man. I am also thinking in brilliant, eloquent man that deceives another man who has little intelectual tools to fight back the arguments, and starts taking wrong decisions that limit his survival or development . In this respect I ask myself: can I accuse another man of deceiving me? Or should I always take responsibility of my own choice, even if my capacity to discriminate truth from falsehood was limited by my significantly lower ability to analyse information on that specific topic, compared with the deceiver? Or an adult that systematically undermines the self-esteem of children by what he tells them, even when no physical use of force can ever be proven. (Could an adult accuse another adult of undermining his self-esteem, or my self-esteem is my only responsibility?) In some countries, wifes can sue their husbands for verbal violence or psychological torture. For example, husbands that repeatedly tell their wives that they are ugly and fool. (In this case, I personally believe that the blame lies on the side of the person that feels offended or believes what is told to believe, but I want to use this example as well since it is so common). I'd like to hear your comments on this.