> behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something.
In every definition, violence requires physical force. Nobody calls psychological abuse violence, they call it "gaslighting" or "bullying" or "emotional trauma".
Sure, but that is different from physical violence or threat of physical violence. Not to mean it is inherently less serious, but I would argue that they need to be treated as part of different categories.
I would also argue that emotional and psychological abuse should be considered a serious crime, but I am not convinced that conflating it with violence is appropriate.
I realize that my categories leave a blind spot for more subtle method of bullying, especially in intrinsically violence-free cases like cyber-bullying or "intense-gossiping" which can be seriously damaging.
Still I do not think that classifying that as violence in and of itself is an appropriate solution.
I don’t personally think it is helpful to make a distinction between physical and non-physical violence. Harm is severe in either case, and there is an obvious victim and and obvious perpetrator that needs to be brought to justice in either case.
Sure different forms of violence do vary in severity, but finding a new name for a type of violence that is done remotely and causes a different kind of harm both undermines and complicates the term “violence” and gives discount to some forms of violence by not labeling them as such.
> an obvious victim and and obvious perpetrator that needs to be brought to justice in either case.
Here I don't agree.
> Sure different forms of violence do vary in severity,
Also this is not the point. Emotional violence can be definitely worse than physical violence, I am not ranking them.
I am often bad at analogies, but I will try making one anyway.
When driving you are held to a concept of strict liability; if you cause an accident it is your fault; every time you sit in a vehicle you silently agree that every damage caused by your car will be (by default, but can be proven otherwise) your responsibility.
This is not the case when walking; if you push someone down the stairs because of a sneeze it is not manslaughter, it is manslaughter if you drive over a passerby because of that same sneeze.
Quite few things are considered in the context of strict liability, in general to be responsible of a damage the burden of proof is much higher.
Similarly physical and non-physical violence are held to different contexts; if I punch you then I am at fault a priori (there can be enough context to subvert this) and the reason is that I am expected to understand that punching you will cause damage (this is why accidental deaths in a fight can incur in manslaughter charges).
threats of psychological violence should be a crime, the same as other kinds of threats.
On the other hand, with psychological violence there is not bright red line that can be as clearly crossed or not. It is much harder to argue that the abuser was conscious of the damage, or that the damage was done maliciously, or that the abuser should be held responsible for it.
It is not a matter of severity, it is just that one case of violence is significantly harder to judge fairly.
PS: > if there can be violent threats, then there can be emotional violence.
> behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something.
In every definition, violence requires physical force. Nobody calls psychological abuse violence, they call it "gaslighting" or "bullying" or "emotional trauma".