Speak softly, and carry a big stick.
(A Scottish proverb.)
Today is 'Armed Forces Day'. There's a warship in the bay, artillery on the promontory, marching bands on the promenade, fighter jets in the air, and the great and the good gracing the theatre/concert hall. And thousands of citizens milling about enjoying the spectacle amid some fairly heavy 'security' (both personnel and heavy barriers and the like) and extra police.
The big stick is on display and we are encouraged to applaud, but this is not speaking softly. I understand the reality that all this is 'necessary' to defend humanity from humanity, but I am inclined to mourn, not to celebrate.
So I went to the designated 'official protest point' and there was nobody there. It was the emptiest place in a very crowded town. A patch of parched grass and the official sign, and me standing like a lemon without even a placard, because philosophers don't really do slogans. "What do we want? Not to celebrate our communal insanity. When do we want it? Before we're all dead." I had heard a rumour that there was a lone protestor - hard to be unpatriotic and anti-social, so I went to see and maybe support, but if he had been there, he had given up or been arrested. So I was the only killjoy in the village, and nobody even noticed, because they were looking at the fighter jet roaring and twirling over the bay. It was too hot and noisy, so I left.
On the way home, I stopped to help my neighbour, well into his nineties hobble up the couple of steps to his front door. 10 minutes and 2 helpers and a zimmer frame to manage three steps. He's a WW2 veteran, served in the far east. A display of formation hobbling of no interest to anyone but the participants.
But everyone admires my heritage tomatoes sunning themselves the window boxes, and the aerial display of hanging baskets, more cause for celebration, and no security needed. Whereas we and our security forces need to take extra security measures because the security forces are on display...?
There is no security. It is a vain quest.
Today is 'Armed Forces Day'. There's a warship in the bay, artillery on the promontory, marching bands on the promenade, fighter jets in the air, and the great and the good gracing the theatre/concert hall. And thousands of citizens milling about enjoying the spectacle amid some fairly heavy 'security' (both personnel and heavy barriers and the like) and extra police.
The big stick is on display and we are encouraged to applaud, but this is not speaking softly. I understand the reality that all this is 'necessary' to defend humanity from humanity, but I am inclined to mourn, not to celebrate.
So I went to the designated 'official protest point' and there was nobody there. It was the emptiest place in a very crowded town. A patch of parched grass and the official sign, and me standing like a lemon without even a placard, because philosophers don't really do slogans. "What do we want? Not to celebrate our communal insanity. When do we want it? Before we're all dead." I had heard a rumour that there was a lone protestor - hard to be unpatriotic and anti-social, so I went to see and maybe support, but if he had been there, he had given up or been arrested. So I was the only killjoy in the village, and nobody even noticed, because they were looking at the fighter jet roaring and twirling over the bay. It was too hot and noisy, so I left.
On the way home, I stopped to help my neighbour, well into his nineties hobble up the couple of steps to his front door. 10 minutes and 2 helpers and a zimmer frame to manage three steps. He's a WW2 veteran, served in the far east. A display of formation hobbling of no interest to anyone but the participants.
But everyone admires my heritage tomatoes sunning themselves the window boxes, and the aerial display of hanging baskets, more cause for celebration, and no security needed. Whereas we and our security forces need to take extra security measures because the security forces are on display...?
There is no security. It is a vain quest.
Comments (94)
There is no absolute safety, but varying degrees, and it sounds like where you live is relatively peaceful, especially compared to other areas of the world. And the truth is that those tools of mass destruction and death you saw on display form a good part of the reason you are so safe.
I sort of agree. Unenlightened is, in a way, sitting on the white sepulcher of colonialism, and crying foul. The irony being that, it is precisely by climbing on the sepulcher that it is possible to cry foul at all.
Always nice to have the truth pointed out to one. Indeed, my big stick is my security against your big stick or some other bugger's big stick. And the bigger the stick, the more secure. Hurrah for big sticks, therefore!
And then there are the big sticks that do not look so good on television, and where the hurrahs ring hollow.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jun/30/british-intelligence-officers-linked-to-man-waterboarded-83-times-mi6-cia-rendition?CMP=fb_gu
What we don't need though, is a celebration of the weapons of destruction, like fighter jets, warships, missiles and tanks. Parading those is not just carrying a big stick. It's waving it about.
The trouble is though - human nature again - little boys just love military toys. I know this because I once was a little boy, and I loved them then. So if we want people to occasionally get enthused about the armed forces - and that is to some extent necessary in countries like ours that have no compulsory military service - it's a lot easier if we trot out the big toys for the kids to ooh and aah over, overlooking the sad truth that their purpose is to kill people and mangle flesh.
No it isn't. Armed forces are completely useless to a peaceful life, and only function in a violent life.
I fully recognise the tragedy that that privilege is not extended to people growing up surrounded by violence in the Jasmine Allen Estate or such like, and I wish I knew how to fix that, but I don't.
If we lived in a perfect world and everyone we're as rational as I am, we would all get along fine and dandy. But, it's not a perfect world.
Then it is not a peaceful life, is it? I pay you to be violent for me, and then claim to be peaceful. That's bollocks. Fake news.
If violence actually happens then it depends on why it happened. If it happens in the name of colonialism or other projections of power overseas, as has so often happened in the history of European countries and the US, then it increases the violence, and I abhor it. On the other hand if the violence is defensive, then it has only replaced other violence that was going to happen anyway when the aggressor invaded our country. If the military is well-trained and well-equipped, the violence will probably be less than what would have happened if the aggressor had invaded without military opposition.
I am in favour of having a defensive military service, but not an aggressive one. The Japanese have the right idea, calling it a defence service rather than an army.
What a beautiful and enlightened post. Even though you were alone at the 'official protest point' (an oxymoron of epic proportion) The Gods of philosophy are with you.
Inspiring words, keep them coming they are louder than bombs.
M
No it isn't. If I stand guard over my tomatoes with a big stick, that is violent even if everyone keeps out of my way. Threats of violence are violence; peace is not threatening.
I cannot peacefully put a gun to your head and demand you agree. I am using the weapon against you, even if I do not fire it.
I don't understand how the world you're proposing will ever work out. People need to know that there are consequences for actions. The sort of world you're proposing, without the stick, is a world where no communication of consequences is made. But we have limited resources, and often our human desires come into conflict with one another. We need a mechanism by which to negotiate. And negotiating presupposes that both parties communicate with each other and understand the consequences. There is nothing violent about me saying that if you steal my property, I will defend it. There is, on the other hand, something violent about you appropriating my property.
Imagine a world where people don't know there are consequences... We could form no association whatsoever in that world. Society demands a certain degree of discipline. Without that, all our associations end up being temporary associations, so long as our self-interest aligns. There could be no family for example.
Sure there is. There is the threat -- threatening others is still violence. Calling it "defense" doesn't change that.
If you raise a weapon and tell me to hand over the cash in the register and then don't pull the trigger -- you're threatening me in order to motivate a certain course of action.
Defensive violence is just the sort of violence we view as being justified, usually because of the presence of some other violence. But the threat is no less violence just because it's the kind of violence we think is a necessary evil.
consider you are invaded by some fighting force, and are forced to defend your homes. Because it is justified and defensive do the missiles and bullets lobbed at the enemy somehow become non-violent?
No, of course not.
I don't see it as a threat, I see it as communication of consequences. So if you were to tell your child, "if you don't do your homework, it won't be fair for me to give you your weekly allowance", I don't see that as a threat. It's communicating to them how you will react to their actions so that they are aware of it and can take it into account when deciding what to do.
Consequences may be "violent", if by that you mean that they are things that someone does not desire to happen. That's not necessarily negative though.
I haven't proposed a world. I have merely pointed out and lamented that the world that we live in is founded on violence. As it is, my tomatoes are right on the street, and any passer-by can take them, and I do not defend them. And if you happened to be passing, and were hungry, I would not think it a violence if you took one, though I would if you took them all.
Quoting Agustino
It's not your property, it's mine, because the world belongs to me, and since you have already stolen it, there is, according to your logic, nothing violent about my recovering it and defending it from you.
This is nonsense isn't it? Because a thing is not mine simply because I say so, it is mine by social agreement. And the social agreement is enforced by the threat and use of violence against those who fail to agree.
So why do you decry that the world is founded on violence if you don't even have an alternative? I fail to see how it could be otherwise, without us losing many of the things we value.
Quoting unenlightened
Agreed.
Quoting unenlightened
By what else could the social agreement be enforced? We have desires from each other, we are social creatures. I desire my son not to smoke for example, because it is harmful to him. If he does smoke, what shall I do? Shall I not seek to change that? And if I do, will my desire not be violent, since it is opposed, at least, to his current way of thinking?
If how you will react is violent, then communicating that is a threat. That's what it means to threaten. If you disagree, I will bite your head off.
That's quite funny. I'm inclined to admit that nothing can be enforced without violence.
But then I would suggest that if we agree, we don't need to enforce anything.
From my experience people don't take them this way. If I tell a subcontractor "look, you've already been late 1 day, if you are late another day I will have to cut 10% off your price because you are creating additional costs for us, and it's not fair for us to bear the costs alone". On the other hand, if you were to tell someone "work 24/7 for me or else I will fire you and make sure you starve" now that is a threat and abusive too.
Are you kidding me? How else can we have a society then? You're behaving as if we didn't have expectations from each other, and conflicting desires that we need to negotiate. Without negotiating them, we won't be able to live together.
My son smokes. I don't like that. We will need to negotiate that... Maybe he doesn't smoke around me, etc. Without negotiating, we cannot live together.
No, of course not. If all my tomatoes get stolen or vandalised, I won't grow any next year. I'm not threatening anyone.
Quoting Agustino
We can't live together.
But if your communication of consequences are "If you take my ball, I'm going to punch you" then that is a threat, and said threat is violent.
Why not? Maybe the person taking them wants you to keep growing them. If he knew this, he would modify his behaviour and would not take all of them anymore, only some. It does count as violence since it is opposed to the desire of the other, and you're forcing him not to find anymore tomatoes there.
Quoting unenlightened
So then how would society be possible?
Quoting Moliere
Agreed. But do you agree with the need for this kind of communication in order for society to be at all possible?
Your immune system doesn't follow that rule. It generates a multi-pronged army as fast as it can and destroys your enemies, though all you might experience is a stuffy nose.
Need? No. I think need is too strong a word. I think it is possible for us to live in peace. I don't think it is easy to attain, given our circumstances, but possible.
Violence begets violence. We live in a cycle of violence.
I am inclined to think there are cases of necessary violence, though, just not related to the order of society. A society of violence is an unstable thing which can only continue with more sophisticated forms of violence to keep the reaction of violence under check.
However, I don't think our attitude towards violence are right. I think violence is a temptation, something that gratifies a darker part of our humanity. I don't think we need institutional glorifications of violence to amplify what is already a possible natural inclination, ala the many holidays dedicated to military glory.
The better attitude to necessary violence is somber and sober. In the moment, in the thick of a social context of violence we are drunk on excitement. It can become a kind of drug, in a way. But in stepping back and seeing what violence does is destroy, on scales hard to fathom, the individual life of so many people - including those who survive the initial high. Having just read the Tao, I think this verse puts it well:
Now, we are not all decent men. And violence is indeed something which can excite and we can become addicted to. But I'm of the opinion that if we're going to institute some kind of celebration of something that it shouldn't be violence and war and all these things which are already tempting and addicting, and which cause much sorrow and evil.
You are paranoid suspicious lot, so here are the defenceless tomatoes in person.
After eight years I was expecting something a little more exciting than tomatoes. But given your recent comments, I've given up on grenades. :(
Forget the state. Without the kind of violence that they are talking about you cannot even have this forum.
Quoting Moliere
Okay, how do we live in peace if I want X, and you also want X, and we both can't have it? Must there not be some means or manner for the two of us to negotiate, or at least for the two of us to determine who gets X and who doesn't? If there is such a means, then that means itself is violent, under the definition we are using.
Quoting Moliere
That's not true. Violence does not always produce resentment. I gave you the above scenario, when a main contractor pays the subcontractor less than agreed price due to delays. That is a violent act. But it does not beget resentment, so long as the other party understands it as reasonable.
This is the great Platonic insight. We can have order precisely because reason can modulate the spirited and desirous aspects of the soul. People only become resentful when they interpret the violence done to them as unfair, unjust, undeserved.
If your son understands that if he smokes he harms his body, and for that reason, he upsets you, then he will understand why you're telling him that it won't be fair for you to give him his weekly allowance if he keeps doing it.
That is how we live in peace. Unenlightened seems to allow this desirous aspect of the soul take him to an extreme, whereby he takes any form of violence to mean the absence of peace. He starts thinking in black and white instead of dialectically. What unenlightened proposes is chaos, and the dissolution of not just the state, but also the family, associations, businesses, and anything that involves cooperation. Cooperation is based on mutual understanding and mutual concessions.
As Jordan Peterson would say, people must know that you can bite, even if you never do. Otherwise they will not respect you.
What I most hear to this question is that there would be warlords and gangsters in a world without a state, just as there was and is in parts of the world without states that function.
Warlords and gangsters are a serious problem. States, though, organize violence to levels incredible. Is there something besides the above thought experiment that leads you to believe that states decrease violence?
All the evidence.
E.g.
https://evolutionistx.wordpress.com/2015/10/22/theory-the-inverse-relationship-between-warfare-and-homicide/
http://primarydeposits.blogspot.com/2012/10/pinker-and-archaeology.html
Weapons are usually left over from the last conflict. Prior to WW2, American soldiers practiced with broomsticks because they didn't have guns. Now they practice the instructions for launching ICBMs.
We're all created by the worst things that happened. It's a good reason to think about what you're creating when you decide to be an asshole.
Even if we achieve world peace we'd still need weapons just in case interstellar visitors aren't the friendly type.
Not to make a Supreme Court case out of it, but I have some trouble taking these graphs at face value, or even very seriously. At first I was confused why a city in 1840’s California called Kato was so darn violent? Murderous gold prospectors, perhaps? Upon further review, the Kato (also called Cahto) were/are a Native American tribe. Their current population is about 250 people. And according to Wikipedia, it was never more than a few thousand at any given time:
[i]Population Further information: Population of Native California
Estimates for the pre-contact populations of most native groups in California have varied substantially. Alfred L. Kroeber put the 1770 population of the Kato at 500.[9] Sherburne F. Cook estimated the pre-contact populations of the Kato at 1,100.[10] James E. Myers thought the total might be 500.[11]
See also Cahto traditional narratives[/i]
...
So extrapolating the data over 100,000 people (who never existed simultaneously or even as a sum total) is very distorted and inaccurate because the original sample size is so small. The Kato may or may not have been particularly violent. They probably were. Many Native American tribe fought with each other and amongst themselves, very often lethally. They were humans obviously, not angels wearing beads and moccasins. Mostly the statistical evidence is anecdotal either way since they lived much of their existence away from statisticians and anthropologists, unfortunately. But this makes it seem like there rivers turned red by the blood of the dead. For that violent imagery made real, one need only look at little later in US history at the Civil War.
As for the rest of the first graph, almost a dozen of the examples are from (Papua) New Guinea, which is a well-known anthropological oddity. It is like the evolutionary fluke Madagascar of tribal culture, existing in small island(s) and producing bizarre (to me anyway) behaviors and beliefs.
And on the far right of the graph showing almost no visible marking in the graph for violent deaths in 20th century USA and 2005 (world population)? :chin: Let’s just say that I’m going to still keep my doors locked at night. :sweat: All just in my silly opinion...
Speculation time... If I had a time machine, would I rather live now in the USA... or back then with the Kato? Well, I’m kind of used to the present reality. But if I had to be born over? Either way would be fine, might even lean towards going back in time for the heck of it. (I’d make sure I brushed my teeth very well because of the lack of pain-free dentistry.)
Well, because they're in single figures, they're too small to see in proportion to the other figures. That only underlines the massive differences.
Quoting 0 thru 9
That's fair enough, but all things being equal, you'd have a higher chance of dying a violent death and certainly a shorter life expectancy.
But the figures are there. There may be some error in them as it is difficult to make reliable estimates the further back you go in time but it's highly unlikely they're out by a factor of hundreds, which they would need to be for states to be more violent than non-states.
This is a very arbitrary way of thinking about the phenomenon, which actually obscures any understanding of the existence of man. First, people are taught everything in childhood - even NOT internalizing a dictatorial figure. That is also, indeed, something they - internalize.
Second, why should we conceive it as a dictatorial figure, instead of a moral conscience? Then those who lack moral conscience are (rightly) seen as deficient, as being unable to access an integral part of what it means to be fully human, instead of (inadequately) perceived as being free. Psychoanalysis becomes deficient when you overextend it to the point where all guilt is interpreted as the internalization of a dictatorial figure or neuroticism. It is true that guilt can have a neurotic aspect (when it becomes a stumbling block to change, when one dwells on it beyond the point of usefulness, etc.). But to think this is the only aspect of guilt is to fail to see the phenomenon in its entirety. And not only. In so doing, guilt actually becomes unexplainable. Why is it at all possible for people to feel guilt? Sure, they are indoctrinated in childhood, but why is such indoctrination at all possible? Why is this a possibility of the human being?
At the same time, understanding why such an obfuscation takes place isn't difficult. The desirous part of the soul, which wants to do solely as it pleases, can't wait for a reason to take control. What better reason than to reverse the truth, and replace it with a lie?
The truth is that having a moral conscience, being capable to feel guilt - these are possible for the human being because they are useful. Guilt is necessary in order for us to be social creatures. It is also necessary for us in order to change. Meditating on guilt can indeed produce changes in one's character.
So yes, I agree that people with a highly developed moral conscience do not need an external force to enjoy peace. They know that if they do wrong, they will let themselves down, and won't be able to look in the mirror any longer.
(It's not that black and white - most people need just a little "threat" to be nice, decent people. But those who need no threat at all are very rare. And those who need a lot of threat, they are also rare - psychopaths, etc.)
And everyone agrees that it is the other chap that is the problem. I need to protect my tomatoes from the other chap, and that's why I need a government with a defence budget and some warships and fighter jets and so on. Putin wants my heritage tomatoes. Or Binlala, or someone. Or they just don't want me to have them, and want to blow them up. Maybe Allah doesn't want infidels to have tomatoes. Or else it's the Mafia, that wants me to pay them for 'protecting' my tomatoes.
Anyway, it's the other chap that's the problem, and my violence is down to him. That's where we are, isn't it?
I'm willing to love my neighbour but not to trust him. It seems a lot easier to trust myself. Though that might also be a mistake.
Have you ever watched children play?
Have you ever watched the world that children play in?
I have an alternative. Violence in-itself is not a problem. Whether it's good or bad depends on the context. You just have an unnatural aversion to violence, such that you don't see that it's ever good.
It's never inherently good. It can only be a pragmatic good.
I disagree on the distinction here I think. What is violence in-itself? To me, in-itself it is always contextual. That is part of its essence. You cannot have contextless violence.
Wrath is one of the seven deadly sins for a reason. Because it's an inherent evil.
Same as murder above.
So what? I never mentioned murder. And I just agreed violence can be a pragmatic good. Wrath is inherently wrong, agree or not?
Quoting Baden
Wrath is an excess of anger, again, it's defined such that it's always wrong.
"In its purest form, wrath presents with injury, violence, and hate." Yes, so violence is always wrong (inherently).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_deadly_sins#Wrath
Ok, thanks for the reply. :up:
It’s just that the graph reminds of the quotation “there are lies, damned lies, and statistics”. (Popularized by Mark Twain, though of uncertain origin). Are car accidents considered violent? Heart attacks? Cancer? Suicide by gas or hanging? Slow suicide by substance abuse? One can dice a potato many different ways.
And to my eye, the graph seems to make tribal cultures as a whole appear almost blood-thirsty. The old ooga-booga bone in the nose thing. Like Saruman’s mutant hoard in the movie The Lord of the Rings the Uruk Hai were driven by a desire to kill and eat “man-flesh”. Though I won’t go into the nuances of that. :snicker:
Facts can be inconvenient. But they're all we have to work with. If it was a close thing on the statistics it'd be arguable. But I really don't think it is, overall. And heart attacks and cancer have always been around and even my nuclear weapon can't defeat them. :(
Edit: (I should modify the last sentence to say that dying of heart attacks and cancer is a mostly modern privilege of advanced societies with good health-care. In the good old days, they rarely lived long enough for those diseases, at least partly because of increased levels of violence.)
I think I am as natural as you.
Quoting Agustino
Quoting Agustino
Nice. I think that is an absolutely classic straw man. And violence against straw men is a good old-fashioned way to train soldiers.
I was suggesting that violence is not being advocated even by you as something to be sought for its own sake, but only as a means to an end, where the end is presumably an end to violence on favourable terms.
You are not so silly as not to be able to distinguish 'violence in itself' whatever that might be supposed to mean, and 'good in itself' which has a pretty uncontroversial meaning. So are you half asleep or fucking about?
There is something amiss here though. 'We' stateful, and thus peaceful statistics gatherers, rock up to Australia or North America, or wherever, notice that it is stateless, and declare it part of the Queens Empire, and everyone is now a lucky subject of Her Majesty, and in the ensuing chaos, start counting the bodies and thereby prove that the natives are far better off with our kind of society.
I'm with most of the other posters in that violence isn't good in-itself. But our better angels are still body-bound to our animal passions. Which is to say you can recognize the ineluctability of violence without celebrating it.
Crlebrating not-celebrating feels like moral/security potlatch to me. Its a crime to destroy food if it means someone will go hungry, but not if there's more than enough to go around. Similarly, It's one thing to point out the fiction of absolute security when one has an abundance of the realtive kind. But imagine a community leader making that same point to the citizens of a town devastated by violent crime.
Conflating being better off with being less violent helps your argument more than mine. There is something amiss though, which is our tendency towards violence, which is violently repressed in modern states, thankfully. Of course, the problem is we have bigger sticks and we can throw them further.
Couldn't he really be sorry and not personally responsible though? Seems a bit of a contrived analogy.
Indeed, I am the other chap's other chap. No one steals my tomatoes, and that is not the case everywhere in this country, never mind lawless stateless elsewheres. I have the luxury to pontificate on a forum rather than drown in the med as a refugee. And you are all telling me that I should be grateful for this to the state violence that protects me.
And I do not believe you. I believe it is because this is a neglected corner of the empire, that is of little interest to powers of all kinds. Not worth planting a bomb here, unless the forces happen to choose it for their celebrations. Too poor to sustain its own Mafia, and too under resourced to to be worth fighting over. The reality is that no one wants my tomatoes.
Lyotard has a fantastic essay, 're-writing modernity' that attempts to show that the self-condemnation of western civ is a an extension of the same project that led to them doing what they have to apologize for. That sounds like it could be hamfisted, but its very subtle and thoughtful. I'll have to try to find a link. It's very good and not too long.
Created by it even. But there's not much we can do about that apart from being aware of it, and I'd give enough credit to the old man that he might take a more understanding view. (Unless he was me in which case I'd probably hate the bastards).
Quoting csalisbury
Oh yeah, Starbucks wouldn't be possible without a lot of confused morality in the air. (Found another opportunity to bring Starbucks into the conv. :100: ) . Sure send me the link. I expect I'll find myself in agreement.
Quoting unenlightened
OK, I'll take the effing tomatoes. Jesus. :p
Quoting unenlightened
I'm not. I'm thankful for it, and conditionally. But, among other things, I don't come from the same state as you and some states are not as equal as others on the violence scales.
But I'm pretty skeptical the reason there's no Mafia where you live is poverty. What's the vacuum, where you live, that the mafia would fill? Do you fear that, were you the victim of a violent crime, the police would either fail to respond to your call for help, or else maybe end up arresting you instead, on some pretense?
Mafia-like organizations thrive in poverty, in areas that are truly of little interest to powers of all kinds. This is how Fascism was able to take roots as well. Impoverished areas, like the Po Valley, with no recourse to State Relief. are provided a second strong-arm state by those with ambitions to power, who sniff places out like this as if by instinct. Enough areas like this, the more the shadow state is strengthened, and the possibility of a political coup. Myth and Charisma are potent ingredients in fascism, but they aren't the meat. They just seem like it, in non-academic historic restrospect, because theyre more interesting than the other stuff. That's what sells to a popular audience.
They key ingredient for things like the mafia is the absence of a monopoly of power. If the state isn't willing or isn't able to enforce order, and won't seriously prevent others from doing so in their stead.
Minimum wage over here is 10% of US rate. A Starbucks immoralatte is 100% of US price. Don't flag me, hit me with a flagpole.
*goes back to drinking a supreme luxury latte freed from guilt*
but wth is your minimum wage - like a buck?
Min wage is about 50 cents an hour. Baristas make $1.50 here (I checked), and a basic coffee is $3. Obscene sex rituals will run you about a twenty. :nerd:
Like the Rust belt. I think you are wrong. It is not poverty, but decline. Mafias do not thrive by stealing or protecting the tomatoes of peasants, they go where the money is, and they thrive on the corruption of government and the destruction of community. We are not cursed with oil, or diamonds or heavy industry, and the Welsh poppy is not the opium poppy, so the big crime here is sheep rustling. And that's run by the Manchester Mafia.
Two hours work to earn enough to drink the shittiest beverage in your workplace. And make sure to smile!
I'm not understanding what is meant by violence if conflict resolution through negotiations is violent.
The threat of violence is violent. Saying I want X, and you saying you want X, and us coming to some agreed upon method to share isn't.
And how to live in peace is one of those simultaneously very simple and very complex things -- it's simple because we all understand what peace means. It's complex because of the historical circumstances we find ourselves in.
But it certainly won't happen if we believe it's impossible. I'd say that a little faith is a first step.
Quoting Agustino
Violence begets violence. Resentment is only one possible motivation to violence. As I said before violence is addictive -- it is a rush, it is exciting. There is a sadistic pleasure in enacting violence. That doesn't mean everyone is inclined like that, but there are some and it is also capable of being developed by either environment or intentionally.
But in any case tomatoes are a literally red flag here. Tomatoes are cheap . Far cheaper than your tv, phone or computer. Some goods can face the sidewalk, others not so much. More to the point: work and govt checks youre willing to part with a part of for safety and the ability to continue to receive checks.
I don't know enough about the historical mafia to say this with absolute certainty, but my impression was that their cash crop was protection, not resources. Only after establishig themselves as local powerhouses did they branch out into other goods.
I am seeking to justify something - armed deterrence - that you call violence and that I do not. The state that results from that, I call peace and you do not.
Even though I think your terminology is very different from common usage, I am happy to adopt it for the purpose of this conversation, and call armed deterrence 'violence', except I insist it must be qualified as non-aggressive violence, to distinguish it from violent acts that I initiate - aggressive violence. With that terminology I am in favour of non-aggressive violence at the nation-state level. I am not in favour of it at the personal level, because I support gun control.
Your analogy of putting a gun to somebody's head does not fit, because that is aggressive violence. In that analogy, non-aggressive violence would be simply carrying a gun, or a big stick, to deter people from attacking me. But even then, as per the previous paragraph, the analogy doesn't work, because I do not support unrestricted gun ownership. What is suitable for nation-states is not necessarily suitable for individuals.
Quoting unenlightened
As far as this goes, I am in passionate agreement. Your OP was poetic and moving. Poetry can evoke powerful emotions, in this case, for me, emotions of sadness that we, like all other animals, have violence indelibly written in our genes.
If all you are saying is 'It's a pity that we have armies', I agree. But if you want to advocate for the UK decommissioning its armed forces completely, I disagree. Perhaps you are not advocating that, in which case I misinterpreted your subsequent posts and I apologise.
:up:
I'm saying more than the one, and less than the other. Perhaps I can put it more agreeably to you. As an individual, I see the personal value, as peace and security, in eschewing personal violence and personal weapons, along with my neighbours, in favour of a designated community protection. Generally we get along quite well in the street, but in case the rowdys start hanging around and making trouble, we don't sally forth with our baseball bats, but call the cops. We outsource our defence, and our defence is not just ours, but also that of the rowdys, so we hope and assume that the cops will be even handed in dealing with the situation, and resolve the conflict with the minimum of force.
I think states could do the same thing; outsource their defence to a beefed up UN force. At the moment, every state has its own baseball bat, and it is costly and ineffectual, and breeds violence not peace. It is as though there were half a dozen privatised police forces vying to dominate the streets, and creating mayhem not security.
But I come to this way of thinking by first rejecting the idea that my violence is ok, and only my neighbour's violence is a problem, or that my country's violence is ok, and only my neighbouring country's violence is a problem, and by thinking that personal violence and national violence are not different in kind. Let's, as someone put it, have a global 'monopoly of violence', since we seem to be inescapably violent, and need to police ourselves. If there is only one army, wars will be brief and rare.
The most upsetting thing to me about the celebrations the other day was how similar it was to the enthusiasm shown to one's favourite football team. But this is not a game where someone might break a leg occasionally, but industrialised death and destruction.
So I turn to the Human Security Project. Here's the PDF I found. -- but it cites Pinker.
So I'm guessing this all comes from Pinker. In which case I'd say that he made a pretty graph but it's a little strange to say that the rate of death is superior in measuring violence. Violence isn't just warfare, it's also homicide, incarceration, assault, threats, as well as verbal violence directed at people to hurt them.
Further, I don't see how statehood vs. statelessness is the independent variable in the data given. I mean, we're comparing prehistoric socieities to the Allied War Machine that continues to dominate the world today? How in the world are those even close to one another? Might not the death rate of the total population have something to do more with medical knowledge, the numbers of people that were around, and the closeness of community? (I'd kill for my brother, but I'm less inclined to kill for the jackass in Wyoming who cut me off in traffic)
To be honest it just looks like Pinker picked some convenient looking numbers and arranged them graph-wise to prove his point. I wanted to see the actual research to see if I was in the wrong about that. But that's how it looks to me. It's not like this is a sampling of all stateless nations and all states -- it's just a couple of each to make it look like violence is declining, when violence is measured by the rate of total population death in warfare alone.
But violence is much larger than that, and focusing on the rate is just strange to me. The only reason the rate is lower is because war is won by numbers and supplies -- economies -- and you need people to be pumping your GDP to drop the bombs.
EDIT: Sorry if I'm being harsh. I was feeling frustrated the more I was digging into it all -- I tend to find Pinker irritating just because he wields so much influence, but seems to do so sloppily.