Is Provocation An Excuse?

If not - when do you stand on bullying? Just keep taking it?

If it is - then … well read on … is Chris Rock America?

Take #1: Will Smith’s assault on Chris Rock violated the law—so if Rock wants to press charges against Smith, Smith should face punishment. But Rock provoked Smith with a cruel joke about his wife, and he shouldn’t have made the joke.

Take #2: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine violated international law—so Ukraine’s armed resistance to it is justifiable, as are sanctions and other forms of punishment. But America provoked Russia with NATO expansion and various other policies that America, if in Russia’s shoes, would have found unacceptable—and America shouldn’t have done that.

I don’t have any polling data to back this up, but my sense is that if you espouse the first of those two takes you won’t get much blowback. In fact, you may be credited with unusual balance, prudence, even Solomonic wisdom.

But if you espouse the second take—and here, though I have no polling data, I do have relevant personal experience, since I’ve been espousing a version of it for weeks—you do get a fair amount of blowback.

Read The Whole Thing

Post Script

I am not saying Rock or America was bullying - but its surely in the spectrum?