A love for violence

Today I woke up and chose to think about violence. Partly because that's what I do, and partly because finishing ICE 1021 came with the realization of having met my "feel good" quota. So, all mental space free, I turned inwards and back to violence. And to be honest, isn't this the most natural thing given the current world order? I'm sure Google won't like this post, but please join me in this rant if you somehow found it.

Violence as an answer

To be crystal clear: I don't advocate for violence as a panacea of any kind. If you are familiar with my work, I'm sure you know this. And still, more often than not, a discussion about politics gets to a halt by exactly this argument:

We can't do X because you can't answer (violence) with violence

This being, all in all, a valid, if not a naïve argument, for all the good reasons. First of all, I find it fascinating how violence is often synonymous with armed aggression, where in fact, it isn't. When we talk about how impossible it is to get involved in conflicts (around us, that somehow aren't ours. No looking in any specific cardinal direction), we often straight out reject the possibility of putting boots to resolve conflicts, out of principle, bypassing evaluation and consideration. This is wrong. And again, I'm not trying to sway anyone into armed conflict, rather trying to make it obvious, how defenseless we have become because of our own hypocrisy.

Let's review common mechanisms of negotiation in politics and human interaction:

• Isolation of second party (think embargoes for countries, segregation for individuals)
• Rhetoric (Feats of strength, status, wealth, culture, morals, laws)
• Supporting adversaries
• Dropping support, cooperation
• Threats (direct action, or any of the above)

All of these look, following the previous thought, as non-aggression , even deescalating measures for resolving conflicts. Yet, they are all forms of coercion that only work if the relationship between both parties is already asymmetrical. Think about the school bully (Trump) threatening nerd (the now abducted Maduro. Any news of him? Is he even alive?) for getting his lunch (oil) using any of the above actions. doesn't it sound like violence? Now, let's invert the scenario and have the bullied kid trying to apply any of those to someone bullying them. We know those stories from media (David beating Goliath, Karate Kid's Daniel winning the tournament, China getting out of the USA's, Zelenskyy in the Oval Office rallying support), stories where we root for the underdog that is attacked in all possible ways, and they having the moral high ground try to use all resources (the above) available to them, until they finally have to resort to violence, get greenlighted and succeed and triumph over evil. What I'm trying to say is: If one side of the transaction looks like violence, then the other, although less effective, is also violence, it is fighting back. Meaning that considering any possibility logically means putting armed violence on the menu. But then, why do we dismiss this specific sort of action and regard it as the epitome of violence?

A love for violence

There is a Japanese saying that exemplifies our current topic

The only solution for bad and violent people are good people that are more skilled in violence

Needless to say, everyone and their dad think the same "we are the good guys, we need to protect order", everyone, except those who care so much, for peace that they can only look at everything turn into ashes around them and will not get involved, condemning, threatening, disapproving , yelling around until all actual power they once had is consumed by actual armed aggression. Moral's don't win wars, they don't protect world order. Violence does, it is not an answer, it is a method. One we already use.

In a way, this makes us the proverbial gardener in the war were are being thrown into, rather than the warrior in the gardener we westerners aspired to be. And we can't look away now.