Violence is always a bad answer.
Sometimes its the least bad answer of the options available.
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Violence may not be the answer, but it's always an answer.
"violence is not the answer" coming from the people commiting it.
"all political violence is wrong"
detains community leaders in concentration camps
"we should talk things out in the marketplace of ideas"
censors all discussion of wealth redistribution, even the most tame acts like raising taxes on billionaires just a little bit
"violence has no place in our lives"
invades a nation in the global south under flimsy pretexts
most people i know who are pacifists are trust fund hippie types who've never had to struggle or fight for anything and think everyone should just sit around and smoke weed and live a minimal life from the income on their investments.
That just tells me how often we fail to find the right answer and then continue going ahead like violence is the right answer. It's an indictment against us as a whole.
It takes two people to come to an agreement, but only one to start a fight.
Ironically, Mutually Assured Destruction has actually prevented nuclear war, even if it did result in a lot of proxy wars.
It's a real world example of the trolley problem. The US and USSR killed hundreds of thousands Vietnamese but saved the lives of billions of other folks.
Exactly. If we keep doing it, clearly it is not the answer but rather a postponement
This is a situation like tolerance. People who are for tolerance do not need to tolerate intolerance to be tolerant, same goes for non-violence.
Exactly. If we keep doing it, clearly it is not the answer but rather a postponement
Clearly the answer to hunger is not eating. The answer to being tired is not sleeping. The answer to making a mistake is not apologizing...
Violence is not a biological need. If you keep making the same mistake, an apology isn't the answer since clearly it means nothing. An actual apology with actual effort to not repeat that mistake is important
That just tells me how often we fail to find the right answer and then continue going ahead like violence is the right answer
Okay, so what was the right answer to say... Hitler trying to take over the world?
Not this again. The indictment is against Hitler. Hitler decided to go to war and commit genocide instead of going to therapy, maybe. Can we please just stop with the whatabout-ism?
It's not whataboutism, it's a legitimate point. I agree that Hitler was the problem and at fault, but that doesn't change the fact that for the rest of the world the 'right' answer to the Hitler problem was in fact violence.
Sorry but there is an assumption implicit in your argument that tyrants like Hitler are somehow not human and are exceptional and not really a part of humanity. Well, they are.
There is this quote that I absolutely love
"No tyrant could thrive where every subject said no. The tyrant thrives when the first fucking fool salutes." -Steven Erikson.
I repeat, it is really shameful of us that we are far too often the fools to salute.
Sorry but there is an assumption implicit in your argument that tyrants like Hitler are somehow not human and are exceptional and not really a part of humanity
Never claimed or implied that. So don't really have anything to respond to here as this is all entirely unrelated to what I was saying.
Perhaps I am failing to make you understand that in my mind, Axis and Allies are a part of one larger group, humanity. Hitler starting the war to conquer Europe is a failing of humanity, in this case failing of Germans to stop Hitler from sparking the war. I am not saying that Allies responding in kind, with violence is failing. It was only appropriate. They most likely were left with no other choice.
It was only appropriate. They most likely were left with no other choice.
Therefore, on the individual level there are in fact times when violence is the answer, even if that's just because it is the only answer remaining.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
Isaac Asimov, Foundation
Did he propose a workable alternative (actually asking)? Not that it invalidates the point one way or the other, just wonder if he had some "system" he preferred.
It's been a long time since I read Foundation, so I'm not sure if there's specific context provided right around the provided quote. The entire series is about an organization trying to mitigate the collapse of a galactic empire, and how its goals are primarily achieved through guile and subtlety, rather than trying to win wars.
I believe it was along the lines of "actually solve the problem".
There's so many diverse causes of violence that there's not one solution or alternative. Resource shortage? Find a way to fix it. Land shortage? Find a way to use what you have more efficiently.
If you can't solve the problem you're by definition not competent.
I don't believe he thought the incompetent should meekly roll over and die, but rather that violence was a failure to solve the problem correctly. If you find yourself in a position where you need to do violence it's not because you had no choice, but because you didn't know what that other option was.
It's worth remembering he was one of those people who said exactly what they meant. If he meant that violence was unacceptable no matter what he would have said that. He was a pacifist in the "what if we don't invade Vietnam?" sense, not in the "I will let you beat me rather than raise my hand in anger" way.
"Those that makes peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable."
The theft from the output of one's labor under threat of starvation and death is an insidious form of violence.
It's ideal to attempt harm reduction but when all possible non violent methods have been exhausted, violence is the remaining method of harm reduction.
violence may NOT be the answer (because force is NOT the answer), but if we CAN'T settle our fight with peace, then we must reluctantly use force. seriously!
"If war never changes, then men must change."
- Ulysses, Fallout New Vegas
(This is a verbatim quote, but that would be the accurate thing to say, yeah.)
In archaic language (which Ulysses certainly is using in the game), men refers to all human beings.
'man' and 'men' started as gender neutral terms, like a shortened form of 'human'. The prefix for male humans was 'wer' and for female humans 'wif', which is where we get the words werewolf and wife.
Wait, so I'm a werman?
At some point I fear it's the only language that wasn't tried, yet.
I mean, if we are talking international wars between major world powers, the only thing keeping bullets from flying directly at each other are nuclear weapons. They are the persistent gun to all of our heads to force the diplomats to not flip the table.
Until 1945, violence was the primary language of the world. At least in terms of subduing another world power.
You can be nice, but there are people who exist who will take your kindness and then go commit a genocide. Those people should be your enemies.
Shut it Thorfinn Karlsefni.
I was expecting many things but this, this ain't fucken one of em. What the actual fuck am I looking at. Why is Mikus cousin getting her mouth and jaw flesh gripped like meat flaps.
Y'know what fuck it going to go watch some random shit have fun with thine waifu bait homunculus.
I think reading history honestly only confirms this point. Violence is not the answer if by answer we mean the proper remedy to conflict. It’s what we’ve done, but it’s not a good idea.
The winners of wars write the history books. There are so many peaceful small wins that we don’t share enough. Violence does not have to be the answer, but we lack the imagination to believe this because we are not being taught the peaceful ways. Not even in movies and games.
Maybe since things remain the same, turning to violence as the answer is like when they only saw the bullet holes in non essential parts of the airplanes, and we're only reading books that record violent conflict
Violence is the result of us still not having all the right, or even most of the right answers, collectively. Obviously we all think we have the right answers, that's a whole other part of the problem.
History contains a lot more peaceful trade and cooperation than it does war. You know how they say "history is written by the victors"? There's truth to that, but I'm much more a fan of "history is written by those who wrote it down."
Now that sounds kind of nonsensically tautological on its face, but there are two main takeaways to this: it was only written by the people who and the means and the ability (usually rich and/or educated people which definitely has an impact on history) and they only wrote it down if it was noteworthy. So you might get some forms of record keeping when it comes to commerce, but by and large if things were uninteresting and just another day in the life then nobody would be too inclined to make a record of it.
War, by its very nature, is very disruptive and noteworthy. You can see how people would be more inclined to make a record of it, to say nothing of the literary works that it can inspire.
Fun fact:
Like the news, history tends to focus s LOT more on the worst things and the most dramatic things.
Good ideas quietly succeeding is the most important building block of human society, but it hardly ever gets a mention.
Also, violence against certain groups is plenty dramatic but is counter to the most pleasing narrative, so it also gets left on the cutting room floor. There's an entire genre of post on the Internet of people being amazed at things they were never taught, that never got a movie or TV show made about it. Black Wall Street, The 1945 Firebombing of Tokyo, Battle of Blair Mountain, the Samar Campaign. And that's just shit the Americans did.
If violence was never the answer, violence wouldn't be a multi trillion dollar global industry.
It's usually the answer that's chosen, but it's almost never the BEST answer for the MAJORITY of people affected.
"Luckily", the ones who get to choose are almost invariably the ones with the most to gain from violence and/or suppression via the threat of violence.
The problem with violence is that it works
Mixed results at best. Violent solutions have to be overwhelmingly successful, incredibly thorough and over fast. Otherwise, the problem drags on in quagmire. Generations of hatred and endless, cyclical violence that solves nothing.
And arguably in the modern world, direct violence is incredibly inefficient. Propaganda and having a country tear itself apart from the inside is easier, cheaper and poses way less risk. It's people's willingness to jump to violent solutions that makes them malleable to a more stochastic approach and actually leaves them more vulnerable in the long run.
And arguably in the modern world, direct violence is incredibly inefficient. Propaganda and having a country tear itself apart from the inside is easier, cheaper and poses way less risk.
Using propaganda to destabilize a country is an act of violence, albeit a indirect one.
For a few years. The slayed fathers and sons are never forgotten. You just delay the response. Historically, there’s almost always a response.
Works to do what, exactly? Big changes can be made, yes. At whose direction for whose benefit?
A voting majority of Americans chose Donald Trump as their President with full knowledge of what he is. Would you expect a violent mob of these people to deliver the changes you would be happy with?
The truth is, in modern times revolution does not mean barricades any more. These belong to the past. The social revolution is a far different and more essential matter: it involves the reorganization of the entire life of society. You will agree that this is certainly not to be accomplished by mere fighting.
Of course, the obstacles in the path of the social reconstruction have to be removed. That is to say the means of that reconstruction must be secured by the masses. Those means are at present in the hands of government and capitalism, and these will resist every effort to deprive them of their power and possessions. That resistance will involve a fight. But remember that the fight is not the main thing, is not the object, not the revolution. It is only the preface, the preliminary to it.
It is very necessary that you get this straight. Most people have very confused notions about revolution. To them it means just fighting, smashing things, destroying. It is the same as if rolling up your sleeves for work should be considered as the work itself that you have to do. The fighting part of revolution is merely the rolling up of your sleeves. The real, actual task is ahead.
What is that task?
“The destruction of the existing conditions,” you reply.
True. But conditions are not destroyed by breaking and smashing things. You can’t destroy wage slavery by wrecking the machinery in mills and factories, can you? You won’t destroy government by setting fire to the White House.
To think of revolution in terms of violence and destruction is to misinterpret and falsify the whole idea of it. In practical application such a conception is bound to lead to disastrous results.
When a great thinker, like the famous Anarchist Bakunin, speaks of revolution as destruction, he has in mind the ideas of authority and obedience which are to be destroyed. It is for this reason that he said that destruction means construction, for to destroy a false belief is indeed most constructive work.
But the average man, and too often even the revolutionist, thoughtlessly talks of revolution as being exclusively destructive in the physical sense of the word. That is a wrong and dangerous view. The sooner we get rid of it the better.
Revolution, and particularly the social revolution, is not destruction but construction. This cannot be sufficiently emphasized, and unless we clearly realize it, revolution will remain only destructive and thereby always a failure. Naturally revolution is accompanied by violence, but you might as well say that building a new house in place of an old one is destructive because you have first to tear down the old one. Revolution is the culminating point of a certain evolutionary process: it begins with a violent upheaval. It is the rolling up of your sleeves preparatory to starting the actual work.
Indeed, consider what the social revolution is to do, what it is to accomplish, and you will perceive that it comes not to destroy but to build.
What, really, is there to destroy?
The wealth of the rich? Nay, that is something we want the whole of society to enjoy.
The land, the fields, the coal mines, the railroads, factories, mills, and shops? These we want not to destroy but to make useful to the entire people.
The telegraphs, telephones, the means of communication and distribution — do we want to destroy them? No, we want them to serve the needs of all.
What, then, is the social revolution to destroy? It is to take over things for the general benefit, not to destroy them. It is to reorganize conditions for the public welfare.
Not to destroy is the aim of the revolution, but to reconstruct and rebuild.
It is for this that preparation is needed, because the social revolution is not the Biblical Messiah who is to accomplish his mission by simple edict or order. Revolution works with the hands and brains of men. And these have to understand the objects of the revolution so as to be able to carry them out. They will have to know what they want and how to achieve it. The way to achieve it will be pointed by the objects to be attained. For the end determines the means, just as you have to sow a particular seed to grow the thing you need.
Let us pause and consider this.
How do you imagine a revolution could be fought in these days of armored tanks, poison gas, and military planes? Do you believe that the unarmed masses and their barricades could withstand high-power artillery and bombs thrown upon them from flying machines? Could labor fight the military forces of government and capital?
It’s ridiculous on the face of it, isn’t it? And no less ridiculous is the suggestion that the workers should form their own regiments, “shock troops,” or a “red front,” as the Communist parties advise you to do. Will such proletarian bodies ever be able to stand up against the trained armies of the government and the private troops of capital? Will they have the least chance?
Such a proposition needs only to be stated to be seen in all its impossible folly. It would simply mean sending thousands of workers to certain death.
It is time to have done with this obsolete idea of revolution. Nowadays government and capital are too well organized in a military way for the workers ever to be able to cope with them. It would be criminal to attempt it, insanity even to think of it.
The strength of labor is not on the field of battle. It is in the shop, in the mine and factory. There lies its power that no army in the world can defeat, no human agency conquer.
In other words, the social revolution can take place only by means of the General Strike. The General Strike, rightly understood and thoroughly carried out, is the social revolution. Of this the British Government became aware much quicker than the workers when the General Strike was declared in England in May, 1926. “It means revolution,” the Government said, in effect, to the strike leaders. With all their armies and navies the authorities were powerless in the face of the situation. You can shoot people to death but you can’t shoot them to work. The labor leaders themselves were frightened at the thought that the General Strike actually implied revolution.
British capital and government won the strike — not by the strength of arms, but because of the lack of intelligence and courage on the part of the labor leaders and because the English workers were not prepared for the consequences of the General Strike. As a matter of fact, the idea was quite new to them. They had never before been interested in it, never studied its significance and potentialities. It is safe to say that a similar situation in France would have developed quite differently, because in that country the toilers have for years been familiar with the General Strike as a revolutionary proletarian weapon.
It is most important that we realize that the General Strike is the only possibility of social revolution. In the past the General Strike has been propagated in various countries without sufficient emphasis that its real meaning is revolution, that it is the only practical way to it. It is time for us to learn this, and when we do so the social revolution will cease to be a vague, unknown quantity. It will become an actuality, a definite method and aim, a program whose first step is the taking over of the industries by organized labor.
I understand now why you said that the social revolution means construction rather than destruction,” your friend remarks.
I am glad you do. And if you have followed me so far, you will agree that the matter of taking over the industries is not something that can be left to chance, nor can it be carried out in a haphazard manner. It can be accomplished only in a well-planned, systematic, and organized way. You alone can’t do it, nor I, nor any other man, be he worker, Ford, or the Pope of Rome. There is no man nor any body of men that can manage it except the workers themselves, for it takes the workers to operate the industries. But even the workers can’t do it unless they are organized and organized just for such an undertaking.
from Now and After by Alexander Berkman, chapters 26: Preparation and 27: Organization of Labor for the Social Revolution. Written between WW1 and 2. Available to read or download for free here.
Revolution is construction, yes
image a building
the floors below 3 are alright but the floors above 3 are rotten and termite infested
you cannot build more floors without endangering the structure unless you knock down the floors above 3
If he or she does, it is knocked down in a single gust of wind no matter how strong the rest of it is
the only way is to destroy the floors and make new floors
the floors above 3 are when the system that Rockefeller and all the capitalist class invented and profit off was implemented)
theyll just shoot the strikers and the media will paint the strikers as EVIL COMMIE REDS
like the american revolution and civil war, our best bet is to influence some of the military to join us and cause a split in the military
I present to you Mohenjo Daro. The most autistic coded civilisation I've ever heard of.
What history book talks about all the violent uprising in the last 20 years? I ask this because of the following:
- The US military is insanely powerful and targeted
- They have huge amounts of data to know where you are. Thank you flock and doge
- They want the civilians to rise up so they can declare an emergency at voting time.

What history book talks about all the violent uprising in the last 20 years?
None, because no history book talks about anything in the last 20 years. Stuff that recent is "current events;" it isn't "history" yet.
Stuff that recent is “current events;” it isn’t “history” yet.
Yesterday would beg to differ on that.
I'm just saying it takes a while to get far enough from an event for historians to be able to look at it in retrospect, consider all its context and consequences, and come to a reasonable consensus about which parts were important and what to write about them.
For example I saw this video earlier about the levee failures in New Orleans during Katrina, which was 21 years ago. It made the good point that the repercussions of the event (in terms of engineering and otherwise) are still unfolding today: the historical record of what happened then is incomplete without the context that's happening now.
(The youtuber was also hawking his new book on the history of engineering failures, but never mind that part.)
Or for a more prosaic example, that's why my history textbooks in school in the '90s stopped around 1970 or so. They weren't 20 years old; they just didn't know what to say about the '80s yet. (And if they had been 20 years old, they probably would have barely talked about anything after WWII.)
Cmon, it'll be fast. One, two week revolution tops. All the celebrities you like are doing it. Including that one. You know who I'm talking about.
I hope because I sure don't.
Violence is not the answer because we learned from the history books, looking for answers in the history books is akin to repeating history, which is generally seen as the incorrect answer.
Looking at history is always wise because you can look for things that worked and other things that didn't work, and try to figure out why, and replicate the things that worked and avoid the things that didn't work.
Otherwise, you risk repeating mistakes already learned at the price of blood.
At worst, you can ignore the unhelpful things you've learned (that are not worth avoiding).
But, all these people in power keep telling us that violence is never the answer. They would never lie to us.
Yeah I think about "our tribe is suffering a famine. Tribe over there has food" sensation then we figure out why there's shoulder high walls





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