Violence is a tricky thing. It makes a mess of things. It
produces different reactions in people, but almost always results in a
proportionate desire for retribution. One man may rage at his attacker while
another may cower in fear, but both will more than likely distribute that
received charge somewhere else, wherever else they can given their personal
constitution. Violence is like a magic wand that leads men’s relations into
instability. Behold, one man is touched and the force leaps almost like
electricity to his victim, which in turn leaps to whatever else is in the vicinity,
whatever else can be destroyed. Violence is a language, a language whose
limited expression can only be answered in kind. Violence refuses words. It
provokes a dialogue only trafficked by violent acts. An impulse to
destroy…highly contagious. And what of the surrounding fabric? Bystanders
either immediately rally to join those they sympathize with, or they cower in
fear, adopting rigid operating procedures connected to whomever wields power
and has the ability to guarantee their safety. Survey the effects of violence:
it appears as a raging fire: burning through the cognitive capacities of its
victims and leaving a field of useless charred matter in its wake, possibly
cultivating ground for another wave.
But don’t we observe nature and sometimes see that a
cleansing fire is necessary to clear out the rot and underbrush that has
accumulated over time? Of course, we see that after a fire the remains are
scattered and in time nutrients are deposited, leading to fertile ground for
something new and healthy to grow. But this can be horrific logic to apply to
people, lest one wishes his own annihilation: violence can’t be controlled once
it starts. Woe be to the one that attempts to control such a force! There is no
control. Control is wiped from the equation.
So how to escape violence? Is it possible? Perhaps we could
by inverting the logic that acts of violence bookend: the logic of intervention
and control. Men say that power stems from violence and it could follow from
there that a dominant ideology must be married with power to sustain itself.
But then when one imposes one’s own dominant rule, one is always faced with a
surrounding sea of hostilities: displaced peoples whose ideology is not
represented, and who will then agitate to be represented. A race towards
domination begins, leading eventually to the dissolution of the old order. Soon
individuals are vying for supremacy in stable societies even, eventually
rending the fabric that holds those together.
Could we not strive for another model of building society?
Another model for managing power? How about the act of building another
society? Out of compassion and inclusion? Could one not abstain from acts of
intervention, drop out of the logic of empire, and fashion one’s own parallel
society? Men and women simply wish to live. Provide a robust means of living,
especially as contrasted with the meager one afforded within the bounds of
empire, and could not one begin to build a soft power in that way? Cognitive
powers intact?
Harder than it sounds of course. Peaceful societies are
trampled over and stripped. And at this point in time it is hard to imagine
that empire would simply sit by as another challenge to power arose within its
grasp. Violence tends to dash away hope for peaceful discourse. One doesn’t
always have the means to argue when one sits in front of the barrel of a gun.
