In this sense, violence is not like murder. Murder is defined according to a particular context, and as such, it is always wrong.

Wrath — Baden

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?

Killing someone in self-defence is not murder for example. Killing someone unjustly, and without due cause, that, on the other hand, is murder. Because of this attachment to a particular context (or set of contexts) it is possible to judge murder as always wrong. Indeed, we have defined the concept in such a way that it is necessarily wrong.

Wrath is inherently wrong, agree or not? — Baden

Wrath is an excess of anger, again, it's defined such that it's always wrong.

Wrath is an excess of anger, again, it's defined such that it's always wrong. — Agustino

"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:

so why just blame children?

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.)

You just have an unnatural aversion to violence, such that you don't see that it's ever good. — Agustino

I think I am as natural as you.

Violence in-itself is not a problem. — Agustino

What is violence in-itself? To me, in-itself it is always contextual. — 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?

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. — Baden

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.

Oh, I don't. I just wanted to point out that children often appear to find a rather unmediated glee in, say, knocking down another's block-tower (something, incidentally, that you see happening in sublimated form on the forum all the time). For most kids, they stop short of seriously harming another kid. And most adults find alternative outlets for their grown-up aggresion. Especially if the grown-up has the economic security to allow them a safe-space to harmlessly playact harm. But this isn't everyone.

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.

Yes, but if I imagine a rich family in my town laying wreck to my family; and then years later, as an old man, I'm invited to a party, at a house seized from my family long ago, and I listen to the grandchildren of the aggressors decrying their grandparents, while lounging on my grandmother's couch - it would give me the queasy feeling that these grandkids are so secure in the transfer of power, that they can symbolically attack it. I think that might sting worse than anything else. It's the soft-spoken 'I'm so sorry for your loss' of someone at a funeral you know contributed to the ruin of the deceased, before he goes back to the life made easier by inflicting that ruin.

Couldn't he really be sorry and not personally responsible though? Seems a bit of a contrived analogy.

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. — Baden

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.

Sure, the grandkids may be really sorry too. But take away the material circumstances and social protection in which they can nurture this feeling and I'm skeptical they'd feel the same way. A whole lot of our nobler passions are predicated on our knowing we're economically secure.

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.

A whole lot of our nobler passions are predicated on our knowing we're economically secure. — csalisbury

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).

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. I'll have to try to find a link. — 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.

The reality is that no one wants my tomatoes. — unenlightened

OK, I'll take the effing tomatoes. Jesus. :p

And you are all telling me that I should be grateful for this to the state violence that protects me. — 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.

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. — unenlightened

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.

If I ever find out you post from a starbucks, I'm going to flag you three times over.

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.

. Ah see. Here the noble worker can walk in with his greasy clothes and say 'hello, im here to forget the mines through the restorative power of one refreshing iced latte" While in your case, its only monocled fat cats getting deluxe cappucinos for some unspecified use at their obscene sex rituals.

*goes back to drinking a supreme luxury latte freed from guilt*

but wth is your minimum wage - like a buck?

Hurrah for sapiens sapiens, a territorial primate, who’s closest cousin, in a manner of speaking, is pan troglodytes? I see it as in the nature of the beast, which may be modified somewhat by civilization. Hurrah for civilization, as imperfect as it is! — Stan

I thought this said it all and well-said at that, anything else being mere detail.

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:

hooooly

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. — csalisbury

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!

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. — Agustino

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.

That's not true. Violence does not always produce resentment. — 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.

Yeah but there's plenty of state presence in the rust belt. You can't rob a walgreens and get away with it, tho you're free to die of opioids walgreens, or other customers of walgreens, give you. Life in the rust belt, by all accounts, is miserable - but still the state holds sway. (there's also a deep tradition of extended family support subtending it). There's no room for a mafia there. If one cropped up, itd be quickly stamped out.


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 think you are trying to justify violence and pretend it is peace. — unenlightened

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.

I have merely pointed out and lamented that the world that we live in is founded on violence. — 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.

(@Baden @unenlightened and anyone else - Here's the Lyotard if you're interested. Best I could do was a google books preview, but the whole thing's on there.)