People have been coming up with theories about this forever, from perspectives and time periods as diverse as Aristotle, St. Augustine, Gandhi, and Trotsky. You put a lot of very difficult questions in your post, but you didn't put forth a criteria for what "justified" means to you. I think you're going to need to interrogate that before being able to even think about any of these questions. For example, is violence justified by better outcomes, or by some absolute individual right to fight your oppressor? Is justification a question of morality, legality, tactical value, or something entirely different?

I'm of the mind that violence towards innocent civilians is never justified. Violence towards an oppressive authority can be, depends on the situation. Also, as a side note, it's impossible to commit violence towards property/inanimate objects. Violence, in my opinion, is an act that specifically harms a person. So burning a house down, even if the owner is not in it, is still violence towards a person.

Violence against aggressors can be justified if you're not escalating something to new levels, but violence against random people is never justified.

History is written by the winners so whatever you do make it effective. You kill a bunch of people and lose you will be vilified.

My understanding of history is that most improvements in living standarts have been bought by violence or the threat of it against the ruling class (yes, i guess you could call me a commie).

Though i also feel like it is a bit of a dice roll. Kinda like rerolling a dice and hoping you get a higher number. The higher your starting number the higher the chance you end up with a lower number. Does that make sense to anyone or have i completely detached from reality here? :D

one thing is for sure; it is NEVER justified to attack and use unarmed unengaged civilians to further narratives and motivations. It only strengthens the occupiers stance to ignore military targets for soft ones instead. The ends NEVER justify the means, PERIOD.

Reminds me of the TNG episode The High Ground, there is always a way forward that doesn't include mass casualties, it's just humans are too fucking shit to try.

It's not ever justified.

Which is kind of the point. If it's a last resort of self-preservation or to prevent an unacceptable alternative outcome, inherent to the choice to engage or endorse large scale violence is the underlying reality of choosing between two evils.

It's not noble or good. It's never justified.

Yet in certain situations it may be regarded as necessary.

But a necessary evil is not made good by virtue of its necessity.

And attempts to undermine the absolutism by which large scale violence is inherently unjustifiable, to turn atrocity into Micky Mouse heroism or patriotism, ultimately creates a moral tapestry wherein all atrocities can thus be justified by the relative perspectives of what is good.

So no, there is no measure by which large scale violence transforms into justifiable behavior, under any circumstances.

And a wise society would always regard its adoption as a stain upon its history, irrespective of what other horrors it was brought in to clear out.

Violence can be justified, especially to prevent or answer violence.

But the target of the violence matters a lot. Violence against people who have nothing to do with the problem is never justified.

Rebelling against violent police is perfectly justified. Rebelling against a terrorist state that commit atrocities is perfectly justified. All out war against a invader is perfectly justified.

Killing civilians, murdering civilians and taking them postage is not ever justified. This is either war crime or terrorism.

I have also been thinking about it myself for a while. Although I do not have a clear answer, I do think it is helpful to realize that violence comes in many forms and is almost always present in at least one. Take, for example, the state's monopoly on violence, usually handled by the police. Whenever there is a differing opinion on how to handle something, one of the parties may ask: What if I just do the thing I want? If one foregoes compromise and dialogue, there is nothing but violence left as a tool to either push forward or back at a cause. Sometimes there may be legitimate reasons for not wanting to compromise on an issue. Sometimes the ones we see "engaging in violence" are those whose needs have been neglected due to their potential for violence deemed lower than those doing the neglect. Violence is a destructive tool that often have better alternatives. However this should not make us default to the position that there are always clear cut answers to who really started the cycle and that someone are morally faulty for engaging with it.

TL;DR the status quo is usually backed by threats of violence or actual violence. This makes it hard to judge who is at fault for violent actions at any given moment, i.e. it all depends on context.

Taking the French Revolution for example, as I've read summaries of in the past, it was really a high nobles hoarding wealth with high taxes versus lower nobles and merchants inciting the peasantry to overthrow the greedy bastards. The famed "let them eat cake" was propaganda used by one of the lower nobles to properly enrage their mobs.

The Catholic Protestant revolution was a nobles and merchants versus the Catholic Church over paying too high a tithe and donations. Martin Luther was a monk recruited and sponsored by the nobles to incite the masses against the Catholic Church's greed.

The American Revolution was also about refusing to pay higher taxes and was lead and sponsored by the biggest land and slave owners.

So pretty much, the line in our history that was crossed and triggered many famous revolutions was in fact money. As long as someone's piece of the pie was threatened, boom! Revolution!

Dietrich Bonhoeffer has written some excellent thoughts about this topic.

I recommend the German original texts. There are also English and other translations available.

https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_Bonhoeffer

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_Bonhoeffer

https://archive.org/details/letterspapersfro0000bonh_d5e4

https://youtu.be/yiaUusr7YdY?si=uylQSOE6GWM1Ir8q

Depends on what kind of mass violence you're thinking of.

The degree to which you can control its extent, direction, and collateral damage is the degree to which you can justify it.

An organized millitary march to capture vital infrastructure and establish defensible positions in preparation for retaliation and most likely war, quite easily justified.

An unhinged hate fueled massacre and mass raping to the point of literally smashing open panic room vaults to drag out more victims to murder and rape, well at least Lemmygrad and Hexbear will still have your back!

A lot of people are probably wondering the same thing, but are not connected to realize this. A lot of people are primed like grasshoppers are to changing into locusts

violence is never justified unless it is in self defense, the problem is people interpret self defense in different ways, that seems to be the issue

Hmmm I'm going to re-watch Andor and then read some books about the American Revolution and get back with you.

Whenever it's "the war on/against" something... apparently.