RE: On Violence
December 15, 2024 at 1:31 am
(This post was last modified: December 15, 2024 at 1:51 am by The Grand Nudger.)
I think we can make those distinctions between violence we feel is justified and violence we feel is not without contending that the violence we believe to be justified is therefore nonviolent or not violence. Personally, I'd breeze past all the things we think are justifiable violence and go straight for the jugular. To things that we know aren't...but may nevertheless be crucial to community building in ways that we're not comfortable openly expressing.
For example, the sort of consent a small unit has in being told to kill is derived in no small part from the assumption that everyone else there, no matter whether they believe it to be justifiable in some moral sense (or any novel sense), will follow the order too - and more obliquely but no less important, that the order is coming from our society. In your regular life you probably wouldn't be able to sleep a wink worrying you may be surrounded by killers but in that context you can't sleep unless you know you are. I wonder if society has some sort of dynamic like that - just a larger version of what plays out in small groups. That, at the bottom of it all, we know the difference between Us and Them by who is willing (or who we believe to be willing) to stand on this side of that line with Us even when what we intend to do to Them is bad™. That our social consent is in some way contingent on society being violently on our side even if or when we are in the wrong or withheld in our unwillingness to believe a society incapable of violence, or merely hesitant of the same, is a legitimate one.
For example, the sort of consent a small unit has in being told to kill is derived in no small part from the assumption that everyone else there, no matter whether they believe it to be justifiable in some moral sense (or any novel sense), will follow the order too - and more obliquely but no less important, that the order is coming from our society. In your regular life you probably wouldn't be able to sleep a wink worrying you may be surrounded by killers but in that context you can't sleep unless you know you are. I wonder if society has some sort of dynamic like that - just a larger version of what plays out in small groups. That, at the bottom of it all, we know the difference between Us and Them by who is willing (or who we believe to be willing) to stand on this side of that line with Us even when what we intend to do to Them is bad™. That our social consent is in some way contingent on society being violently on our side even if or when we are in the wrong or withheld in our unwillingness to believe a society incapable of violence, or merely hesitant of the same, is a legitimate one.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
