this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2025
1045 points (93.3% liked)
Comic Strips
15808 readers
1812 users here now
Comic Strips is a community for those who love comic stories.
The rules are simple:
- The post can be a single image, an image gallery, or a link to a specific comic hosted on another site (the author's website, for instance).
- The comic must be a complete story.
- If it is an external link, it must be to a specific story, not to the root of the site.
- You may post comics from others or your own.
- If you are posting a comic of your own, a maximum of one per week is allowed (I know, your comics are great, but this rule helps avoid spam).
- The comic can be in any language, but if it's not in English, OP must include an English translation in the post's 'body' field (note: you don't need to select a specific language when posting a comic).
- Politeness.
- Adult content is not allowed. This community aims to be fun for people of all ages.
Web of links
- !linuxmemes@lemmy.world: "I use Arch btw"
- !memes@lemmy.world: memes (you don't say!)
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
First panel: I agree with the aspiration to avoid violence but allow for circumstances like self-defense or defense of a vulnerable party.
Second panel: I do agree we shouldn't give them weapons, at the least not lethal weapons, certainly not military-grade weapons.
Third panel: If you want to be capable of preserving your national sovereignty, having a military is required, therefore justified in that context.
Fourth panel: While the two previous questions logically follow from the position stated in the first panel, the last question makes no sense and is a complete non-sequitur from the stated position. [i.e. "Violence is never a solution" --> "oh, so do you mean it's a solution in this one case? !? !" <--non-sequitur]
I don't think I agree? We don't see a response to the two questions, but it's implied that the answer to them is no. This then fills out the sequence to get to that point
I understand what the cartoonist is trying to imply--that there are no true pacifists and people who say they're against violence are hypocrites who actually like violence when it's used to protect their privileged position. They just didn't do it right.
First, true pacifists do exist, who would answer "yes" to the first two questions--and which would make the last question ridiculous. So if the cartoonist's goal was to criticize the hypocrites, they just needed to show the first person answering the first two questions with an unqualified "no" to show they didn't really mean what they said in the first panel.
I actually don't think you do. They are a pacifist, as is shown by their desire to demilitarize the world. They clearly think that violence is currently used primarily to maintain the status quo, and they depict that in a negative light quite obviously.
What they were actually implying is that a lot of people claim to be against violence despite, in fact being pro-state-violence
That's my point and why I say they didn't do the cartoon right. If they wanted to say what you explained, we'd have to see the first person answering "no". As it is, the cartoon implies that anyone who says violence isn't the answer is lying/hypocritical.
No.. it doesn't. By its adversarial nature, it heavily implies the answers "no" to the first two questions.
Like, your main criticism is that the comic doesn't make any sense if the answer to either question was yes, but that's the definitive reason I wouldn't read it that way.
A rhetorical question that you know (or are insisting you "know") your opponent disagrees with is a very common language trick.
Not a non-sequitur, since she's suggesting that the second person would believe that police and armies are exceptions to the rule. Given that these are, definitionally, the only parties in most modern states legally allowed to commit violence, and that the primary function of same is to maintain the status quo, be it borders, property, or laws themselves, ths last panel does nearly follow from the previous two. It is certainly a bit of a strawman, though, since he did not actually respond yet. The strawman here, however, is intentional, as a means to suggest to the reader that perhaps violence is justified in more than these two cases.