A bit earlier today whilst having a conversation with Je, I found out that he wanted to see a guy whose views he doesn’t agree with get punched around as it would be very satisfying.

Admittedly this is in the sport of boxing which people watch to enjoy the sport of boxing so the punching is sanctioned, but I think it’s a little screwed up to derive satisfaction from watching someone who you don’t agree with get punched, regardless of how much you despise their views.

People might defend the wanting to see someone they don’t like get hit as something intrinsic to human nature, to which I say that they’re full of shit.

There’s plenty of people out there who have views or have done something that you don’t agree with, but most of the time you may never get to find out about that and support them regardless.

One might not support war, something that is usually sanctioned, but usually in war there’s a lot of people going against something that one may not agree with. Why is it not okay to derive pleasure form seeing a bunch of people who hold views you don’t like get damaged in some way, but it is okay for one person who happens to be a boxer get punched around in a boxing ring because you don’t agree with their views?

To be clear, I am not against boxing. If people want to get into that, then that’s their choice.

What I am against is someone getting satisfaction from seeing someone they don’t like or agree with getting punched.

I do not think that it is okay and that there is not many circumstances in which this line of thought can be justified.

If you don’t like what someone believes, then don’t support their beliefs. Don’t support their views. Fight against them, but don’t decide that it is a good idea to put a barrier between you and them in some form.

People think they are better than others, but the thing is that no one is better or worse than anyone else.

Plenty of people out there do bad things and there are plenty who do good things. That does not suddenly make you superior or inferior to someone else. That also does not justify or vindicate satisfaction in seeing someone get punched or hurt, regardless of how sanctioned the action happens to be.

Besides which, you may be deriving satisfaction from someone who might be a very good person who has some shitty views about something. You may be deriving satisfaction from seeing someone who is open to discourse and learning getting hit about for a while.

There are people who say that it’s only a sport and it doesn’t actually mean anything, but sport actually means a lot. There have been some really severe consequences from sport that people want to overlook to justify the equally shitty views that they hold.

I’ve said before that people are allow to say whatever they want but they need to be open to criticism and having their views challenged. I think this also extends to someone’s beliefs.

I think that it is wrong to derive satisfaction from seeing someone get punched just because you don’t agree with them. I don’t think that you can justify it by saying that it’s just a sport when you’re against war, or by saying that it’s part of human nature.

Sorry for the repetition.

End rant.