Violence as creator

Bnedetto Croce wrote:
“La violenza non è forza ma debolezza, né mai può essere creatrice di cosa alcuna, ma soltanto distruggerla.”
(Violence is not strenght but weakness nor has it ever been creator of anything, but only to destroy it)

Many would defend war and armed conflict as the finest moments of mankind, when we receive our heroes, our character is tested, and dead twigs are burned leaving the soil ripe for new growth. But in the face of the annihilation caused by wars, the abuses of power by those who are simply given superiority over another being by possession of a weapon and nothing else whatsoever, shoule we not consider Croce’s assesment?

Not me. War is disgusting and resolves nothing. It only creates more problems.

Try telling that to politicians.

to make an omlet, one must crack eggs…

-Imp

Why doesn’t it surprise me that a windy idealist curmudgeon like Croce would scorn violence like a nagging mother-in-law. I can imagine what it’s like living in your own sanitized world of neat spiritual repetition, with a handy belt of conceptual mechanisms, sharing things among drawers of mental accuracy, fumbling around like blind Borges amidst a china-shop of artistic intuitions. And what is violence to this, except the party-crasher ? Chaos. Entropy. Irrationality. The idiotic step that mankind makes in order to take back what it has gained through cultural exercise. The base manifestation of human depravation, a display of stupid inhumanity, imbued in filth.

All that, though, and one cannot help but smile when Alex performs his pummel-dance while crooning Frank Sinatra in A Clockwork Orange.

If violence is restricted to the act of destruction, as Croce seems to define, rather than prove as a consequence, then it is only from a limited perspective that violence is a display of weakness. It may be weak in the sense that power dissolves on the object, our force in strong potential dissipating in actuality, rather than any net gain by inclusion of the object by phagocytosis. But this is quite myopic, if only you consider any meta-level, e.g., brute biology: the destruction of harmful bacteria by white blood cells is certainly a creative force for the body.

Heck, even the act of destruction is important, nay, vital to progress.

People don’t like being told they are wrong and one of the best ways for new ideas to gain acceptance is for the generation whose values it opposes to die.

Also, change is difficult, change is expensive. Why change when you don’t have to? Violence forces change.

Look at the Economic miracle in post WWII-Germany. The violence of the war had completely destroyed all their aging industrial infrastructure so that hyper-modern replacements could be built.

Other countries lagged behind because, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. To enact change, sometimes ya gotta break it.

So to make The Destiny Manifest a reality thousands of native americans necessarly had to die? See, I know that I can only make an omlette from a broken egg. But did they “know” that America could only emerge from the corpses of native americans?

Hello Muncius:

— Why doesn’t it surprise me that a windy idealist curmudgeon like Croce would scorn violence like a nagging mother-in-law.
O- But did it surprise you as well that he was right in being weary of Mussolini? Violence, in itself, cannot create. At some point, even in oreder to make violence against other groups possible, violence must be abandoned to create an single army. See Iraq. Violence does not create.

— I can imagine what it’s like living in your own sanitized world of neat spiritual repetition, with a handy belt of conceptual mechanisms, sharing things among drawers of mental accuracy, fumbling around like blind Borges amidst a china-shop of artistic intuitions.
O- My "sanitized world of neat spiritual repetition"? That sentence is full of meaniong for you isn’t it?
And I really can’t find a difference between your description of Borges and someone like Nietzsche.

— And what is violence to this, except the party-crasher ? Chaos. Entropy. Irrationality. The idiotic step that mankind makes in order to take back what it has gained through cultural exercise. The base manifestation of human depravation, a display of stupid inhumanity, imbued in filth.
O- Contradicting yourself already?

O- “If violence is restricted to the act of destruction…”? When has violence not destroyed? It displays weakness because of our resource to it rather than something else. It may show the weakness of an ideology, a religion or form of goverment…Notice that the Roman’s expansion was not done solely on the strenght of arms, but also in the expansion through “client states”. And in my understanding is not about the engulfment or consumption of the Other, but in synchretism, the intermixture with the Other, creating something new and stronger than it’s parts.
The destruction of harmful cells, the extraction of a CANCER…THIS IS NOT VIOLENCE, because these forces are destructive, harmful and lead to death for an organism if not for the intervention of white cells or a surgeon’s knife. Violence exists when you remove an arm or a leg that was perfectly healthy and had no need to come out because it’s existence was conductive to the health of the organism.

they knew nothing and nothing remains known. that isn’t the point.

the world will be shaped by those that can shape it.

-Imp

Xunzian:
— Heck, even the act of destruction is important, nay, vital to progress.
O- Alright. Why don’t you destroy your pinky finger so that you might make some vital progress.

— People don’t like being told they are wrong and one of the best ways for new ideas to gain acceptance is for the generation whose values it opposes to die.
O- All that progress made so far in the realm of science has not lead to the necessary death of christians, has it? “best ways”? And you don’t find something wrong with that statement and what it by consequence invites? Now here is a little metaphor. A muscle, in a vacum, in space, deteriorates. Why? Because it lacks resistance to exert itself against. If one grows strong it is in part due to the vigor of his opposition, the severity of his exercises.
The generation of ideas comes as well from the interaction of competing ideas. When Catholicism became dominant, we had dark ages. Protestanism invigorated the mind of europe in it’s contraposition to Catholicism, not in it’s replacement of it as the new universal.
It is not the death of X by which Y emerges strong, but by it’s continued existense. What occurs is not gain acceptance or that this acceptance is dependent on the genocide of the opponents to the idea but in the ascendancy of the idea and the decendency of it’s competing idea…not people. People adapt to the cultural mileu, the enviroment to which they are exposed, and create constantly by the mix-match interposition of various ideas rather than developing from scratch. New philosophies do not need to repudiate Plato and every other philosopher ever since. Science depends on the conservation of ideas, not in their destruction.
Thus, my position is that violence, destruction, debilitates rather than strenghten a being.

— Also, change is difficult, change is expensive. Why change when you don’t have to? Violence forces change.
O- But is this change for the better? More desirable? Change can be expensive, but it does not follow that we must pursue change at all cost, or that change, in-itself is desirable. When a movement for change resorts to violence it is not so that further change might follow it, but to end all change.

— Look at the Economic miracle in post WWII-Germany. The violence of the war had completely destroyed all their aging industrial infrastructure so that hyper-modern replacements could be built.
O- You’re are using the prosperity that came after the war to justify the complete destruction of germany’s economy during the war? You’re right! Let’s us raze Rome to the ground and build Wal-marts where St Peter’s now stands. The Colisseum too is highly unscientific and could be improved with a hyper-modern replacement, like Canseco Field.
Germany did not need a war to update it’s industrial infra-structure, in my opinion, given that they produced the Nazi warmachine that could only be defeated by an impressive line-up of industrial giants.

— Other countries lagged behind because, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. To enact change, sometimes ya gotta break it.
O- I don’t know if violence against infra-structure means the same to Croce as violence to people, as in WW1. It’s like saying that in order to produce William Shakespeare, you must first gas his trech and kill him. People are not like buildings. Buildings, for one, have clear intended uses. Not people. The measurement of humanity is not done in battlefields littered with corpses or in Aushwitz.

O- Nothing remains known? Then how can you answer in the affirmative to my question on necessity? If you don’t know then say: “I don’t know.” Is it improbable, in your opinion, that the indian nations could not have been absorbed within the nation? The US took in millions, from all walks of life (white), so other than out of a prejudice can I imagine the genocide of indians as a necessity, which is the same to me as saying that it was NOT a necessity at all.

— Heck, even the act of destruction is important, nay, vital to progress.
O- Alright. Why don’t you destroy your pinky finger so that you might make some vital progress.
X-- Is my pinky holding me back? If my pinky had melanoma, I see no reason why I wouldn’t cut it off. Alternatively: Have you ever seen the dreaded line of a blood infection crawling towards your heart? Is it not better to amputate than let the infection destroy the body.

But there is a better way of thinking of the cycle of destruction and creation: Shiva. Shiva works as a wonderful metaphor for the process. Many cultures have that representation.

— People don’t like being told they are wrong and one of the best ways for new ideas to gain acceptance is for the generation whose values it opposes to die.
O- All that progress made so far in the realm of science has not lead to the necessary death of christians, has it? “best ways”? And you don’t find something wrong with that statement and what it by consequence invites? Now here is a little metaphor. A muscle, in a vacum, in space, deteriorates. Why? Because it lacks resistance to exert itself against. If one grows strong it is in part due to the vigor of his opposition, the severity of his exercises.
The generation of ideas comes as well from the interaction of competing ideas. When Catholicism became dominant, we had dark ages. Protestanism invigorated the mind of europe in it’s contraposition to Catholicism, not in it’s replacement of it as the new universal.
It is not the death of X by which Y emerges strong, but by it’s continued existense. What occurs is not gain acceptance or that this acceptance is dependent on the genocide of the opponents to the idea but in the ascendancy of the idea and the decendency of it’s competing idea…not people. People adapt to the cultural mileu, the enviroment to which they are exposed, and create constantly by the mix-match interposition of various ideas rather than developing from scratch. New philosophies do not need to repudiate Plato and every other philosopher ever since. Science depends on the conservation of ideas, not in their destruction.
Thus, my position is that violence, destruction, debilitates rather than strenghten a being.

X-- I never said that violence was the only way. Also, I’m one to think that cooperation, rather than competition, is what wins the day. But take things like the Periodic table, right? Something that we all hold as pretty much a given today. Well, during its day, it was fairly controversial. The people who held onto the mistaken belief that the periodic table was hoey did us the favour of dying and now we pretty much only periodic table-believing people. The heresy of LaMarck continued for a long time after the theory of genes had been proven, especially in the USSR. Those who held onto that flawed idea where both shown to be wrong and (many of them) died because of that folly.

Incidentally, I disagree with your interpretation of European history, but that is a different thread.

— Also, change is difficult, change is expensive. Why change when you don’t have to? Violence forces change.
O- But is this change for the better? More desirable? Change can be expensive, but it does not follow that we must pursue change at all cost, or that change, in-itself is desirable. When a movement for change resorts to violence it is not so that further change might follow it, but to end all change.

X-- I never said that we should follow change at all cost. Nor did I say that change is better. Merely that change allows for the better. An object in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted upon by another force. Societies, people, ideas – all these things suffer from inertia from time-to-time. If the foundation is sound, that is all well and good, but occasionally something better is, indeed, a good thing.

— Look at the Economic miracle in post WWII-Germany. The violence of the war had completely destroyed all their aging industrial infrastructure so that hyper-modern replacements could be built.
O- You’re are using the prosperity that came after the war to justify the complete destruction of germany’s economy during the war? You’re right! Let’s us raze Rome to the ground and build Wal-marts where St Peter’s now stands. The Colisseum too is highly unscientific and could be improved with a hyper-modern replacement, like Canseco Field.
Germany did not need a war to update it’s industrial infra-structure, in my opinion, given that they produced the Nazi warmachine that could only be defeated by an impressive line-up of industrial giants.

X-- I’m not justifying anything, merely observing. Observation is moral-neutral. Now, if we want to talk purely about industrial productivity (which is what I was discussing) then building factories using post-WWII technology is indeed more productive than building factories using circa 1870-90 technology. As for the comparison between St. Peter’s and Wal-Mart, I am fairly certain that St. Peter’s generates more income per square meter than any wal-mart. Also, wal-mart style stores tend not to fair well in the European market.

— Other countries lagged behind because, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. To enact change, sometimes ya gotta break it.
O- I don’t know if violence against infra-structure means the same to Croce as violence to people, as in WW1. It’s like saying that in order to produce William Shakespeare, you must first gas his trech and kill him. People are not like buildings. Buildings, for one, have clear intended uses. Not people. The measurement of humanity is not done in battlefields littered with corpses or in Aushwitz.

X-- How can you seperate the two? The German people needed rebuilding and restructuring post-WWII more than their industry did! Britain’s factory infrastructure lagged behind Germany’s, even as early as the Great War, but as the post-war years showed, Britain’s cultural infrastructure was clearly superior. What else would have shaken the Germans, or the Japanese for that matter, out of their cultural-funk? It takes a certain kind of cultural, as well as economic, rot to allow fascistic depotism to creep in. While I appreciate your eloquent rhetoric, I think your idealism is sorely misplaced.

And I’m incredibly idealistic.

Under your model, how is the issue of inertia dealt with?

  • Humans abuse facts even more than they abuse power.
  • Humans abuse eachother even more than they abuse facts.
  • Humans abuse other species even more than they abuse their own species.
  • Strength and weakness are dualistic and based on perspective desire.

“War” is not couragious, evil, good, needed, unneeded, wrong, right, strengthening, weakening, harming or helping, to the system.

“War” is also known as: “life on earth”. During this time, various groups see eachother as a resource to consume, or, they see eachother as a threat, etc.

War = life as a hungry piece of oxymoronic food.

To start up some kind of “hell”, one must first get fired up about “the truth”.

the white cultures and the indian cultures did not mix. the few remaining indians don’t exist as they used to exist. on necessity it is affirmative because it is historical fact. your question did they “know” I thought was asked with an epistemological focus for that’s how it was answered. and millions of white christians who were out to destroy indian cultures wherever they were found. after the destruction of the hunting grounds and the wasting of the game at the white man’s hands, the indian schools (aimed at the destruction of indian culture), the reservations, the genocide was not only necessary, it was federally mandated.

home.epix.net/~landis/

-Imp

Hello Dr Xunzian:

X-- Is my pinky holding me back? If my pinky had melanoma, I see no reason why I wouldn’t cut it off.
O- What if you did not know it did and it looked perfectly normal and healthy; would you still cut it? Would you destroy it?

— Alternatively: Have you ever seen the dreaded line of a blood infection crawling towards your heart? Is it not better to amputate than let the infection destroy the body.
O- Of course, if your knowledge is as great as to leave no doubt about the future effect of current observations. Yet that is quite debatable when it comes to war, violence and it’s destruction of civilian cities isn’t it.

— But there is a better way of thinking of the cycle of destruction and creation: Shiva. Shiva works as a wonderful metaphor for the process. Many cultures have that representation.
O- Yeah. We also have Hegel. Detachment cures many ills, though it takes away our very humanity. How many dictators and mass-murderers pleaded that their actions be considered at a distance, in their significance, not in the now, but in the future. Myths are myths and reason should clear away both Shiva and Hegel, not to mention Heidegger.

X-- I never said that violence was the only way.
O- Yet you praised it’s destructiveness as creative did you not?

— Also, I’m one to think that cooperation, rather than competition, is what wins the day. But take things like the Periodic table, right? Something that we all hold as pretty much a given today. Well, during its day, it was fairly controversial. The people who held onto the mistaken belief that the periodic table was hoey did us the favour of dying and now we pretty much only periodic table-believing people.
O- That is a morbid interpretation of the observations. Could not it simply have been that the idea gained acceptance in the culture of the next generation? Many people today are not, shall we say “evolutionists”, but the ideas of evolutionary theory have gained ascendancy so that even opposition to the theory must be framed in it’s language. No one needed to die: it is inevitable that the best theory will be passed on. It might be imitated, edited, but not refuted and that is why it pushes out the previous paradigm.

X-- How can you seperate the two? The German people needed rebuilding and restructuring post-WWII more than their industry did! Britain’s factory infrastructure lagged behind Germany’s, even as early as the Great War, but as the post-war years showed, Britain’s cultural infrastructure was clearly superior. What else would have shaken the Germans, or the Japanese for that matter, out of their cultural-funk?
O- If Germany lagged behind, one should point to the better opportunities that could be found outside of Germany for the most exceptional people, not to mention the likes of Freud, and Einstein, who had no choice but to leave. I don’t know what would have shaken the Germans and the Japanese from what you consider a cultural funk, whatever that is, but it is not demonstrated that the destruction of millions of people helped rather than hinder the defunkization of these countries. War does make a people exert itself and produces inovations in all walks of life…but is that the right price for canned food? Is the Holocaust justified because we now fly in jets? Do we praise nuclear bombs because we also gained nuclear energy? The question is: When is progress actually progress?

— It takes a certain kind of cultural, as well as economic, rot to allow fascistic depotism to creep in. While I appreciate your eloquent rhetoric, I think your idealism is sorely misplaced.
O- My idealism aside, which you believe I have, in Germany Hitler rose because of the Versailles treaty, not due to a cultural funk. In Italy, Fascism rose to power of premises that were very much socialistic and not unlike what did eventually took it’s place, only to switch gears and drop the lies, and even then we must not forget the overpowering influence on both germany and italy of the public’s fear of Bolshevism.

— And I’m incredibly idealistic.

Under your model, how is the issue of inertia dealt with?
O- I don’t have a model, but when I do, I don’t think that it would have violence, war and destruction as the prime force acting on a mass. Nature exerts itself on the mass as well so that it too could count as an effective mover. Like war, natural disasters, for example, unite in concerted action, the masses.

O- The white and india cultures did not mix, but not because they were necessary beyond the possibility of being able to combine and mix. It happened that way just as it could have happened in any number of ways. Also, indians were mixed, were integrated and lost within the white culture, the american culture, just as every other native culture abandoned it’s own to be absorbed into, and mixed with the white man’s culture. If cultures fail to resist it is because they can’t compete; but that is an opinion.
Remember that those millions of christians were not out to destroy, but to improve. haven’t you seen Little House on the Praire? Those white people were so nice they even saved some indins. Alas, we must always be weary of self-appointed improvers of mankind…

Imp, I assume you are using Democracked eggs.

…providing they use the “ideal” as their model. Otherwise the result will be self-destruction.

Xunzian, do you actually believe we are incapable of modernizing industrial infrastructure without killing 7,000,000 give or take, of our fellow human beings?

weary indeed…

-Imp

what they use as their model is irrelevant. it is shaped by those who can shape it.

-Imp