I see nothing wrong with this comment, what it's implying, predators want to be the only ones inflicting the damage and have its prey not defend itself.
He's basically correct though. This statement has also sat terribly with me. Especially given how much we glorify documents like the constitution or declaration of independence.
Like many absolute statements, this claim is just plain wrong. America (and many other countries) were started by revolutions. The revolutionaries had guns.
Countries like India are unique for gaining freedom without violence.
I mean just look at Syria. I don't have any feelings good or bad towards the rebels. But people have been trying to get rid of Assad for ages and it just took the right people with guns.
One man's violence is another's righteous revolution. All political power is at the end of the barrel of a gun.
> Countries like India are unique for gaining freedom without violence.
There was a lot of violence leading up to and, sadly, after the independence of India. Gandhi was nonviolent, but many of the freedom fighters for India's independence were not.
What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.
I don't think this is true. How many popular movies are war movies where the heroes are most certainly not pacifists? Even the movie starring a real-life pacifist (Hacksaw Ridge) is about how he, too, fit into the war machine.
First, I meant pacifism is promoted as the only recourse for the general citizen, not for the government. Of course, war movies promote the acceptability of violence by the state. Two totally separate phenomena.
The state promotes violence by the state, and being docile for the citizen.
Ok, but the word pacifism means something specific. I agree with your statement about docility, I think many would call it "civility." Same thing that black people were accused of, being "uncivil," when they were rioting for civil rights.
> I meant pacifism is promoted as the only recourse for the general citizen
What media are you consuming? Take a look at any list of top-grossing films of the past few decades and it's riddled with non-state lone wolf actors using violence to solve their problems.
You're saying that John Wick, Creed, Spider-Man, The Fall Guy, Furiosa, Venom, etc. are teaching Americans to be pacifists?
Of course. Movies are an outlet to let off steam. We experience the violence in the theatre that is increasingly precisely because the pacified masses need a strong outlet to escape the lack of recourse for injustice in the real world.
This is a good explanation without supporting the idea that there is no propaganda of violence. There is. And btw, the US are one of the most violent advanced countries.
You're moving the goal posts. First you said that "pacifism is heavily promoted in mainstream media". When I pointed out that American mainstream media is absolutely riddled with "non-state invidualist hero uses personal violence to solve their problems", now you claim that the media is for "letting off steam".
> why pacifism is heavily promoted in mainstream media and society
Yes, America's problem is it's just too peaceful, at home and abroad.
Like, it's a neat hypothesis. The data just don't fit, certainly not for America. We have high rates of gun ownership and gun violence (as well as other violence, e.g. at bars and schoolyards) precisely because we like taking justice into our own hands.
I think Putin and his lackeys have exemplified this countless times in recent years. They perpetrate horrors but will cry foul when someone dares punch back.
I disagree with his thoughts on violence. When you try to solve a problem by inviting violence to dinner you'll find you have a guest you are unable to excuse.
Violence is very effective. The authorities use it to subjugate the population and the American military uses the threat of violence and the action of actual violence to keep the United States the way it is. Except when it is used by governments, it is often called defense and when it is used by the police it is often called 'keeping the peace'. Violence as a tool for revolution is quite effective -- only pacifism is strongly ingrained in us to make us "good citizens".
>Recent research suggests that nonviolent civil resistance is far more successful in creating broad-based change than violent campaigns are, a somewhat surprising finding with a story behind it.
Chenoweth's own subsequent research indicates the issue is far more nuanced, and that states have to some extended adapted to/exploited the strategic challenges posed by nonviolent resistance.
>in many respects it tells a certain class of people what they want to hear.
I'm no health plutocrat. In fact, I've been unemployed for the past several years due to a chronic health condition. I'm currently getting private health coverage through Medicaid.
Recall that Chenoweth started out believing that violence was more effective, then changed her mind after looking at the data.
The internet's response to the CEO shooting has revealed that there is a huge appetite for violence. People with an appetite for violence appear to vastly outnumber those without on sites such as reddit. I'm seeing a lot of arguments in favor of violence, and nearly all of them strike me as quite shoddy. I wish I had the time and energy to respond to all of the bad arguments, but I don't have it.
I started reading your roarmag article (found through the internet archive), and it doesn't seem very compelling.
* The author starts from the premise that BLM succeeded through violence, which seems dubious.
* He seems to assume that "a counterhegemonic and politically radical viewpoint became perplexingly commonsensical overnight" due to violence, and doesn't seem to understand that correlation isn't the same as causation.
* He points out various issues with the study, which weaken the strength of its conclusion, but also seem sort of inescapable when doing this kind of research.
I stopped reading when it became clear to me the author was "telling the audience what they wanted to hear", to use your phrasing. ("ROAR was an online journal of the radical imagination...")
As long as we're going to assume that correlation is causation, I notice that your second link states that
"the success rate of nonviolent resistance campaigns has declined since 2001"
and also
"incidental violence by dissidents has become a more common feature of contemporary nonviolent campaigns compared with earlier cases"
Wonder if those facts are related? Nonviolence isn't what it used to be, and also it's now become less effective?
>states have to some extended adapted to/exploited the strategic challenges posed by nonviolent resistance.
Sure -- and they've adapted to the strategic challenges posed by violent resistance as well, I'd argue.
>The second thing is that [the movement] needs to elicit loyalty shifts among security forces in particular, but also other elites. Security forces are important because they ultimately are the agents of repression, and their actions largely decide how violent the confrontation with — and reaction to — the nonviolent campaign is going to be in the end. But there are other security elites, economic and business elites, state media.
Get the violent ones on your side to ultinately win. Got it.
I don't think she's making the point she thinks she's making. And yes, I read the rest of the article. It focused primarily on events taking place in places where, lets face it, there's not quite the ah... oomph in gen pop that exists in the U.S. It's ulitimately a nice thought. It's absolutely accurate in that things like generalized striking and boycotts are great preambles as well. They're also considered illegal in the U.S. to coordinate btw, because of previous run ins with said efficacy during wartime in WWII. Secondary striking was outlawed. So formal unions can't use that as a tactic. You can thank the Taft-Hartley act for that.
So... Yeah. Might want to meditate on that one a bit harder.
1) The changes there are changes _within_ the system. That narrative only covers changes that are compatible with the industrial capitalist system. Indeed, the author focuses only on "transition to democracy". But I'd argue that nonviolent push for capitalism already has capitalism as a foregone conclusion because it is also more efficient, so even "doing nothing" can often bring it about.
2) Therefore, one could say that nonviolent action is most effective and bringing about the current corporate-controlled system.
Of course, that makes sense. But let's say you want to take down a corporate-controlled system. Then violence is likely to be much more effective.
The change to democracy doesn't happen in a vacuum. It's the most likely system to come about due to an advance in technology. So people advocating for it are already swimming with the tide. Also, if a large majority want democracy, then it's more likely to happen, especially due to pressure from other countries who are also democratic and have a vested interest in democracy.
If you want to make a change where the majority (or at list the rich majority) don't want, then violence will be much more effective. For example, I think it's likely that this one killing will do more to cause a renewed vigor in revamping America's health care than any nonviolent protest, because the richest capitalists and shareowners are against it.
>If you want to make a change where the majority (or at list the rich majority) don't want, then violence will be much more effective.
So you're saying violence is a morally acceptable way for a minority to force its will on a majority? This just sounds like an argument for dictatorship.
- - -
I think whatever argument you make in favor of violence, you should anticipate that your political opponents will make the exact same argument to excuse their violence. So whatever argument you make -- be sure it's an argument you are OK with your political opponents using.
A social contract regarding the times and places where it's acceptable to use violence is actually a really valuable thing. Confucius was actually on to something.
Violence creates a lot of problems, but it does solve some issues. Morals is a totally different topic, and whether "political opponents" will resort to violence is yet another topic.
Heck, even the mere fact that the suspect was arrested was based on state-sanctioned "violence". If the police didn't have guns and weren't allowed to use force to arrest people, no amount of non-violent actions would convince a murder suspect to voluntarily present themselves and subject themselves to trial in court.
Violence is probably generally bad overall, but the original statement that "Violence never solved anything" is just plainly false and a lie. It's not a defensible position.
> A social contract regarding the times and places where it's acceptable to use violence is actually a really valuable thing.
Right, this statement itself shows violence does work in a particular context and situation. Far from "violence never solved anything".
>Violence creates a lot of problems, but it does solve some issues. Morals is a totally different topic, and whether "political opponents" will resort to violence is yet another topic.
Degradation of the social contract and the response of those who disagree are potential problems with violence. That makes them on-topic.
>Heck, even the mere fact that the suspect was arrested was based on state-sanctioned "violence". If the police didn't have guns and weren't allowed to use force to arrest people, no amount of non-violent actions would convince a murder suspect to voluntarily present themselves and subject themselves to trial in court.
Indeed. I'm arguing that lawful violence should not, in general, be considered morally equivalent to unlawful violence.
When the state punishes a violent robber, that's not morally equivalent to me randomly punishing someone because I don't like their face. If people are able to successfully argue that these two situations are morally equivalent, expect your society to become a miserable place rather quickly.
I'm not sure why you're hung up on the specific phrase "violence never solved anything", given that it doesn't seem to appear in this comment's grandparent chain.
> So you're saying violence is a morally acceptable way for a minority to force its will on a majority? This just sounds like an argument for dictatorship.
No, I think it's a much more subtle concept than just giving a binary yes or no. Definitely willing to discuss away from this forum though.
> I think whatever argument you make in favor of violence, you should anticipate that your political opponents will make the exact same argument to excuse their violence.
They (capitalists) already use violence to enforce their society.
It's quite effective at causing _something_ to happen, but what that something is isn't controllable; the volatility in outcome can be sculpted via a lot of different approaches, but smaller actors have fewer tools to sculpt the outcome. And it's very easy to enter a state of total commitment from both sides no matter the other costs, essentially forcing other systems to be sacrificed toward what is now a "totally committed conflict." This happens on the small scale (person to person) and on the large scale (state to state). Violence forces shifts in every facet and system at every scale, shifts towards total commitments to more violence. Violence is the final means of trying to enact social change; there's nowhere else to go.
Those who've lived total commitment to violence are it's loudest opponents. I hope we can continue to listen to their stories.
Depends how you define betterment. I'd say putting society under global capitalism was worse for society (especially native tribes, but everyone I'd argue).
Colonialism predated global capitalism, and there's always been various forms of trade routes and wars over the course of civilization, and likely going back far before then. Global capitalism has raised the standard of living over the past century.
Violence certainly can be effective, but also not. Everything is situational. See the Black Panthers vs. peaceful protesting during the civil rights movement. See also the American Revolution. Whether or not violence makes sense likely depends on how strong you and your friends are.
This is also why the state apparatus like it incite violence in the opposition, this gives them authority to respond with violence.
Nonviolent protest and organizing is more dangerous because it could quickly become a populist movement. A small group of people incited into violence, is already fringe and can be quickly suppressed.
I wasn't suggesting that violence is ineffective. The French Revolution is an obvious example. I'm thinking about the "Reign of Terror" that followed though.
The French revolution was extremely ineffective. It turned a short term food crisis due to drought and hailstorms into a long term food crisis that lasted decades. It was a complete failure at addressing the suffering of the people, which only got better after they abandoned their revolutionary ideals, embraced an emperor, and raped and looted the rest of Europe.
In my post, I thought it was clear that I blamed the Napoleonic wars on the French revolution, carrying the resulting damage and suffering longer than that. An estimated 2 million French (more than 5% of France's population) died during the Napoleonic wars, and that obviously doesn't include the maimed, injured, or otherwise harmed.
Then I'm genuinely confused. The meaning of that sentence, to me, was that pillaging has helped with the famine. It would have been a sentence that was consistent with your previous one, except for the "decades" rounding error. Isn't it not what you meant?
yes, pillaging the rest of Europe helped with famine and other economic issues at home. This is consistent with claim of decades because we are looking at 1789-1815(ish) although I think the end is a blur, not line. The Consequences of actions cascade throughout the future, even to today, and just become more dilute as time passes on.
The number of years is really besides the point, which was to call out the consequences were long lasted, not just limited to the terror, and and included the wars.
I deeply appreciate the sentiments of the French revolutionary philosophers, and think we should strive for many of their ideals.
I just dont think mobs parading around the heads of bakers helps advance those ideals, let alone get the bread that doesn't exist for their hungry children.
Am I arguing? I didn't notice. I like Napoleon too and I'm intrigued that someone blames the casualties of the Napoleonic wars on the Revolution rather than, you know, Napoleon.
Events can have an unlimited number of necessary causes or preconditions.
Great men of History can have huge impacts, but usually ride massive tides of population level phenomenon, like economics, culture, and public sentiment.
Of course, it goes without saying. But at some point, I think one has to keep a certain restraint on that blame game. I think blaming the Revolution for Napoleonic wars causalities is crossing the threshold of acceptability.
The Zionist movement had a certain role to play in the Holocaust, didn't it? But most people would consider it a grave error in judgment to attribute blame to this movement for a certain part of Holocaust victims.
Yeah, I see what you mean but just take a much stronger approach. I think that France rampaging around the world was locked in with the French revolution and this is a bigger Factor than Napoleon himself.
One of the big problems with the King was that he was trying to implement tax reform to pay down France's foreign debt. The revolution simultaneously aborted this effort and worsened the situation.
I think an analogous situation that is often taught in textbooks is the impact of the treaty of Versailles on Germany. One could compare the relative impact of the treaty and Hitler on the course of history. I think most historians would argue that the rise of fascism and some war would have happened with or without Hitler as a result of the treaty terms. I think Hitler's personality shaped the scope and detail of that war, and the specific intensity of internal policy. However, without him awar would still have broken out, just with a different individual at the helm.
Moving even further afield you can look at characters like Cortez or Christopher Columbus. I think it's safe to say that Discovery and colonization of the Americas by Europe would have happened 99.9% of the time without them, and in a pretty similar manner. They're essentially replaceable and colonial events were determined almost entirely by the technological differences between continents, and the prevailing social doctrine in Europe. Europeans were bound to discover the Americas, and had spent the prior several hundred years in a cage match practicing the technologies and social structures for warfare and conquest against each other.
I'm not going to argue further on this line, I think we could see approximately where we'd end up agreeing. However, on this:
> Moving even further afield you can look at characters like Cortez or Christopher Columbus. I think it's safe to say that Discovery and colonization of the Americas by Europe would have happened 99.9% of the time without them, and in a pretty similar manner.
I heartily recommend "Civilizations" by Laurent Binet. It's fiction, but oh so delicious. On this very subject.
You don't know beforehand what bold collective actions lead to. Abolishing slavery lead to a pretty ugly civil war in the US. Does it mean it wasn't worth it?
> I disagree with his thoughts on violence. When you try to solve a problem by inviting violence to dinner you'll find you have a guest you are unable to excuse.
This is a pretty shallow opinion imo. The government operates on violence. America was founded in a violent revolution. The question people are asking isn't about whether violence has its place (it does); it's about how bad things have to get before you stop considering your government to have a legitimate monopoly on the use of violence, and people can start justly using violence themselves.
Non-violent economic power is an extremely powerful tool within systems that restrict the use of force.
If the vast majority of the public actually agreed on something, they could non-violently change anything in days.
The allure of violence is that people mistakenly think that they make change without support, when in reality, they are usually just creating effects, not the change that they want.
Shooting a school or rioting has a lot of effects, but they almost never make the desired change.
> If the vast majority of the public actually agreed on something
Huge ask right at the beginning. If that is met, there are several examples such as The Velvet Revolution, Iceland's Financial Crisis Protest, The Women’s Suffrage Movement, Philippine People Power Revolution (1986) etc.
Such a huge ask, I think that most of western society is not in a state to be able to fulfil it. Especially in the US and UK (but probably many others), we've become so polarised that there's some kind of perceived honour in opposing the other 'side', regardless of your own actual opinion. If we needed to fight for suffrage today, for example, I don't think there would be a "vast majority", just two roughly equal sides taking opposing views for the sake of it.
Well, the internet has finally helped realize the politician's dream - making the voter believe that:
1. They are in the right (no pun intended) group
2. All other groups are in the wrong
3. Their leader cares about them
4. He/she has the solution
When the reality is:
1. Most of us are in the same group
2. The group is of screwed over people
3. The leaders only care about gaining and staying in power
4. Why would the leaders find any solution that won't help with gaining and staying in power?
Do you have any idea just how bad a violent revolution in modern day America would get? The recent Civil War movie doesn't do it justice. I'm assuming anyone advocating for this has swallowed Russian propaganda.
I was there during the revolution in Ukraine.
Life isn’t the movies.
I’m not advocating for violence. On the contrary. But one has to wonder sometimes what percentage of the population has to work full time while not being able to afford basic necessities, until violence becomes an option
People act based on incentives and disincentives. As of 2024, there are big incentives to cause great damage to society at large for pure personal gain in a manner like this CEO, with no disincentives.
This brings back a potential disincentive, and is what has been incredibly sorely needed.
The French revolution is often brought up here as a case that is supposed to show that this kind of violence leads to horrific outcomes. This is ironic as on the whole, its results were fantastic. Reason being that it didn't just affect France - all over Europe, the monarchies were suddenly much more willing to restrain their power and care a lot more about the peasants.
This is exactly what is needed. This doesn't have to happen to every similar CEO to have an incredibly positive effect.
Part of the reason we established courts was to avoid angry mobs dispensing justice, but we've let the courts become captured to a large extent.
If you don't allow folks to seek justice in the courtroom, they'll inevitably return to "the jungle" so to speak.
It's our job as participants in society to do our best to avoid that, but we have to make changes. We can't be idle and wring our hands saying "it can't be helped" or "it's not illegal". We have to change things so that folks will be held accountable.
By doing what Luigi did, until suddenly those who do have the power to change things start realizing that fixing things is a better option than having an angry mob.
My comment wasn’t about political capture, but about the capture of the courts by the wealthy class. Apologies if that wasn’t clear.
The reality is that the courts have long struggled to hold wealthy and white-collar criminals accountable—unless, of course, their actions harm other wealthy individuals, in which case the system can sometimes swing into action.
This issue isn't unique to the United States either; it’s a broader problem where the justice system often fails to address the crimes of the privileged while disproportionately impacting lower-income communities.
Isn't it the legislative branch that is captured, rather than the judicial? I don't see the courts failing to uphold the law (save for the supreme court which fails to uphold the Constitution, but that doesn't weigh on the everyday person's life much, as we saw through the elections). Insurance companies (mostly) don't actually break the law. It's the legislators that continue to fail to address our problems, and who get paid to look the other way while the working class is looted.
1) Not comparable crimes. One happens in broad daylight in front of everyone, and the other is an almost always a case of one person's word against another, and unreported.
2) how many prosecutions do you think there are for shoplifting? I'm genuinely interested to know, and couldn't find it.
3) Even if you ignore this, the public cares a lot about shop lifting! you dont need a judicial capture conspiracy.
> I don't see the courts failing to uphold the law (save for the supreme court which fails to uphold the Constitution, but that doesn't weigh on the everyday person's life much, as we saw through the elections)
you may of course disagree, I'd like to hear your perspective.
I’d be open to ideas of reform. But so often the hot-takes I read online about “THE COURTS ARE RIGGED!1!1!” is simply one of disliking the ideological composition
Abe Fortas was forced to resign for a conflict of interest. Now conservative members of SCOTUS openly receive gifts and vacations, and resist efforts to hold them accountable in any meaningful way.
Things are certainly worse, not just some minor political winds shifting.
Yet, violence is constantly used by governments and countries. If it is not effective why are the only surviving countries the ones who which have been willing to use violence?
This is a great one. There were plenty of nonviolent protests in Syria throughout the years. They were executed and imprisoned without accomplishing a single thing.
Take a moment to refresh your memory of the Pol Pot regime. If half the population aren't literally getting bludgeoned to death in the streets, remember it can get so, so much worse, so tread carefully with accelerationist sentiments.
I feel like I've ripped off the bandaid for a few weeks now and I'm left with a 'now what?' feeling. I'm stuck trying to think of ways we can bring the temperature down and bring us back to being a civil society.
Personally, I don't put a lot of weight on that. Particularly for people who are terminally online, the Unabomber manifesto is kinda "edgy content". A lot of these people want to come off as "edgy". He had Mein Kampf in his Goodreads profile too. Without other evidence, I don't think that really says anything either.
Good example: his Goodreads had "Introduction to Algorithms" in it. This is the de facto textbook at MIT, Stanford, etc and likely UPenn (where he got his undergrad and Masters). Does that mean he read it? Not necessarily.
Put it this way: the number of people who have read Knuth's volumes is a lot smaller than those who own them as essentially expensive bookends or paperweights. But it's a nice way to signal your technical chops.
All of these things need to be taken in a broader context.
Ted K's book is a lucid commentary on technology and society and recommends the dismantling of technological society. Not sure why it would be considered "edgy".
