Violence in the context of "Political dissent"

Societal collapse (also known as civilizational collapse or systems collapse) is the fall of a complex human society characterized by the loss of cultural identity and of social complexity as an adaptive system, the downfall of government, and the rise of violence. Possible causes of a societal collapse include natural catastrophe, war, pestilence, famine, economic collapse, population decline or overshoot, mass migration, incompetent leaders, and sabotage by rival civilizations. A collapsed society may revert to a more primitive state, be absorbed into a stronger society, or completely disappear.

Virtually all civilizations have suffered such a fate, regardless of their size or complexity. Most never recovered, such as the Western and Eastern Roman Empires, the Maya civilization, and the Easter Island civilization. However, some of them later revived and transformed, such as China, Greece, and Egypt.

War is an armed conflict between the armed forces of states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or between such organized groups.

It is generally characterized by widespread violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular or irregular military forces. Warfare refers to the common activities and characteristics of types of war, or of wars in general.

Nonviolence is the practice of working for social change without causing harm to others, under any condition. It may come from the belief that hurting people, animals and/or the environment is unnecessary to achieve an outcome, and it may refer to a general philosophy of abstention from violence. It may be based on moral, religious or spiritual principles. The reasons for it may be strategic or pragmatic; failure to distinguish between the two can lead to distortion in the concept's meaning and effectiveness, which can subsequently result in confusion. Although both principled and pragmatic nonviolent approaches preach for nonviolence, they may have distinct motives, goals, philosophies, and techniques. However, rather than debating the best practice between the two approaches, both can indicate alternative paths for those who do not want to use violence.

Nonviolence has "active" or "activist" elements, in that believers generally accept the need for nonviolence as a means to achieve political and social change. Thus, for example, Tolstoyan and Gandhian philosophies on nonviolence seek social change while rejecting the use of violence, seeing nonviolent action (also called civil resistance) as an alternative to either passive acceptance of oppression or armed struggle against it. In general, advocates of an activist philosophy of nonviolence use diverse methods in their campaigns for social change, including critical forms of education and persuasion, mass noncooperation, civil disobedience, nonviolent direct action, constructive program, and social, political, cultural and economic forms of intervention.

Peace is a state of harmony in the absence of hostility and violence. In a societal sense, peace is commonly used to mean a lack of conflict (such as war) and freedom from fear of violence between individuals or groups.

Promotion of peace is a core tenet of many philosophies, religions, and ideologies, many of which consider it a core tenet of their philosophy. Some examples are: religions such as Buddhism and Christianity, important figures like Gandhi, and throughout literature like "Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch" by Immanuel Kant, "The Art of Peace" by Morihei Ueshiba, or ideologies that strictly adhere to it such as Pacifism within a sociopolitical scope. It is a frequent subject of symbolism and features prominently in art and other cultural traditions.

Consociationalism (/kənˌsoʊʃiˈeɪʃənəlɪzəm/ kən-SOH-shee-AY-shən-əl-iz-əm) is a form of democratic power sharing. Political scientists define a consociational state as one which has major internal divisions along ethnic, religious, or linguistic lines, but which remains stable due to consultation among the elites of these groups. Consociational states are often contrasted with states with majoritarian electoral systems.

The goals of consociationalism are governmental stability, the survival of the power-sharing arrangements, the survival of democracy, and the avoidance of violence. When consociationalism is organised along religious confessional lines, as in Lebanon, it is known as confessionalism. Consociationalism is sometimes seen as analogous to corporatism, and some scholars consider consociationalism a form of corporatism. Others claim that economic corporatism was designed to regulate class conflict, while consociationalism developed on the basis of reconciling societal fragmentation along ethnic and religious lines.

A burn is an injury to skin, or other tissues, caused by heat, electricity, chemicals, friction, or ionizing radiation (such as sunburn, caused by ultraviolet radiation). Most burns are due to heat from hot fluids (called scalding), solids, or fire. Burns occur mainly in the home or the workplace. In the home, risks are associated with domestic kitchens, including stoves, flames, and hot liquids. In the workplace, risks are associated with fire and chemical and electric burns. Alcoholism and smoking are other risk factors. Burns can also occur as a result of self-harm or violence between people (assault).

Burns that affect only the superficial skin layers are known as superficial or first-degree burns. They appear red without blisters, and pain typically lasts around three days. When the injury extends into some of the underlying skin layer, it is a partial-thickness or second-degree burn. Blisters are frequently present and they are often very painful. Healing can require up to eight weeks and scarring may occur. In a full-thickness or third-degree burn, the injury extends to all layers of the skin. Often there is no pain and the burnt area is stiff. Healing typically does not occur on its own. A fourth-degree burn additionally involves injury to deeper tissues, such as muscle, tendons, or bone. The burn is often black and frequently leads to loss of the burned part.

Isfet or Asfet (meaning "injustice", "chaos", or "violence"; as a verb, “to do evil”) is an ancient Egyptian term from Egyptian mythology used in philosophy, which was built on a religious, social and politically affected dualism. Isfet was the counter to Maat, which was order. Isfet did not have a physical form. Rather, it was believed that Isfet was personified in the form of Apep. Isfet was important in Egyptian culture as Isfet showed that there is balance in the world.

Coexistence is the property of things existing at the same time and in a proximity close enough to affect each other, without causing harm to one another. The term is often used with respect to people of different persuasions existing together, particularly where there is some history of antipathy or violence between those groups.

Coexistence can be observed to a property of all systems in which different aspects capable of interacting with each other exist at the same time. As one source asserts, "even at the molecular level, existence is always already coexistence". Nonliving things can also be characterized as coexisting where multiple kinds of such things exist in the same space, with the term having been used for things as disparate as different kinds of dunes on Mars, and black holes existing in the same region of space as dense nuclear star clusters. Other examples of coexistence include: