pepper for your eyes?

Topic: Violence

Source: Robbins Chapter 8, page 187

 Relation: The idea that violence may erupt because of a lack of centralized control to protect valued resources is evident.

Description: Reading in this section about violence made me think about Occupy and how their protests have caused violence. For example one indecent that caught my eye, was back in November when i was back home during thanksgiving break, I saw the big scandal that occurred at UC Davis. On November 18, 2011 during an occupy movement at Davis, the campus police pepper-sprayed a group of demonstrators who sat peacefully on the quad. The police abused their authority on these peaceful occupy protestors who did not even use violence against them. They used pepper spray as a tool to remove them where they weren't wanted. According to our text, violence is often used to 'protect valued resources'. (pg.187), in this .case I felt that it was obviously faculty might not have wanted them on their property, especially on campus, but was this method really necessary? Pepper spray was shoved down their throats and sprayed on their eyes, and thats painful because it stings and burns. It wasn't any different than beating them because it was still physically harmful.


Analysis:  Violence is used and abused in many different ways, whether its in war, protests, or in other sorts of ways. In this case i felt that by pepper staying these non violent protestors, was definitely not the right way to remove them from the location. If they wanted them out why didn't the police try negotiating with them? Such as talking to them first, yet instead they went ahead onto simply pepper staying them. There are often times when conditions are given for violence to rise, but this wasn't the case. In today society's we feel the urge to settle everything with violence, and it shouldn't be this way. There are other methods such as mentioned in our text, like the peaceful societies who avoid conflict over resources by sharing and cooperation.(pg. 185) If we changed our views, maybe we can use less violence in our society.