• You are currently viewing our forum as a guest, which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community, you will have access to additional post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), view blogs, respond to polls, upload content, and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free, so please join our community today! Just click here to register. You should turn your Ad Blocker off for this site or certain features may not work properly. If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us by clicking here.

Do you adhere to the value of 'harm none'?

Habba

New member
Joined
Jul 22, 2008
Messages
988
MBTI Type
ISTJ
Enneagram
1w9
I think satanism has few interesting points regarding this matter:

(11 Satanic rules on earth)
3. When in another’s lair, show him respect or else do not go there.
4. If a guest in your lair annoys you, treat him cruelly and without mercy.
11. When walking in open territory, bother no one. If someone bothers you, ask him to stop. If he does not stop, destroy him.

In other words, I only hurt people if they are trying to hurt me or people close to me. For an example, I once got my wallet stolen from me. Once I noticed it, it really bothered me. Not the money, not the cards, not the sense vulnerability, but the fact that the pick-pocket escaped justice. I think I would have given him a good kick in the head should I have caught him in the act.
 

Noon

New member
Joined
Jul 23, 2010
Messages
790
Nonviolence within a narrow context is relatively easy - but once you start to broaden it the increase in difficulty is somewhat dramatic. Let's say we could have nonviolence at the leftmost end and something like ahimsa at the rightmost.

A few people in the vegan & ARA subcultures can sometimes, for instance, carry this assumption that just to choose vegan is to become entirely cruelty-free... Someone with a group that I like wrote a blog post on some of the ways in which it's false comfort:

Veganism doesn't protect the countless mice, snakes, rabbits, etc. that are intentionally poisoned or carelessly run over so humans can harvest grains. Veganism doesn't save the frogs, fish, and other aquatic animals who die in the pesticide runoff from our fruits and vegetables. Veganism doesn't improve the conditions of exploited human farm laborers. Veganism doesn’t stop the exploitation and destruction of the environment (i.e. the home and food-source of innumerable [nonhumans]) for the sake of oil, precious metals, etc. that non-vegans and vegans use ...

The point isn't to demean any of the efforts, but rather to get those few thinking about just how wide the scope of violence is, in everyone's daily living.

I try to follow a kind of ahimsa as much as I'm able. On bad days, I fail. On the best days I fail too, but comparatively much less. It's a rambly way for me to say I believe 'harm as few as possible' is achievable, but 'no harm' is best as an ideal.
 

Pionart

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 17, 2014
Messages
4,039
MBTI Type
NiFe
I will kill mosquitoes and flies.

I am very uncomfortable with hurting another in any way, whether it be physical or emotional.

I also become overwhelmed if anyone does something for the sake of hurting me.
 

Noon

New member
Joined
Jul 23, 2010
Messages
790
'harm as few as possible' is achievable, but 'no harm' is best as an ideal.

Really don't want to get into the habit of being my own clarifier but in the above, best as means better left as.
 

Opal

New member
Joined
Jan 16, 2014
Messages
1,391
MBTI Type
ENTP
There are many forms of harm... most transformation, in my eyes, is morally ambiguous. Nothing has ever completely unfolded, and some perceived damages save our lives.
 

sprinkles

Mojibake
Joined
Jul 5, 2012
Messages
2,959
MBTI Type
INFJ
I don't really adhere to anything. That seems to imply a principled effort, and that's not how I operate.

I don't agree with the premise that if you're not somehow principled that you go around hurting everyone. I find this to not be the case. I have no desire to cause harm and I do actively try to avoid it, but not out of adherence to some arbitrary principle, but because it's what I naturally feel as a default case.

It's not like I have to stop and think and say "My principles say I'm not supposed to hurt you, so I have to adhere to that." I either do what I want or I don't.
 

Doctor Cringelord

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 27, 2013
Messages
20,567
MBTI Type
I
Enneagram
9w8
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
I'm not programmed for it. It is impossible for me to harm or by omission of action, allow to be harmed, a human being. If it happens then I must be malfunctioning.
 

Chthonic

New member
Joined
Jun 18, 2014
Messages
683
I think it's a fanciful idea. You cannot be part of the system and not be part of a chain or harm and horrible acts. It's impossible to know every effect of every action. I harm others all day long, especially if they are the type of people to need validation and acknowlegement in order to not feel wronged. I'm just bad at that stuff and I have little to no compulsion to really change it. It doesn't mean I am malicious towards them, I simply have no reason to care about their ego-needs, and I continually fail to realise the importance my acknowledgement and validation has to them, since their validation and acknowledgement isn't important to me.

I try not to kill stuff, but if you are a meat eater that's really difficult. Even by buying farmed meat I'm killing stuff, wearing leather doing the same. Use cosmetics? You've just squirted some toxic chemical into a puppy's eyes....sorry. But we are all a part of the chain of harm upon which modern society is built. Humanity has for centuries inflicted harm upon every other species and continues to do so, in ever less visible ways. Get used to the fact that you're a horrible human being if you live in modern society. :doh:
 
Top