When I was a teenager, someone punched me in the face. I was a bit surprised and shocked but I just stared back at him. This wasn't what my assailant expected. He just looked sheepish and didn’t know what to do, so I walked off as if nothing had happened. When I got home I burst out crying - my nose really hurt!
Violence in all its forms is fundamentally about status, whether it be national leaders wanting to maintain or raise a nations status, religious leaders promoting wars to maintain or increase the status of their beliefs or kids fighting in the streets to get them up the pecking order. The kid that punched me in the face wanted to show how big he was to his mates. Putin wants to demonstrate to everyone what a great leader he is and religious leaders want to gain status for their faith and get status in the kingdom of heaven.
People use violence because they think they can benefit from it and win at little cost to themselves. But there are alternative ways to gain status. These methods take longer and are much harder work but create a better world for everyone because there are no victims. However, when people think they can win a fight they get greedy and use violence as a short cut to gain status quickly. They may justify violence by saying that they are making the world a better place, but what they mean is they are making their world better, not everyone's world better. The suffering of victims is conveniently ignored.
Why is status so important? I think it is all due to our basic biological drive to reproduce - high status means better offspring. It all boils down to sex in the end. (Even those fighting religious wars enrich themselves and their families and often enslave and rape). But this is no excuse, as unlike other animals, we have a large frontal cortex which gives us the capacity to assess the future implications of our actions. Also, we all have the freedom to choose our actions, if we make the effort to use our free will and don't just follow the herd. We all have the mental capacity to do the right thing, rather than the easiest thing*.
So I say violence is never justified, but is here to stay until humans learn it is no solution to problems, and just shows how incapable someone is at gaining status through self improvement, co operation, mutual respect, generosity and the ability to compromise. People also need to learn to stand up to power and not just do what their group leaders tell them. In the long run, other strategies are much more successful than use of violence. Deep down, we all know war is morally wrong and that peace is better than war.
However, back when I was teenager, I managed to throw the school bully across the cloak room and my status increased no end!! If violence starts, a show of strength is justified to keep those who propose violence in check.
(*For example in places such as Italy and Japan, population numbers are falling.Humans are demonstrating that they have the ability to exert conscious control over family size, which is counter to the evolutionary imperative to reproduce as frequently as possible, as animals do.)
