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The difference between a person and a monster is one or more of the following:
* enough days without fuel
* enough weeks without shelter
* enough months without freedom
* enough years without love
The problem with trying to quantify violence morally is that violence is a power, like intelligence or strength, or a tool, like diplomacy or the experimental method.
Violence is morally neutral. Violent acts are morally right or morally wrong depending upon the context, the reasoning, and the natural consequences. There is nothing morally superior about the person who allows their dependents and loved ones to die because they would rather keep spilt energon off their hands than protect those who love them.
It's like trying to define emotions as 'positive' or 'negative'.
Emotions are what they are. You have them whether you want them or not (and often, you don't).
Lust isn't negative. Lust is lust. Using another person to satisfy your lust without regard for their needs, even with their stated but uninformed consent, is wrong; but when I was young I was afraid of lust, because all it meant to me was pain, until the person I loved more than anyone else opened his spark to me and shared with me the joy he took in his own lust for me and the lust for him that I tried to suppress out of fear. And while some would say that was love, it was not only love. He didn't just want to take care of me. He wanted to take his pleasure together with me, instead of out of me.
Pride isn't negative. If you don't have any, you're capable of doing things that degrade your spark--and that's true whether you set it aside on your own or have it torn from you like I did in my youth.
Anger naturally arises when you're thwarted, and sure, sometimes we all deserve to be thwarted; a certain amount of conflict and competition is healthy. But without it you'll never know that your perimeter has been breached and your boundaries violated.
* enough days without fuel
* enough weeks without shelter
* enough months without freedom
* enough years without love
The problem with trying to quantify violence morally is that violence is a power, like intelligence or strength, or a tool, like diplomacy or the experimental method.
Violence is morally neutral. Violent acts are morally right or morally wrong depending upon the context, the reasoning, and the natural consequences. There is nothing morally superior about the person who allows their dependents and loved ones to die because they would rather keep spilt energon off their hands than protect those who love them.
It's like trying to define emotions as 'positive' or 'negative'.
Emotions are what they are. You have them whether you want them or not (and often, you don't).
Lust isn't negative. Lust is lust. Using another person to satisfy your lust without regard for their needs, even with their stated but uninformed consent, is wrong; but when I was young I was afraid of lust, because all it meant to me was pain, until the person I loved more than anyone else opened his spark to me and shared with me the joy he took in his own lust for me and the lust for him that I tried to suppress out of fear. And while some would say that was love, it was not only love. He didn't just want to take care of me. He wanted to take his pleasure together with me, instead of out of me.
Pride isn't negative. If you don't have any, you're capable of doing things that degrade your spark--and that's true whether you set it aside on your own or have it torn from you like I did in my youth.
Anger naturally arises when you're thwarted, and sure, sometimes we all deserve to be thwarted; a certain amount of conflict and competition is healthy. But without it you'll never know that your perimeter has been breached and your boundaries violated.
