Violence

(Taken from ILP forum)

Violence is a condition of every thing, when what we mean by violence is aggressive imposition/s of power as force of restraint and coersion. This force need only be sufficient to produce a restraining or a coersing in order to be considered a violence.

An example: the cells in your body are a violence. What a cell is is an imposition of restraining and coersive forces qua structure upon its interiority, and an imposition of aggressive restraint-as-resistance or coersion-as-appropriation upon a cell's exteriority. (Of course restraint and coersion have a great deal of overlap, but I am simplifying here to get the points across most easily). Every structural form is itself both an imposition/s of force/s as well as the result of other such impositions (impositions themselves are already everywhere conditioned by further impositionings).

Another example: the force of law is always a violence, violence upon the past order and history, upon nature, upon the membership under which law is imposed. Self-directed or democratic legal frameworks therefore being a form of self-violence, a means of trying to gain some further direct control over the violence mechanism of law.

This all has powerful significance for philosophy. Why? It changes the way we see things, the way we think about the world and about objects and object-relations within the world. It changes how we view possibility, how we understand what is possible and how and from where this possibility and the potency of the possible arises. It strikes me that powerful thinkers tend already to have some understanding of this implicit nature of violence, since more intricate and subtle demonstrations of thought tend to be in large part navigations and tracings of the pathways of and potentialities for various violences. Often we are prone to thinking of violence only in a sense of what is to be avoided or minimized, and it is my contention that this harms our potential for philosophizing. Why? Because this approach is a veiling of the intrinsicness of violence---of the inseparability of violence from all systems and from every form---a pretending that violence represents only a sort of "undesirable remainder" within the equations of things, something unfortunate and hopefully to be "overcome" eventually, removed. I get a sense of this today in politics, both a capitulation to violence that lacks subtlety and direction as well as an utopianism that pretends humans may work toward a day when violence as such ceases to be a reality. These positions impose their own relative degrees of ineptitude by taking on such views.

Power is a violence, it always has been and always will be. Power is the capacity FOR violence. This is what power IS. This says nothing of the ends to which this capacity is put - and this is the "problem" today, that philosophical and political discussion both cannot raise themselves to this level of discussing the ethics and aesthetics of violence as both sheer capacity and dynamic application, because the terms of the discussion still revolve around simplistic, antiquated and moralistic conceptions of violence as the undesirable remainder. Or the situation is made even worse through further embedding of this notion within the ideological realm by proclaiming the inevitability of this undesirable remainder, thus veiling what is already unseen, unseeable, for a second time and more effectively, under its own "negative" image of an inevitability.

We must stop being afraid to speak openly of violence, in philosophy, in politics, in general. Where we see tragic violence, horrible violence, we must pierce into these to see where and how the principle of violence is operative and to what extent situational conditions have given rise to and molded this manifest principle. We can then begin the task of theorizing ways of altering this situational architecture to redirect the violent impetus toward something more beneficial, less perhaps crudely destructive. One practical utility that may stem from a more honest and accurate aim at understanding the nature of violence is that we might gain insight into the possibilities for truly revolutionary political and social change, which might lead to practical results in the sphere of sociopolitical movements. Emancipatory politics that takes an "undesirable remainder" view of violence (even where it makes willing use of violent means), that fails to embrace and understand it as it is, must likewise fail to make most effective use of violent potential and will undoubtedly continue to remain largely ineffective. This has been the unfortunate situation with otherwise well intended yet largely fruitless emancipatory politics for some time.

Humankind seems largely afraid of its capacity for violence, which means: afraid of its own power. This means also: afraid of its own responsibility. Our efforts through constitutional democracy are in large part to best contain violence, compartmentalize and diffuse its potency. Of course the elimination of violence itself can never be achieved, and even to the extent that we achieve a temporary effective dispersal we also introduce here vast damings and repressions into the system, hidden irrationalities and structural deficiencies eventually leading to uncontrollable outpourings of chaotic violence in the form of large systemic breaks and breakings-down. The accumulated systemic daming-up that is the attempted dispersings-away of violence repersents the degree to which such a system achieves, at the price of its temporary (and increasingly unstable) existence, its own long-term unsustainability and a longevity bounded on its furthest end by an inescapably and ever-approaching absolute limit.

Isn't it time we began working to systematically (re)introduce higher understandings and refined ambitions back into the human ideologico-political space/s? Undesirable, destructive violence is a symptom of a lack of power, which means: a lack of control, of responsibility, a lack of vision, of ambition, of courage and of hope.

Excellent. I think that the conclusion drawn from this must be that we approach the notion of violence as a very broad category (almost as broad as "being", as you indicate), which desperately needs to be dissected, differentiated. We may do this with the help of value-ontology, or however we will call this thinking in the future.

Violence is often an imposing of one being on another being, but not always. We can speak fo the violence of the wind, for example and the wind is not an entity. So we can distinguis between intentional violence, violence committed by an actual being, in other words, violence as am act, and the violence of "the world", this storm of becoming, as such.

Being as a verb has among its requirements an arming against the violence of chaos. Entropy is the violent tendency of nature to dissolve all being. Set against this violence must be a violence committed by the being itself - violence against entropy. By being, we violate the law of the common denominator. We "impose our being violently on the real" as I remember Zizek writing somewhere. Or perhaps he was speaking of truth, that is imposed. Truth, as the epoch o being in which a specific entity is permitted to exist as-such. Such a context is imposed, violently, on nothingness.

But here we begin to notice the change in perception. Violence, as seen in the setting the context for being, appears now as benevolence, of creating stability, peace out of chaos. The connotation of evil to violence has here become entirely crazy - evil would be the corruption, making inefficient of the standard-setting violence.

So we have the first distinction in the broad category of violence -- effective versus ineffective violence. Effective to what? To being, standard setting, enabling self-valuing of a particular type. If violence accomplishes this, it must be given another name than the violences of a) entropy, and b) blind, stupid, ineffective enacting.

Capable wrote:

Isn't it time we began working to systematically (re)introduce higher understandings and refined ambitions back into the human ideologico-political space/s? Undesirable, destructive violence is a symptom of a lack of power, which means: a lack of control, of responsibility, a lack of vision, of ambition, of courage and of hope.

Hmm.. perhaps a matter of perspective..


All that a person does is but a little bit more noise in the fray. But your noise can be directed more toward what you accept as a positive rather than merely turned loose such as to undirectedly become a negative. Thus children are taught, tires are checked, calculations are made, violins are tuned, roses are purchased, wine is chilled.. all merely in a effort to direct the noise a little more toward the positive. Just try to learn the difference between positive and negative, BEFORE you choose, before the choice of spouse, before the child is conceived, before the child is taught, before the politics is chosen, before the belief in the need to lead others into war and domination.

Homosapian has gotten himself into such a state that he cannot truly resolve any problem without resolving all problems. And though he has been prepared and given the answers, he is not quite ready to understand how to do that. But if you want a short glimpse into the future...

Nothing has ever, does, or will ever exist without inspiration. What you call "violence" is inspired from many directions. All behaviors are inspired by too much of their opposite, seen as a threat. The opposite of your Violence is none other than.. Peace.

Life cannot and will not abide by any extreme. Life tolerates every form of extreme up to a point, but tip the balance of life too far, and no matter who you are, no matter what great power you wield, you will be overcome, possibly to death. Life will not tolerate control by anything but the whole of itself of which is neither Man nor order of men.

God did indeed create Ahdam, as God creates all that has ever existed. But though it was written that God said, "this is good", I assure you, that wasn't The God speaking. To try to control the life of another beyond their will, is a sin/error in jusdgment. If such control is discovered, which it always will be, the controller will be destroyed.. always (hence the need to hide behind the fig leaves). Stop trying to control the lives of others beyond their will, without their knowledge and agreement. As always, Life tolerates the effort.. up to a point, a point before which one was to have learned of his sin/error. Homosapian does not learn quickly.

All violence is inspired by perceived need, the perceived hopes and threats that indicate violence is the best choice. The simple mind, seeing threat most readily, attempts to use threat against violence, threat against threat, fire against fire, hatred against hatred. But as any fire marshal will tell you, such can only lead to a better resolve when carefully controlled by "the experts".

When the experts, the generals, the politicians, anoint violence to be used against violence, they no longer call it violence, but "justified war". Yet it is still one element of life attempting to control others. Life will tolerate only a limited amount of such dominion.. from ANYone... anyone at all or any order or group.

Thus the lesson that is finally learned (not too distance from now), is that Life shall not be controlled by worship of pyramid orders, socialist structures. Even the shape and form of a pyramid is only limitedly tolerated by Life. Look at any of the trillions of forms of life. Try to find a single one in the form of a pyramid. Pyramids can only exist as long as life itself protects them and that protection is forfeit upon too much effort to dominate the one doing the protecting.

The balance between Violence and Peace is called "Harmony". Life and all that exists depend on and protects its own harmony, without which it has no life or form. Thus focus not for or against the opposite poles, but rather on the essence of life itself, the harmony that defines the very soul, definition of Life. Stop merely pushing in an opposite direction such as to cause a tide that you cannot control. Increase the effort instead to seek more of what life actually is rather than merely the effort to destroy what it is not, consume all energy in the direction of maximum harmony both within oneself and between oneself and all immediately surrounding, then one has disinspired, removed the energy from, the cause what his life isn't. That which maintains its harmony, cannot perish.

Without the threat of disharmony, replaced by the hope of harmony, the sins of Violence and stagnant Peace have no inspiration and lose their right to exist.

A) learn what "Harmony" means
B) learn the difference between "Self-harmony" and "Controlling the harmony of others"
C) learn to stop trying to control the lives of others.
D) learn to focus on increasing the momentum, the energy and swirl of your Self-Harmony, your own lives.
E) learn how to teach others why they would want to do the same.
F) learn how to teach them how to do the same should they choose to.

Life cherishes the harmony within life.. wherein there is neither Peace nor Violence, but eternal perpetual motion; dancing, thinking, singing, feeding, building, restoring, and resting.

When that day comes, there will be no more room for violence nor its inspiration. It will find no need.
Until then, one has no option but to try to learn for themselves and
- LEAVE OTHER PEOPLE TO THEIR OWN LESSONS AND ACCEPTANCE.
- STOP TRYING TO BE THE INVISIBLE "IMAGE OF GOD", CONTROLLING ALL LIFE. Invisibility is absolutely metaphysically impossible.

.. and try to not forget again, that genocide equates to suicide.

Until such lessons are learned, the sin/error in judgment, the suffering, and the violence will continue.