Is counter-violence an appropriate in response to oppressive violence?

Question

I mean to ask this in the most general way possible, but please contextualize it as you see fit.  If that is too vague, I came up with 3 circumstances:

In cases of rape-in-progress?  To your rapist after the act?  In response to systemic violence?

Comments

You might want to attempt a minimal definition of what you mean by "violence" if you want a proper answer.

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i agree with alc's answer, but i just want to add that your phrasing makes me really... uncomfortable.
what makes something oppressive violence? what makes something counter-violence? surely by the time you've identified something as oppressive violence, and something else as counter-violence, then the work to answer this question has already been done.
surely the murkiness lies in the complicated and frequently contradictory flows of agency (or power or authority or what-have-you) that so many conflicts include.

(if i taunt my girlfriend about her lack of a green card, and she responds by mocking me for not having a college education, and then i hit her... which of us is being appropriately violent?
also, is physical violence the only kind that counts?)

Answer 1

Yes. Certain types of violent responses seem appropriate during, after, and in response to structural threats of force. Very few people (radical or otherwise) argue against theoretical self-defense. I specify "certain types" because for example I do not see sexual assault or torture as compatible with anarchist ends, whereas incapacitating, maiming and killing I can perceive as responses compatible with anarchist goals. I myself would only prefer to engage in defensive violence against sociopaths and supremacists as necessary, preferring other forms of conflict resolution where possible, but I do not exclude the use of force personally or for others. In the dominant culture violence is not only what authorities have done to us, but also what they have deprived us of. I have chosen before to engage in violence rather than summon authorities and for me this path has worked well in multiple instances.